"Truly," I said following a couple of minutes, despite the fact that I was almost certain that I was the one holding him to me. "I just have a sec."

"At that point we would do well to rush," he whispered. I shut my eyes.

It had been three months, one week, and two days since I'd been a Smitten Kitten. I'd stopped the squad (in spite of the fact that I kept the uniform for individual reasons) toward the start of the late spring, abandoning it in Kira's impeccably cleaned hands.