Chapter Text
There were very few places Theia disliked more than charity galas.
Dentist offices, perhaps. Airports during holiday season. Any restaurant that described ordinary water as an experience and charged accordingly.
Charity galas still ranked comfortably near the top.
They combined nearly everything she disliked into a single evening: uncomfortable shoes, expensive food served in portions too small to qualify as food, strangers asking what she did for a living before deciding whether her answer deserved a follow-up question, and wealthy people pretending not to measure one another by surnames.
Theia had been there for forty-seven minutes. She had checked the time twice, the second time mostly to confirm that it was still moving.
“You’re sulking.”
She turned toward her father. Monkey D. Garp stood beside her in a dark formal suit that looked deeply unnatural on him. He had spent most of his adult life in military uniforms and apparently considered black tie an insult to his personal freedom. His collar had already been adjusted twice, his tie looked as though it had personally offended him, and the fact that he appeared almost as uncomfortable as she felt brought Theia a small amount of satisfaction.
“I’m observing.”
Garp followed the direction of her attention. “You’ve been observing the dessert table for ten minutes.”
“It’s the only interesting thing here.”
“There are three cabinet ministers in this room.”
Theia took another bite of cake, contemplating the people scattered beneath the chandeliers before returning her attention to her plate.
“Exactly.”
Garp gave her the look that had once terrified entire naval units and had never, at any point in her life, worked particularly well on his daughter. Theia smiled sweetly and took another bite.
She had agreed to attend because the foundation hosting the evening worked closely with several humanitarian organizations Dragon supported. Her brother had spent years making himself inconvenient to people who preferred their charitable donations unaccompanied by questions about labor practices; tonight, at least, a few of them had agreed to fund something useful.
Garp had also informed her—loudly, repeatedly, and with absolutely no respect for her objections—that appearing in public once in a while would not kill her. Theia had pointed out that this remained scientifically unproven. Garp had not appreciated the argument. So here she was at twenty-seven, with the last of the week’s invoices sent and a perfectly good evening at home surrendered to a chandelier large enough to crush several prominent members of society at once.
At least the cake was good.
Someone from Garp’s old military circle approached before he could continue lecturing her. The older man greeted him with enough enthusiasm to suggest either genuine affection or several decades of shared blackmail material, and within seconds Garp’s attention shifted completely. Theia recognized divine intervention when she saw it.
She eased backward while Garp became absorbed in an argument about someone they had both known twenty years ago, waited until he turned away, then slipped between two groups of guests and through the open glass doors leading toward the gardens.
Cool night air touched her face, and she breathed more easily. Behind her, the ballroom continued without noticing her absence. Music followed through the open doors, softened by distance until the strings and piano blended with the murmur of fountains. Beyond the illuminated terrace, the estate gardens stretched into darkness: manicured hedges, pale stone paths, flowering trees, and lawns so immaculate that Theia suspected somebody was being paid to supervise individual leaves.
She wandered farther from the building, looking for somewhere quiet to remove her shoes. The heels had looked beautiful in the shop. Theia now understood that this had merely been part of their strategy.
She had nearly achieved both objectives when a secluded stone bench appeared beneath a flowering tree, partially hidden from the terrace by tall hedges.
Perfect.
Unfortunately, someone else had discovered the same corner first. A man stood beneath the tree with one hand braced against the trunk, his body turned partly away from her. A blonde woman had both arms looped around his neck, and judging by the enthusiasm with which they were kissing, neither of them had any immediate plans involving the charity portion of the evening.
Theia stopped, then began backing away before either of them could notice her. She could sacrifice the bench to avoid a social interaction considerably more awkward than anything waiting inside.
Her heel struck a loose stone. The man lifted his head at the sound, and the blonde followed his gaze. Theia found herself standing several meters away, caught mid-retreat with a half-eaten slice of cake balanced in one hand and a fork in the other. For a moment, nobody moved. Theia could hardly hide the cake behind her back, and retreating now would require all three of them to pretend they hadn’t seen one another.
“…Oh.”
The man’s eyebrows rose. Theia lifted her fork in a vague gesture of apology, unwilling to pretend any of them needed an explanation for what she had interrupted.
“Sorry. Continue.”
The blonde blinked. Theia, however, had already looked past them toward the stone bench she had intended to claim. It was an excellent bench. Wide, sheltered, positioned far enough from the ballroom that nobody would accidentally find her while networking.
A genuine loss.
She sighed. “Of course. Even the garden is occupied.”
The man laughed, quietly enough that she almost missed it. He sounded genuinely surprised, and Theia looked at him properly for the first time.
He was handsome. Ridiculously so, actually. The gala had supplied plenty of expensive tailoring and attractive people, but apparently she had wandered into the better-stocked part of the garden. He was tall enough that the woman beside him had needed to rise onto her toes, broad beneath a black suit that fit far too well to have come from anywhere ordinary, with red hair that should probably have made him immediately recognizable.
His face was familiar, perhaps from a magazine or some article Dragon had left open. Her feet hurt too much to conduct the investigation.
“You wanted the bench?” he asked.
Theia looked mournfully toward it. “I wanted somewhere nobody would speak to me.”
His smile widened, amusement settling more comfortably into his face.
“And instead you found us.”
“Yes. A devastating setback.”
The blonde laughed, apparently far less embarrassed than Theia would have expected after being discovered wrapped around a stranger beneath a tree. Good for her.
Theia gestured vaguely toward the opposite path with her fork. “I’m sure there’s another one somewhere. Enjoy your evening.”
She turned before either of them could answer. The path curved beyond the hedges, carrying her away from the light and conversation, and within seconds the awkward encounter had already been demoted beneath the more urgent problem of finding somewhere to sit. She found another bench seven minutes later. More importantly, she removed her shoes.
The evening improved immediately.
Shanks Figarland did not follow her.
He was curious enough to glance down the path after she left. She had interrupted him with cake, offered a perfunctory apology, mourned a bench, and walked away; he would have liked to hear whatever else she had to say about the evening. Then the woman beside him touched his lapel, reclaiming his attention.
She was beautiful, entertaining, and had spent most of dinner making it perfectly clear that she had no interest in discussing shipping, politics, ports, or anything remotely resembling work. Shanks appreciated all three qualities and was happy to remain in her company a while longer.
Later, as he crossed the terrace on his way back into the ballroom, he glanced toward the path again. He could still picture her standing there with the cake, inspecting the occupied bench as though she might appeal the decision.
He was used to people taking a second look at him, connecting his face to his name, and finding a reason to prolong the conversation. She had seemed eager to end theirs; the loss of a comfortable bench had apparently interested her more than the people occupying it. The memory made him smile as he went inside.
For the next half hour, the evening reclaimed his attention easily enough. There were people waiting to speak with him inside, conversations he had already postponed, and a glass of whiskey someone pressed into his hand almost as soon as he returned to the ballroom.
By then, the woman with the cake had slipped to the back of his mind. He had no particular reason to expect he would see her again, certainly not before the night was over.
Theia lasted another half hour before deciding she had fulfilled her obligations to civilization. She had spoken to people, worn shoes for an unreasonable amount of time, and even allowed one elderly donor to explain her own brother’s foundation work to her for almost six uninterrupted minutes. Surely that qualified as service.
Unfortunately, Garp found her before she could leave. She had relocated to an upstairs balcony overlooking the gardens, her heels abandoned beside the chair and another slice of cake balanced carefully on the stone railing. One bare foot was tucked beneath her leg as she watched lights scatter across the grounds below.
The balcony door opened behind her. She knew the footsteps.
“Put your shoes back on.”
Theia kept watching the gardens.
“No.”
“Theia.”
“They hurt.”
“You bought them.”
She finally turned, offended by the implication that this somehow absolved the shoes of responsibility. “That was before I understood their intentions.”
Garp stared at his daughter with the exhausted expression of a man who had survived decades of military service only to discover fatherhood was a significantly less reasonable institution. He opened his mouth. Another voice arrived from the doorway before he could use it.
“She has a point.”
Theia looked past her father and recognized the red hair, the black suit, and then the face she had interrupted beneath the tree.
“Oh. You.”
The man from beneath the tree stepped onto the balcony carrying a glass of whiskey, looking considerably more respectable now that nobody was attached to his mouth. Garp turned, looking from the man to Theia and back again. She sat straighter as suspicion settled over his face, profound enough that she almost laughed.
“No.”
She frowned. “What?”
Garp planted himself more firmly between them, as though a physical barrier had suddenly become necessary. He had apparently imagined a conversation well in advance of either of them having it.
“You haven’t even heard anything.”
“I don’t need to.”
The red-haired man lifted his whiskey, hiding what was very obviously amusement behind the rim of the glass. That only made Garp look more offended.
Theia’s curiosity finally overtook her irritation. “You know each other?”
“Unfortunately,” Garp said.
The man appeared entirely unbothered. “Always nice to see you too, Vice Admiral.”
“Retired.”
“You’ve been retired for years. Nobody seems convinced.”
“That’s because people keep bothering me.”
Theia could hear the history in the ease of the exchange, Garp’s immediate hostility, and the other man’s complete lack of concern about it. She studied him again, this time with enough information for her memory to cooperate. The red hair finally supplied a name.
Oh.
Shanks Figarland, founder and chairman of Red Force, the shipping company that had grown into an international business spanning logistics, ports, maritime infrastructure, and security investments. Business publications seemed unable to decide whether he was brilliant, reckless, or simply irritatingly good at making decisions other people considered impossible.
The Figarlands occupied the highest ranks of the old aristocracy. Their family name belonged on estates, government buildings, and the sort of guest lists nobody admitted existed.
Garling Figarland was one of the few men Garp spoke about with an irritation that survived retirement; at functions like this, even cabinet ministers waited for him to finish speaking.
Shanks was the son who had walked away from the place prepared for him. He had inherited the name and every advantage attached to it, but Red Force was his own undertaking, and it had grown far beyond anything his family could dismiss as a temporary rebellion.
Theia had definitely seen his face before. She looked at him again with this new information.
“Huh.”
Shanks waited, apparently expecting something more. When nothing came, a laugh threatened at the corner of his mouth. Garp noticed that too. Apparently even Shanks finding his daughter amusing was unacceptable.
“We’re leaving.”
Theia looked at her father. “You said we had to stay until ten.”
“I changed my mind.”
Her gaze moved from Garp to Shanks and back again. “You saw him and changed your mind.”
“Coincidence.”
“Dad.”
“Theia.”
That tone had ended arguments when she was twelve. At twenty-seven, it merely made her suspicious. She slid her bare foot from beneath her leg and stood, collecting the heels from beside the chair without any intention of putting them back on.
“Did you do something to him?” she asked Shanks.
Shanks considered Garp’s expression with exaggerated care. “Nothing I’ve been formally charged with.”
Garp’s glare suggested the distinction was not reassuring. Theia sighed and moved toward the doors. Shanks stepped aside to give her room, but as she passed, his gaze dropped briefly toward the shoes dangling from her fingers.
“Did you ever find another bench?”
She glanced up at him. “Eventually. Better company too.”
“You were alone.”
“Exactly.”
His laugh followed her through the balcony doors. Theia smiled despite herself. Garp did not.
Eleven days later, Shanks saw her again.
The event was smaller this time and considerably less formal than the gala. Red Force was one of the primary corporate donors, and Dragon’s organization was involved in one of the programs being presented.
Shanks had worked with Dragon before, usually through funding discussions that left little room for social conversation; he had never had a reason to ask about his younger sister.
He had already spent the better part of an hour moving through conversations.
He had discussed funding with two directors, exchanged obligatory pleasantries with people he would forget by morning, and escaped a discussion about port regulation only because Benn had appeared at exactly the right moment with the expression of a man delivering urgent news. There had been no urgent news. Benn was useful like that.
Shanks had just accepted a glass of sparkling water when he noticed a familiar dark head near the charity auction tables. It took him a moment to place her, then the cake, the stolen garden bench, and the bare feet on the balcony came back to him.
Theia stood alone in front of a glass display containing several donated books and collectibles, reading one of the auction cards with considerably more attention than she had given anyone at the previous gala. She wore tailored trousers this time. And, Shanks noticed with approval, flat shoes. He picked up a second glass of sparkling water before walking over.
“Any luck finding somewhere nobody will speak to you?”
Theia looked up. Her expression remained politely blank while she searched her memory. Shanks stood there with two glasses of water, accustomed to being recognized before an introduction and discovering that an interrupted kiss apparently hadn’t made much of an impression. Then recognition arrived.
“Oh. Garden guy.”
Shanks had been called many things over the years, some flattering, others significantly less so. Garden guy was new.
“I thought we’d progressed beyond that.”
Theia turned fully toward him, apparently unconcerned by the damage she had just inflicted on a carefully cultivated public identity.
“Have we?”
“Shanks.”
“Right.”
He offered her the second glass.
Theia inspected it before accepting. “Water?”
“You weren’t drinking at the gala.”
That earned him a more attentive look.
“I could have been driving.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
A small trace of approval crossed her face before she took a sip, and Shanks experienced the ridiculous satisfaction of having passed a test he had not known existed.
His gaze moved toward the display. “Anything good?”
“A first edition I absolutely do not need.”
He followed her attention to the book behind the glass. Theia had positioned herself directly in front of it, which suggested the matter was already less settled than her words implied.
“Then why have you been staring at it?”
“I’m practicing restraint.”
“How’s that going?”
“Poorly.”
He laughed and glanced at the auction card. “Bid on it.”
Theia turned her head toward him with enough deliberation to suggest he had said something deeply foolish.
“Easy for you to say.”
“Why?”
“Aren’t you offensively rich?”
The laugh came louder this time.
“Offensively?”
“You own ships.”
“That’s the threshold?”
“It’s one of them.”
Shanks looked between her and the book. “Do you want it?”
“Yes.”
“Then bid.”
“I also want financial stability.”
“Those two things seem compatible.”
Theia’s expression became almost pitying. “That sentence alone tells me we have very different relationships with money.”
Shanks smiled. She said it as easily as she might have pointed out that he was standing in someone’s way. She knew perfectly well who he was; she also appeared to think his money had left him unqualified to discuss unnecessary book purchases.
“Do you always spend this long negotiating with yourself over books?”
“Only the expensive ones.”
“And the cheap ones?”
“I buy those immediately. Keep up.”
They remained near the auction tables while people drifted around them, occasionally moving aside when someone wanted to inspect a display. Books led into travel, then the places Shanks had visited for work, which somehow became an argument about whether anyone who voluntarily scheduled breakfast meetings before eight in the morning could be trusted. Theia had plenty of opinions, and Shanks discovered he enjoyed provoking additional ones.
Nearly half an hour had passed before he realized neither of them had made any attempt to leave.
At some point, he asked what she did when she wasn’t being dragged to foundation events by her family.
“Freelance editing, mostly. Translation sometimes.”
“Books?”
“Sometimes. Articles, documents, whatever pays and doesn’t make me miserable.”
She answered without hesitation, then shifted her glass to the other hand so she could check the title of another book in the display.
“You work from home?”
“Usually.”
“And you like it?”
Theia took a moment before answering, her attention drifting briefly back toward the book in the display. “I like choosing my own hours.”
“Meaning?”
“If someone emails me at seven in the morning, I can answer at ten.”
Shanks smiled. “You still see the email at seven.”
“That’s irrelevant. The point is that they don’t get to know that.”
He laughed. She had described her work with the ease of someone satisfied with the arrangement, and he suspected that being able to choose her hours mattered more to her than anything a promotion could offer.
He might have asked more if he hadn’t noticed Dragon watching them from across the room. The resemblance to Garp was not particularly strong until one saw the expression. Shanks had seen that expression before, usually shortly before Garp threatened him.
Theia followed his gaze and sighed. “My brother.”
“He looks friendly.”
“He isn’t.”
“I gathered.”
Dragon raised one eyebrow.
Theia’s shoulders lowered in resignation. “He’s probably wondering why I’ve been standing here for thirty minutes.”
Shanks glanced at her, pleased that she had noticed how long they had been talking too.
“Should we give him something interesting to wonder about?”
Theia gave him a long look over the rim of her glass, apparently deciding whether the comment deserved a response. Shanks waited hopefully; she took another sip instead. Across the room, Dragon’s eyebrow rose slightly higher.
Theia put her empty glass onto a passing tray. “Apparently I’m being summoned.”
She began to turn. Shanks could have let her leave. There would be other events. Their circles overlapped enough that he would almost certainly see her again.
Instead, the question came naturally. “Can I have your number?”
Theia paused. Her expression held none of the coy amusement he might have expected. “Why?”
She was waiting for an explanation. Shanks laughed, then gave her one.
“I’d like to see you again.”
“Oh.”
Theia considered this for several seconds. Shanks waited, increasingly entertained by the fact that she apparently intended to make an actual decision rather than follow whatever social script usually governed these things.
Then she shrugged. “Sure.”
She handed him her phone, and Shanks entered his number, called himself, and returned it.
Theia glanced at the new contact. “Shanks.”
“That would be me.”
“I should save you as Garden Guy.”
“I would strongly prefer you didn’t.”
A smile tugged at her mouth as she slipped the phone into her bag.
“I’ll consider your request.”
Then she crossed the room toward Dragon. Shanks watched her go. Getting the number had been surprisingly easy.
He would spend the next three months learning that this had been deeply misleading.
His first message went out that evening.
Shanks: Had fun seeing you again.
Theia read it before she went home, then remembered to reply at 1:17 in the morning.
Theia: you too :)
Shanks happened to still be awake. He smiled at the screen, decided not to turn a simple exchange into a midnight conversation, and went to sleep. The following afternoon, he tried again.
Shanks: Dinner sometime?
The message remained unread until the next morning. Then the read receipt appeared, and nothing followed. Shanks went to work and forgot about it by lunch. The next day, halfway through a meeting about port expansion, his phone buzzed against the table.
Theia: sure
He looked at the message.
Across from him, Benn Beckman stopped midway through a sentence. “Something urgent?”
Shanks set the phone facedown. “No. Keep going.”
Benn’s eyes rested briefly on him before he resumed. Shanks waited until the meeting was over before answering.
Shanks: Friday?
Eight hours later:
Theia: can’t :(
Shanks: Saturday?
The next morning:
Theia: busy
Shanks: When are you free?
Four days passed. By then, Shanks had genuinely stopped expecting an answer. He was signing a stack of contracts when his phone lit up beside his hand.
Theia: sorry what were we talking about
Shanks read it twice before a laugh escaped him. Benn, seated opposite him with his laptop, glanced up.
Shanks shook his head before he could ask. “Nothing important.”
Benn returned to work, and Shanks picked up his phone.
Over the following weeks, this became a pattern. Theia appeared to experience text messages differently from the rest of civilization. Sometimes she disappeared for two days in the middle of a conversation, then returned with complete confidence that the conversation had merely been paused.
Other times she answered within seconds and remained there for an hour. He stopped trying to infer anything from the gaps after a long, animated conversation about a book ended with her disappearing halfway through a sentence. She finished it the following afternoon.
One evening they spoke on the phone until nearly midnight about a documentary he had recommended. Theia sent him three articles afterward and argued with one of his opinions at sufficient length that he went to sleep expecting the conversation to continue the next morning.
The following day he asked if she wanted coffee. She answered thirty-six hours later.
Theia: maybe
Another time, Shanks sent her a photograph of the sunrise over a harbor in Rotterdam. Three days later she replied with a picture of a dog asleep in the window of a bookstore. There was no caption. Shanks stared at it for several seconds.
Shanks: What does this have to do with Rotterdam?
Her reply came almost immediately.
Theia: nothing i thought you’d like him
He did.
That was, annoyingly, not the point.
Theia, meanwhile, thought Shanks was lovely: funny, interesting, and surprisingly easy to talk to. He sent photographs from places she had never visited, of ships entering ports at sunrise and strange food from business trips. Once, he sent a dog he had met outside a warehouse in Spain, sitting beside a security guard with the solemn dignity of someone personally responsible for international freight.
She sent things back whenever she remembered, usually in between jobs or when she surfaced from a book and found something she wanted to show him. Books, coffee, a truly hideous lamp in a shop window, and a photograph of Garp asleep in an armchair with his reading glasses crooked across his face. Shanks saved that one.
They occasionally ran into each other through overlapping circles, and sometimes Shanks simply called, having apparently learned that a ringing phone worked better than a message sitting among her unanswered notifications.
They got coffee and had lunch. Once, she spent more than an hour at Red Force headquarters because she had dropped something off nearby and he invited her upstairs.
The building suited him in a way the gala hadn’t. Theia noticed that almost immediately.
The Figarland name mattered less here than the work in front of him. He was their chairman, he apparently knew half the employees by name, and the people stopping him in the corridor wanted decisions rather than introductions.
People approached him easily. He teased someone in operations about a football match, remembered that an assistant’s daughter had started university, then walked into a meeting room and became someone entirely different without becoming less himself. Theia found the transition interesting.
She met Benn properly that day, and discovered that she liked him. Shanks appeared strangely offended by this. Theia didn’t know why.
While Benn returned to work, her phone rang. Theia checked the name, asked Shanks for a moment, and stepped toward the windows. He stayed at the table, finishing his coffee while she listened.
“No, don’t send the invitation yet,” she said. “Has anyone actually spoken to her?”
A pause. Her free hand settled on the windowsill.
“Then speak to her. Her mother isn’t applying.”
Shanks looked up. Theia’s tone was mild, but whatever suggestion had been made on the other end appeared to have reached its limit.
“Yes, I saw the donation offer. It’s generous. It still doesn’t buy membership.”
She listened again, then asked for the application notes to be sent over and promised a decision after she had read them. By the time she returned to the table, Shanks had put down his cup.
“Amazon Lily?”
Theia nodded, slipping her phone away. “Someone has confused us with a country club.”
“You’re handling admissions now?”
“Among other things.” She picked up her coffee. “I’m the president.”
That explained a few things. Shanks knew Amazon Lily’s reputation. The sisterhood guarded its doors carefully; money could secure an introduction, but it couldn’t secure a place.
Their members included women whose calls were returned by ministers, women who owned the buildings those ministers worked in, and women who had made their own way into circles determined to keep them out. Each new admission needed the approval of women who would have to trust her afterward. He also knew how rarely Amazon Lily gave a man anything to do with its business.
“You didn’t mention that.”
“You didn’t ask.”
She said it without ceremony, then reminded him that he had been about to tell her where he had found the terrible coffee in the visitors’ lounge. Shanks answered, still revising his understanding of the woman across from him.
Shakky required no such revision. She knew Theia very well.
“So.”
Theia looked up from her book. The lounge was quiet that afternoon, several hours away from becoming crowded. She occupied her usual place near the end of the bar with a cup of coffee and a novel she had been trying to finish for three days.
She and Shakky had already spent twenty minutes over the Kuja application notes; the matter settled, Theia had opened her book and assumed she was safe.
Shakky stood behind the counter polishing a glass. She had known Shanks for years, something Theia should probably have considered before mentioning him quite so often. Theia knew that tone. It usually preceded interference.
“What?”
Shakky placed the glass beneath the counter before leaning one hip against it. “What’s going on with you and Shanks Figarland?”
Theia returned to her book. “Nothing.”
Shakky let the answer sit there. Theia turned a page, apparently convinced the subject had been settled. It had not.
“He’s been calling you.”
“Yes?”
“Taking you places.”
“Sometimes.”
Shakky waited for something more. When nothing came, she tried again, putting slightly more weight behind each word. “Buying you coffee.”
That finally made Theia look up.
“Friends buy coffee.”
Shakky studied her across the counter. Theia had already lowered her eyes to the page again, apparently satisfied that buying coffee required no further investigation.
“He texts you every day.”
“Badly.”
Shakky stared at her. “You realize that makes this worse, right? Shanks hates texting.”
Theia considered that information with considerably less concern than Shakky thought it deserved.
For a moment, Shakky’s mouth threatened to twitch. Theia almost mistook that for surrender, but Shakky merely set the glass aside, freeing both hands as though the investigation had entered a more serious phase. “Do you like him?”
“Of course.”
“Then what exactly do you think is happening?”
Theia frowned. “A friendship?”
Shakky became very still. Theia waited, book still open beneath her hand. They talked, they went places, and sometimes he called for no particular reason and stayed on the phone for an hour. She liked all of that. She did much the same with people whose company she enjoyed, and saw no reason to give Shanks a different category merely because he was handsome.
“He’s been trying to take you to dinner for weeks.”
“Has he?”
Shakky stared at her. Theia considered the recent invitations, most of which had been lost somewhere between deadlines, other plans, and the peculiar difficulty of remembering to answer a message after mentally composing the reply.
Shakky planted both palms against the bar and leaned closer. “Theia. When Shanks asks you to dinner, what exactly do you think he means?”
Theia glanced down at her coffee, then back at Shakky, wondering what answer she was supposed to supply beyond the obvious one.
“That he wants dinner.”
“With you.”
“Yes.” Theia closed the book around one finger. “I would assume I’m involved if he’s asking me.”
Shakky’s eyes closed for a moment. The silence had the quality of someone privately counting to a number high enough to prevent violence.
Theia became defensive on principle. “Food is usually involved, Shakky.”
“I’m aware of how dinner works.”
“Then I’m not sure why we’re dissecting it.”
Shakky looked toward the ceiling as though the architecture might provide patience. None appeared forthcoming.
Theia took another sip of coffee. Shanks was attractive; she had known that from the first night. He was also Shanks Figarland, whose dating history occasionally appeared in magazines she only read while trapped at hair salons. She had first encountered him with a beautiful woman wrapped around him beneath a tree. Flirting, she had concluded, was simply part of his natural ecosystem.
So when Shanks smiled at her too long, stood closer than strictly necessary, touched her back while guiding her through a crowded room, or told her she looked beautiful, Theia filed those things under Shanks being Shanks.
Besides, she liked her life. She had family, friends, a growing list of regular clients, books she would never finish buying, and places she wanted to visit. She could close her laptop when the day’s work was finished and do precisely what she pleased. Entire weekends were reserved for that privilege.
Being single suited her. She liked having her own apartment, making her own plans, and waking up without having to negotiate the day with anybody. A good-looking man whose company she enjoyed was a welcome addition; she hadn’t considered reorganizing her life around him.
She knew what flirting was. She simply hadn’t decided that flirting with Shanks meant entering a relationship, and she couldn’t see why Shakky was so eager to make the leap for her.
Shakky knew her well enough to recognize that arguing would accomplish nothing. She considered her for a moment longer, then picked up the glass again with the expression of a woman deciding to allow a preventable disaster to occur for educational purposes.
“Just remember this conversation later.”
Theia narrowed her eyes. “That sounds threatening.”
“It’s a promise.”
Over the next several weeks, Shanks discovered that Theia’s relaxed approach to life did not make her remotely easy to schedule around. Her work came with deadlines, and she took them seriously, but even when a job was finished there was usually something else she wanted to do. Shanks learned that asking about her workload would tell him very little about his chances of seeing her.
One evening she was having dinner with Hina, an old friend who still worked with the Navy. Another was reserved for Gion. A group of women from Amazon Lily came into the city and claimed most of a weekend, turning what Theia had described as lunch into an expedition involving shopping, dinner and a return home close to midnight.
Dragon occasionally recruited her for foundation events. Garp had a habit of announcing lunch plans rather than asking for them. Coffee with Shakky possessed no reliable end time.
Shanks learned the names through repeated exposure: Hina, Gion, Tritoma, the Kuja women, Dragon, Garp. He could increasingly predict which invitation had claimed an evening, although he still underestimated how long anything involving Shakky might last.
Then there were the blank spaces in her calendar, which he initially assumed would be easier. One afternoon, after another failed attempt to find an evening they were both free, Theia opened the calendar on her phone while Shanks stood beside her.
“Thursday?”
“Hina.”
“Friday?”
“Gion.”
“Saturday?”
Theia checked. “No.”
Shanks glanced over her shoulder, expecting another name. The square was empty. He checked the weekend on either side of it—Gion on Friday, Garp on Sunday—then turned to her, encouraged for the first time in this entire negotiation. “You have no plans.”
“Exactly.”
She sounded so satisfied that Shanks checked the screen again before answering. “So you’re free.”
“No. I’m doing nothing.”
He looked back at the empty square.
“You scheduled nothing.”
“Yes.”
“As the plan.”
Theia smiled, pleased that he had apparently reached the obvious conclusion several steps behind her. “Now you understand.”
He did not.
Perhaps his face communicated that, because she took pity on him.
“I had things to do last weekend. Friday I’m going out. Sunday I promised Dad lunch. Saturday I’m staying home.”
“What happens at home?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s the point.”
She began counting possibilities against her fingers. “I might read. I could watch something. Maybe I’ll order food. Take a nap. I could decide to reorganize the kitchen and regret it halfway through.”
“And dinner?”
“That would require leaving.”
“I could bring dinner.”
Theia lowered her hand. “That would require having company.”
Shanks laughed, lowering his head briefly toward her shoulder. He had negotiated berth access in ports that were easier to get into than her Saturday.
“The activity is literally avoiding people.”
“Not people. Plans.”
“I would be a plan.”
“Exactly.”
There was no winning this.
Shanks leaned closer to inspect the calendar one last time. “Sunday night.”
“Maybe.”
“After Garp.”
“That depends how exhausting Dad is.”
“So very.”
Her smile widened. “You understand him.”
Later, when Shanks described the conversation to Benn, his second in command listened with the solemnity of someone receiving a report on a particularly complicated business negotiation.
“So she’s busy Saturday.”
“She’s doing nothing.”
Benn nodded once. “That appears to be the thing keeping her busy.”
Shanks stared at him. Benn returned calmly to the document in front of him. It occurred to Shanks around then that his primary competition for Theia’s attention was not another man.
It was a blanket, a book and the possibility of an afternoon nap.
Strangely, this only made him more determined.
Shanks did not notice when he stopped seeing other women. He hadn’t made a decision about it, and there had been no reason to clear his calendar. He simply found himself choosing to spend his free evenings differently.
A woman he had known casually for years flirted with him at an industry dinner. Shanks responded automatically. She was beautiful, clever, familiar in the uncomplicated way he had once appreciated.
Halfway through the evening, he caught himself checking his phone. The woman beside him was telling an amusing story, and he had no complaint to make about her company, but he had been through evenings like this often enough to know how it would end if he encouraged it.
There was no message from Theia, who might take another two days to decide whether she wanted coffee. He put the phone away and returned to the conversation. Later, when his companion suggested they leave together, he smiled and declined.
Another woman slipped her number into his jacket after a conference. He found it several days later while emptying his pockets, remembered the invitation, and threw it away. He hadn’t wanted to follow up then, either.
Meanwhile, Theia sent him a photograph of a disastrously assembled bookshelf.
Theia: theoretically how important are the extra screws
Shanks stared at the message.
Shanks: How many?
Theia: irrelevant
He called. Theia answered while apparently moving furniture.
“Before you say anything, it’s standing.”
“How many screws?”
“Why are you fixated on the number?”
“Because furniture generally isn’t designed with decorative screws.”
“That sounds narrow-minded.”
Shanks had been reviewing a report between meetings. He pushed his chair away from the desk. “Theia.”
She sighed through the phone. “…Eleven.”
Eleven.
Before Shanks could properly process that number, he heard wood scraping, followed by a crash substantial enough to make him stand.
“The shelf is fine,” Theia said immediately.
He was already reaching for his keys. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“You have work.”
“I own the company.”
“That isn’t how work works.”
“Twenty minutes.”
He hung up before she could argue, sent Benn the notes he had finished, and asked to take the afternoon’s remaining call remotely.
Twenty-five minutes later, Shanks sat cross-legged on the floor of Theia’s apartment, dismantling half the bookshelf while she handed him tools and maintained that the instructions had been unnecessarily pessimistic. He found three screws beneath the sofa and two in a plant pot, which Theia denied responsibility for.
They ordered lunch afterward. Theia sat on the floor opposite him, eating noodles beside the successfully reconstructed bookshelf and looking extremely pleased with the result of what Shanks considered a preventable structural emergency.
She considered this further evidence that she had made an excellent friend.
Shanks was beginning to operate under a different interpretation.
By the middle of the second month, he finally secured dinner. Theia checked her calendar while he waited, and Shanks watched the movement of her finger across the screen with the concentration he usually reserved for contracts involving several countries.
“Next Friday?”
Her finger stopped. “I’m free.”
Shanks no longer trusted that word. He had learned, at personal cost, that free could mean available, temporarily unclaimed, or fiercely committed to spending an evening alone under a blanket. “Free for dinner?”
Theia glanced up. “Yes.”
He kept going before optimism could make him careless. “Not staying home?”
“No.”
“Not Hina?”
“No.”
“Kuja invasion?”
“They left.”
“Garp?”
“Shanks.”
The warning in her voice did nothing to discourage him. At this point he considered precision a survival skill. “I’m establishing the terms.”
Her laugh softened the reprimand. “I am free for dinner with you next Friday.”
That was finally specific enough for him to make a reservation.
“Eight.”
“Eight.”
She typed it into her calendar while he watched. Shanks waited until she turned the screen toward him.
DINNER — SHANKS — 8 PM.
There. Documented. Witnessed. Practically contractual.
At home that evening, Theia copied it onto the paper calendar on her refrigerator and circled the date. The dinner was booked; she might as well make an effort to remember it.
The following Friday, at exactly eight o’clock, he was sitting alone at the restaurant.
At eight-ten, he checked his phone. Nothing. At eight-twenty, he sent a message.
Shanks: On your way?
The message remained unread. Around him, the restaurant continued in quiet, expensive efficiency: candles burning low across white tablecloths, couples arriving, a waiter refilling his water twice without asking whether the second guest was coming.
At eight-thirty-five, Shanks ordered whiskey. He was not angry yet. Traffic existed, phones died, and Theia’s relationship with time was already questionable. By eight-forty-seven, concern had begun competing with wounded dignity. At eight-fifty-two, dignity lost badly enough that he texted Benn.
Shanks: Has she texted you?
The answer arrived almost immediately.
Benn: Why would she text me?
Shanks: She likes you.
A pause.
Benn: She has met me twice.
Shanks: Exactly. No reason for hostility yet.
This time Benn took longer.
Benn: Are you being stood up?
Shanks put his phone facedown.
At nine, he called her. Theia answered on the sixth ring.
“Hello?” Her voice sounded soft and distracted.
There was music somewhere behind her. Then the unmistakable rustle of a page turning.
Shanks closed his eyes. “Theia.”
“Hmm?”
He looked at the untouched place setting opposite him. “Where are you?”
Another page moved.
“Home.”
Of course she was.
“Why?”
This time the silence on the other end was different. Shanks could almost hear her mind catching up with the question, moving backward through the day until it found whatever she had forgotten. The page stopped moving.
“…Oh, fuck.”
His annoyance disappeared so quickly it was almost insulting.
“Theia.”
“Oh my God.”
The first laugh escaped before he could stop it.
“Shanks, I’m so sorry.”
He leaned back in his chair and pressed his knuckles against his mouth, trying and failing to recover any appropriate amount of offense.
“You’re laughing?”
“I am.”
“This isn’t funny. I forgot what day it was.”
“That information isn’t helping.”
Something crashed in the background.
His amusement vanished. “What was that?”
“Nothing. I’m getting dressed.”
Shanks checked the time. “At nine?”
“I can be there quickly.”
“The reservation was an hour ago.”
“I KNOW.”
The genuine horror in her voice destroyed what remained of his composure. Shanks laughed again. He had spent the last hour wondering whether something had happened to her or she had decided not to come; now he could hear her scrambling around the apartment, appalled that he was still sitting there.
She had written his name in her calendar while he watched, and then forgotten what day it was. His ego could find very little comfort in that explanation. The rest of him was relieved. He looked around the restaurant, at the polished tables and low lighting and the untouched place setting across from him, then stood.
“Stay home. I’ll bring dinner.”
“You don’t have to do that. I can still—”
“I’m already leaving.”
The movement on her end stopped.
When she spoke again, the panic had gone out of her voice. “I really am sorry.”
Shanks picked up his jacket.
“I know.”
And he did.
Thirty-five minutes later, Theia opened her apartment door looking nothing like the woman Shanks had imagined taking to dinner. Her hair was twisted into a loose braid that had clearly been done hours earlier and subsequently forgotten. She wore an oversized university shirt, soft shorts, and socks covered in tiny strawberries. Without makeup, jewelry, or shoes, she looked entirely at home—and so genuinely mortified that Shanks had to resist laughing before she even spoke.
Her eyes dropped immediately to the bags in his hands. “You brought the food.”
“I was hungry.”
“I stood you up.”
“Yes.”
“And then you bought me dinner.”
Shanks lifted the bags slightly. “I haven’t decided whether I’m sharing it.”
Theia covered her face with both hands. “I’m a terrible person.”
“You’re a terrible calendar.”
Her hands lowered enough for one eye to appear. “That isn’t better.”
“It is from where I’m standing.”
She moved aside to let him in. He had been there before because of the bookshelf, but tonight felt different, perhaps because he wasn’t carrying a screwdriver. The apartment was lit by lamps, a half-finished mug of tea sat beside the sofa, and books occupied almost every useful surface. Theia’s blanket lay in a heap where she had apparently abandoned it when his call sent her into panic.
The novel she had been reading instead of meeting him lay open on the coffee table. Shanks glanced past it toward the refrigerator and stopped. There was her calendar, with Friday circled.
DINNER — SHANKS — 8 PM.
He slowly looked over his shoulder. Theia had followed his gaze. Her expression became even more miserable.
Shanks pointed toward the calendar. “You wrote it down.”
“I know.”
“It’s circled.”
Theia’s eyes closed. “I KNOW.”
That finally destroyed him. He bent forward laughing.
Theia grabbed the nearest cushion and hit him with it. “You’re enjoying my suffering.”
Shanks caught the cushion on the second attempt.
“I’ve been sitting alone in a restaurant for an hour. Allow me something.”
“You should be angry.”
“I was.”
That made her pause.
“What happened?”
Shanks straightened, still smiling. “You answered the phone and asked why I wanted to know where you were.”
Theia made a wounded sound and covered her face again.
They ended up eating on the floor because her dining table was occupied by books and neither of them felt motivated enough to relocate them. The expensive restaurant containers looked absurd beside her mismatched plates. Shanks removed his jacket and rolled his sleeves to his elbows while Theia divided the food, quietly giving him larger portions in an attempt at reparations he was happy to accept.
For a while they continued discussing her crime, until the conversation wandered, as it usually did with them.
Theia told him about the manuscript she had spent most of the previous week editing, written by an author who appeared to regard punctuation as an unnecessary limitation on artistic freedom.
“You spent a week fixing commas?”
“Among other things.”
“Voluntarily?”
“They pay me.”
“Enough?”
Theia actually considered it. “No.”
Shanks laughed.
She pointed her fork at him. “You own ships. You’re disqualified from having opinions about normal amounts of money.”
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“My ships being used against me.”
“You have multiple.”
“I do.”
“That’s unreasonable.”
“They’re generally considered necessary for a shipping company.”
Theia narrowed her eyes at him before stealing a piece of food from his plate. Shanks let her, then told her about a negotiation in Rotterdam that had somehow required three lawyers, two translators and several weeks of argument over a warehouse that, by the end of it, nobody seemed particularly enthusiastic about owning. Theia listened with growing disbelief.
“So you spent several weeks fighting over something nobody wanted.”
“When you phrase it like that, it sounds stupid.”
“Was it not stupid?”
Shanks thought about several weeks of meetings, hundreds of pages of contracts and one particularly miserable afternoon. “It was extremely stupid.”
Theia laughed, finally forgetting to look guilty every time she caught his eye. By the time they finished eating, neither of them had checked the time.
At some point they abandoned the floor for the sofa. Theia tucked her legs beneath herself and pulled a blanket across her lap. Shanks stretched out beside her, one arm along the back of the couch, listening while she explained why the ending of a novel he had never read had made her furious for three days. He disagreed purely on principle. Theia accused him of arguing about something he knew nothing about. Shanks considered that a perfectly legitimate hobby.
Their argument wandered into films, then travel, then childhood. Theia told him Garp had once attempted to teach her to swim by throwing her into the water. Shanks nearly choked on his drink.
“He says it worked.”
“You can swim.”
“That is also his defense.”
“And Dragon survived this childhood?”
Theia stared thoughtfully toward the ceiling. “Debatable.”
Shanks laughed, then found himself telling her about his own childhood. It was late, his jacket had been abandoned across a chair, and Theia had shifted the blanket so he could take a corner if he wanted it. The conversation had wandered too comfortably for him to think much about where it was going.
Growing up inside the Figarland family had meant that most decisions were made well before anyone thought to consult him. His schools were chosen, his friendships encouraged or discouraged, and a place in the family empire waited before he was old enough to know whether he wanted it. He had been expected to learn the business beside his father and, eventually, take whatever role Garling considered appropriate.
Leaving had required years of work. It had also required advantages Shanks had never pretended he didn’t have: an education paid for, access to people other men couldn’t get on the phone, and a surname investors recognized even when he wished they wouldn’t. He had used what he could and built something his father hadn’t selected for him. Theia listened without interrupting.
“So you built a shipping company out of spite?”
Shanks looked at her. “That’s a deeply disrespectful summary of years of work.”
“But accurate?”
He wanted to object. Unfortunately, there was enough truth in it to make that difficult.
“Partially.”
She smiled, then studied him a little more thoughtfully.
“Why shipping?”
The question caught him. People usually asked how he had built Red Force, financed the early years, or expanded so quickly. When they asked why he had left, they wanted the details of his disagreement with Garling. Theia was waiting to hear why he had chosen ships.
Shanks glanced toward the dark windows. “I’ve always liked the sea.”
“That’s it?”
“Mostly.”
Theia waited, her glass resting against the blanket. He could have left the answer there; after a moment, he found he wanted to explain.
Shanks rubbed his thumb absently against his glass. “Out there, nobody cares what family you came from. A storm doesn’t care who your father is. Neither does the ocean.”
Theia was quiet for a moment, then nodded. “Fair.”
She took a sip of her drink and let the subject rest. Shanks watched her, grateful that she hadn’t immediately asked what his father had said about that.
Theia noticed his attention after several seconds. “What?”
“Just looking.”
Her eyes narrowed faintly, suspicious but not uncomfortable, before she returned to her drink.
Sometime after one in the morning, he talked his way out of admitting that he had deliberately stolen the last bite of dessert. Theia accused him of being professionally charming.
“Professionally?”
“You’ve had decades of practice.”
“At stealing dessert?”
“At women.”
Shanks laughed. “That sounds accusatory.”
“I met you while you had your tongue in another woman’s mouth.”
Shanks opened his mouth to answer, then stopped. He remembered the garden, the woman’s blonde hair, and possibly her dress. Theia watched him search for the rest, her eyebrows climbing.
“Oh my God.”
“I knew it at the time.”
“You don’t remember her name.”
“I remember the evening.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“In my defense, I wasn’t expecting an exam.”
“On the names of women you’ve kissed?”
“It has never come up before.”
Theia stared at him before collapsing against the sofa laughing. Shanks endured this with what he considered remarkable dignity.
“This is exactly what I mean,” she managed eventually. “You flirt with everyone.”
“Everyone seems statistically unlikely.”
“You can’t remember the name of the woman you were making out with when we met.”
“That is one woman.”
“That you forgot.”
“I’ve remembered you.”
Theia’s laughter faded as she looked at him. He had said it so easily that she had almost answered with another joke. Now she noticed how close they had moved, his arm along the back of the sofa behind her.
His collar had loosened over the course of the evening. Red hair had fallen messily across his forehead. At this distance, she could see the faint scars near his eye and the shadow beginning along his jaw. She had always known Shanks was attractive. That fact was approximately as difficult to discover as the existence of the sun.
But she had never felt obliged to do anything about the attraction, especially with a man whose romantic history suggested flirting came as naturally to him as breathing. She held his gaze for another moment, then glanced at the abandoned dessert containers.
She reached for the empty dessert container. “Congratulations. Your memory isn’t completely broken.”
Shanks smiled and handed her the lid. He stayed where he was while she stacked the containers, although he found himself watching her a little more closely afterward. They had spent hours together, and she was clearly enjoying his company. He still couldn’t quite tell what she would do if he asked to kiss her.
When Shanks finally left, it was almost two. Theia closed the door behind him and remained there for a moment, one hand still resting on the lock. The apartment felt strangely quiet after hours of conversation. That had been nice—embarrassingly nice, considering she had started the evening by forgetting him in a restaurant.
She began gathering containers from the coffee table before remembering her phone. Three messages from Shakky waited on the screen. The first had arrived shortly after eight.
Shakky: How was your date?
Twenty minutes later:
Shakky: Theia?
And then, at 8:47:
Shakky: You forgot, didn’t you.
Theia closed her eyes. Of course.
Theia: i forgot 😭
The answer came almost immediately despite the hour.
Shakky: Of course you did.
Theia: he brought food here though
There was a brief pause.
Shakky: So you had the date at your apartment.
Theia frowned.
Theia: no we just ate
The typing bubble appeared.
Shakky: Theia.
Theia: what
Nothing followed for several seconds. Then:
Shakky: I’m going to bed.
Theia stared at the message.
Theia: okay goodnight ❤️
Shakky did not answer. Theia assumed she was tired.
The weeks that followed did little to improve Shakky’s opinion of her intelligence. They did, however, improve Shanks’s success rate. He learned that Theia was significantly more likely to remember plans if he reminded her repeatedly. She complained about this; he considered the complaints an acceptable price for results.
As they approached three months since the auction, he arranged another dinner. This time they would both make it to the restaurant, and nobody would be holding a screwdriver. Theia agreed readily. After the last attempt, she owed him an evening that began on time.
The day before, Shanks sent:
Shanks: Tomorrow. Eight.
Theia: i know 😭
The next morning:
Shanks: Tonight.
Theia: yes shanks
At six:
Shanks: Two hours.
Theia: are you going to do this every time we make plans
Shanks: Until trust is restored.
Theia: dramatic
At seven-thirty:
Shanks: Are you dressed?
The response arrived immediately.
Theia: you’re annoying
A second message followed.
Theia: and yes
At seven-forty-five, Shanks stood outside her apartment. He knocked. The door opened.
Every joke he had prepared disappeared.
Theia wore a black dress that fell just below her knees, its soft fabric falling in simple lines. Her hair was in a loose braid over one shoulder, and small gold earrings caught the hallway light when she moved.
He had seen her dressed for galas, barefoot on a balcony, and embarrassed in strawberry socks. Tonight she had dressed to go out with him. The thought caught him more thoroughly than he had expected, and for several seconds he forgot to say anything at all.
Theia noticed the silence. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
He recovered. “You remembered.”
Her eyes narrowed.
Then he smiled. “You look beautiful.”
The annoyance on her face faltered for a moment, long enough for Shanks to notice.
Inconveniently, Theia found herself looking at him too. She had known for nearly three months that Shanks Figarland was handsome; spending time with him had merely given her other things to pay attention to.
Tonight he stood in her doorway in a dark jacket and white shirt, his red hair slightly disordered as though he had already run his fingers through it on the way upstairs. She knew how easily he smiled at people. She also knew how he sounded on the phone when he was tired, and how he had sat on her floor finding screws while she argued with the instructions.
She liked him. Looking at him now, she found that information becoming unexpectedly distracting. Her gaze lingered a fraction too long.
Oh.
That was inconvenient.
His smile warmed, and she knew he had noticed.
Theia reached for her bag before he could enjoy it. “You look fine too.”
“Fine?”
“Would you prefer adequate?”
His laughter followed her into the hallway.
The date lasted six hours.
Dinner became a walk because neither of them was ready to go home. The walk became drinks somewhere quieter, then coffee when Theia complained that alcohol was making her sleepy. Sometime after midnight her shoes came off, because apparently no amount of money could persuade her to maintain a peaceful relationship with heels. Shanks carried them. Theia let him.
Around them, restaurants closed and traffic thinned. Streets that had been crowded earlier grew quieter beneath pools of amber light, leaving them more room to hear each other. They had relaxed into the evening long before dessert; now, walking beside him, Theia had forgotten to monitor how much she was enjoying herself.
She knew him well enough to recognize the difference between the version of him who could charm an entire room and the man who laughed too loudly when something genuinely surprised him.
He could tell when she was actually annoyed and when she merely enjoyed the performance. He knew she would steal food from his plate after claiming she wasn’t hungry, and she knew he checked the ocean whenever they passed somewhere with a view of it.
He had learned to ask before touching her books. She had learned to watch his left eyebrow, which moved slightly when he was about to say something outrageous. Neither could have said exactly when they had learned all of it. Their conversation carried on as they walked, Shanks occasionally steering her around a puddle with a hand at her back.
By the time they returned to her building, the city had settled into the softer rhythm of early morning. Shanks handed her the shoes beneath the entrance awning, and Theia hooked their straps over one hand, reluctant to say good night just yet.
“This went better.”
Shanks glanced down at her. “Than the evening you forgot I existed?”
“I forgot the date.”
“You asked me why I wanted to know where you were.”
“That was unfortunate.”
“For me.”
“You recovered.”
“Eventually.” She smiled.
Shanks looked at her, still smiling. Theia stayed close even though they had finished saying everything required to end the evening. There had been moments like this before, brief pauses she could easily fill with a joke or a change of subject.
His gaze dropped toward her mouth. She understood what he wanted, and this time she didn’t reach for something to say. As he moved closer, his hand settled at her waist, warm through the thin fabric of her dress. She tilted her face toward him.
The first kiss was softer than she expected. He took his time, holding her steadily, and she forgot about the shoes hanging from her fingers. His thumb moved once against her waist as her free hand found the front of his shirt. When she kissed him back, his arm drew her closer and the kiss deepened.
Theia had kissed men before. She was perfectly capable of admitting when something was exceptionally good. When they finally separated, she remained close enough to feel his warmth, her hand still resting against his shirt.
Theia considered the situation with all the seriousness it deserved.
“Hm.”
His mouth curved. “That’s my review?”
“It was positive.”
“Hm.”
“Very positive.”
“That changes everything.”
She laughed softly. Then, because she wanted another, Theia caught the front of his shirt and kissed him again. This time Shanks was smiling before she pulled away. She could feel it against her mouth.
“That,” he murmured, “felt more enthusiastic.”
“Don’t become unbearable.”
“I think we’re well past that.”
Theia rolled her eyes, although the smile remained.
She stepped toward the entrance. “Good night, Shanks.”
“Sunday.”
Her hand stopped against the door. She looked back, still carrying the faint, pleased softness the kiss had left behind. “What about Sunday?”
“Dinner.”
Theia stared at him. Apparently Shanks had moved from kissing her to negotiating his next appointment without requiring any transition between the two. “We just finished this dinner.”
“I plan ahead.”
“I might have brunch with the Kuja girls.”
“Dinner happens after brunch.”
Theia’s expression changed. Shanks recognized too late that he had said something naive.
“You’ve clearly never had brunch with them.”
He considered the people whose names he had spent three months reluctantly memorizing. There were enough of them that brunch could probably qualify as an organized event, but he was not ready to concede the entire day. “How long can brunch possibly last?”
Theia said nothing. She didn’t need to. Her face carried the patient pity of someone watching another person discover a law of nature the hard way.
Shanks adjusted without surrendering. “Monday,” he amended.
“Tritoma invited me over.”
“Tuesday.”
Theia thought about it. “I think I’m free.”
Three months earlier, he might have accepted that as progress. Shanks had learned too much to celebrate prematurely. “You think?”
She laughed. “I’ll check tomorrow.”
Shanks looked briefly toward the night sky, perhaps searching for patience among the clouds. Theia slipped through the doors before he could begin another negotiation.
Her phone buzzed before she reached the elevator. Shakky.
Shakky: Well?
Theia smiled.
Theia: good
The response arrived immediately.
Shakky: That’s all?
Theia: really good actually
A pause.
Shakky: Did he kiss you?
The elevator arrived. Theia stepped inside.
Theia: maybe
Shakky: You are twenty-seven years old.
Theia: respect my privacy
Shakky: You called me at two in the morning because you thought your washing machine was possessed.
Theia: it was making a noise
Shakky: Are you seeing him again?
Theia thought about Shanks attempting to schedule another dinner before the first had technically ended.
Theia: probably tuesday
Three dots appeared.
Shakky: Look at you. Dating.
Theia frowned.
Theia: we’re not dating
The typing bubble appeared immediately. Then vanished. Then appeared again.
Shakky: What exactly do you think you’ve been doing for the past three months?
Theia leaned against the elevator wall. Shakky had been waiting for this moment for weeks; naturally, she intended to make the most of it.
Theia: we’re friends
Shakky: You just spent six hours on a date with him.
Theia: yes
Shakky: He kissed you.
Theia hesitated. Technically, she had kissed him the second time.
Theia: friends can kiss
The typing bubble disappeared. For almost a full minute, nothing happened. Then her phone began ringing. Theia declined Shakky’s call, declined the second one too, and watched a message arrive.
Shakky: FRIENDS CAN WHAT?
Theia laughed quietly as the elevator doors opened, then put her phone away before Shakky could call a third time. She liked Shanks. He clearly liked her. They enjoyed spending time together, and kissing him had been good enough that she was already looking forward to doing it again. She saw no reason to turn that into the much larger matter Shakky seemed to have in mind.
Theia hadn’t begun looking for a boyfriend. She still liked being single, still wanted her Saturdays, and still intended to make her own plans. Shanks fitted into that life rather pleasantly. If he wanted a conversation about what they were doing, he could have one with her.
For her part, she wouldn’t be interested in kissing anybody else while this continued. One person to see, one person to kiss: that suited her perfectly well. She could imagine telling him that without difficulty. Exclusivity seemed straightforward enough; she didn’t see why it needed to come with everything Shakky was calling dating.
Satisfied with this distinction, Theia went to bed.
Across the city, Shanks Figarland was operating under a very different assumption.
He had spent three months trying to get one woman to dinner, learning that an empty space in her calendar did not necessarily mean she was available, that messages could vanish into whatever dimension she stored unanswered notifications in, and that a successful plan required both confirmation and reminders. Somewhere along the way, he had stopped finding the pursuit itself particularly interesting.
He liked her. He liked the woman who appeared at galas in elegant dresses and the woman in strawberry socks who forgot what day it was. She guarded Saturdays for naps, sent photographs of dogs without context, found inexplicably ugly things in shop windows and decided he needed to see them too. She had asked why he loved ships when everyone else wanted to know how much money they made him.
By now, he took photographs with the thought of sending them to her. He passed restaurants and wondered whether she would like them, checked his free evenings against hers with increasingly unreasonable optimism, and knew the names of people he hadn’t met because they mattered to her. When the Kuja women appeared at an event, he could even match several names to faces.
His weeks had begun collecting pieces of Theia. For now, he went to sleep thinking Tuesday would be their next date. He was looking forward to finding out where this would go; after tonight, he assumed she was too.
Theia went to sleep thinking she had a very attractive friend she could kiss now, and that her single life had acquired a particularly enjoyable addition.
They were both pleased with the evening.
Unfortunately for Shanks, they were pleased about two different things.