One Tent, Two Opinions
The tent was a lie. It had been sold to them as a two-person tent, and it was, in the way that a coat is a blanket.
“You could sleep outside,” Ives offered, in the voice she reserved for suggesting things she had no intention of allowing.
Corran considered the rain. The rain considered Corran. “You’d miss me.”
“I’d miss the snoring. There’s a difference.” She threw a bedroll at his chest hard enough to be a statement and softly enough to be caught.
They had hated each other for four years with the discipline of people who had chosen it as a hobby. It was easier than the alternative, which was noticing things — that he always took the side of the tent nearest the door, for instance, and had done since the bridge at Kell, when something had come out of the water and he had put himself between it and her without appearing to decide to.
Outside, the storm settled in for the night. Inside, neither of them moved for a long time, and the space between them stayed exactly as wide as they had left it.


