Page 46 of Alien War Daddy's Got Rizz
My jaw tightens.
I’m not supposed to be watching like this.
I’m not supposed to stand in her orbit like a second sun.
But her presence draws me — not like hunger, but like gravity.
I take a breath, the rich café air filling my lungs with caramel and foam. The barista calls orders in a breathless trill I’ve memorized twice now. People murmur about markets, about tech, about lunch plans.
All of it fades.
She slides into the seat across from me, eyes flickering with exhaustion and something unreadable — a tension that’s deeper than tired. The edges of her iris glow faintly, like moonlight caught in glass.
“Grau,” she says.
She didn’t ask me to leave.
But she didn’t exactly invite me either.
I nod once.
“Yara.”
She doesn’t look at me.
Stares down into her cup, swirling cream into coffee like she’s stirring answers out of it.
“Thank you for showing up,” she finally says.
I want to tell her it’s not showing up.
It’s being present.
But I swallow it.
“Always,” I say.
She lets out a breath that feels like a negotiation — between fear and hope, between desire and survival.
“How’s the investigation going?” she asks, finally facing me.
I meet her eyes. Not too long — just long enough to let her know I’m honest.
“It’s proceeding,” I say. “Slowly. From the outside in.”
Her lips tighten.
Every time I see her exhausted like this — defenses up, poise measured, exhaustion simmering under the surface — something in me frays.
Not anger.
Not irritation.
But a nearly physical ache.
Like watching someone you care about walk a narrow ledge with no guardrail.
“Good,” she says.
