Behind the books
The Most Important Room on Libra Station Is the Kitchen
I've written starships and trade deals and a telepathic cat. The place that matters most in Ward is a kitchen.
Think about what a space station is. It’s a place people leave. They dock, they trade, they work a shift, they go.
Nobody’s supposed to stay.
A kitchen says the opposite. Sit down. Eat something.
You don’t have to explain yourself before somebody puts a plate in front of you.
Tisha gets that. She runs the busiest kitchen on the station, and she knows feeding people is never only about the food.
A plate can be an invitation when talking feels like too much. It can be an apology nobody has to say out loud. It gives a person something to do with their hands while the rest of them catches up.
Which makes Aldric an easy target, honestly.
He came ready for a confrontation. Threats, orders, suspicion... he’s got a plan for all of it. He has no plan for a woman who treats him like a regular guy. Tisha doesn’t care about his rank. She doesn’t care about the scowl. She notices when he’s hungry. She notices when he’s tired.
She notices him.
And she calls him Eric, which he hates, which is why she does it.
I had so much fun with that. But it’s doing a job, too. She won’t treat him like he’s untouchable. There’s a man under all that armor, and she talks to that guy whether he likes it or not.
So this romance doesn’t run on big declarations. It runs on routine. A meal. A conversation that gets put off until tomorrow. Somebody who’s just there, every day, until you can’t picture the place without them.
Does that make it a small story? I don’t think so. When a man finally finds the one room where he can breathe, losing it is about the biggest thing that could happen to him.
Tisha’s kitchen is loud and busy and never quite under control. It’s also where Aldric finds out that belonging doesn’t always start with a promise.
Sometimes it’s a chair pulled out and a plate set down.
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