She stopped coming to his bunk.

He always figured one day she’d realize he wasn't any good for her. He was just hoping it would take a while; a long while.

Five weeks since she stopped coming to see him and sleep still didn't come easy. He just ended up laying there trying not to think about all the nights they spent together, seeing that the first time he ever touched her and every other time was branded in his gorram brain and he didn’t need any encouragement to remember not one of them.

But of all the feng le things eating at him about Zoë suddenly going all cold on him, it wasn't the sexin' keeping him up tonight. He must have gotten used to falling off with her tucked against him, because that's what he wanted most now. Zoë’s arms and legs all wrapped around him and all her warm smooth skin exposed to him like some gift he wasn't suppose to have but by some mistake he got anyway.

At night in his bunk she was every thing contrary to how she treated him during the day. She was all softness with him, stroking him with long fingers that roused him and at the same time coaxed him into sleep.

Shame he never got a chance to wake up with her that way seeing that she always ran off before morning. He wouldn't have even minded that tonight, as long she was there when he fell off... but she wasn't and hadn’t been since the job on Half Moon.

He rolled over, punching his pillow into an even less comfortable bundle and sending the covers sliding to the floor.

He closed his eyes hoping for sleep only to pop them open a few seconds later, cursing and springing from his bed, he paced his small bunk to shake the feel of her against him.

He groaned.

The same ruttin' question ran through his head over and over and he couldn't come up with jack shit. What in hell did he do to make her stop coming?

He figured it had something to do with him ghosting Merrick, ‘cause Zoë’d been avoiding him since everything that went down on Half Moon. But as far as he could tell she was just as liable to