"And snow.  Lots and lots of snow.  Enough snow to last a Starsdamn lifetime."  He picked up another rice ball and plopped it in his mouth.  He ate the way that males typically did--taking bites that were too big, trying to stuff his mouth too full of food, and talking before he had completely finished chewing.  "Let me tell you, Kenz, you spend six months cooped up in a ship with someone, you get to know them pretty devilish quick.  Jules and I couldn't stand the sight of each other by the end of it. "<br/><br/>He gave Juliette's knee an affectionate pat, and leaned back against her.  "After the rescue, we went our separate ways for a bit.  Turned out, though, that through it all we had started to grow on each other after all.  Hooked up again a few solar weeks later, and we've been like Bonnie and Clyde ever since."<br/><br/>He smiled upward at the dark-haired woman, his hands folding atop her feet.  Casually, almost automatically, he began to rub them, his fingers pressing and arching over her insteps and his thumbs smoothing along her arches.    Then he turned his attention back to Juliette.<br/><br/>His expression read:  I want you to be part of this.  This easy intimacy, this relaxed familiarity.   I know you want to be part of it, too.  I don't know the skeletons in your closet, and perhaps I never will, but you can trust me.  Us.  You can depend on us.<br/><br/>He glanced at the now-empty bottle of Old Flannagan's.  Unfortunately, the blond woman had drained it, and it was the only whiskey he currently had aboard the ship.   There was some stale beer, he thought, in the ship's cooler, but that was about it.<br/><br/>"Why don't you come sit over here, Kenz," he invited.  "Take a load off.  Jules'll give you a shoulder rub."  He said this with the absolute confidence of someone who cheerfully and happily commits someone else to do a task.