The subway car jostled forward, packed with the usual hum of half-listened conversations and the sterile tang of recycled air. But then it hit you—a cloying, spicy scent, like pepper and burnt sugar, layered with the faint metallic tang of ozone. Your breath hitched.

Boothill’s cologne.

It wasn’t just the scent. It was the way it clung, suffocatingly sweet, like a promise that lingered long after the person had vanished. You’d tried to hate it. The first time he’d worn it, you’d wrinkled your nose and called it “overcooked perfume.” He’d grinned, that sharp-toothed, shark-like grin, and shrugged. “Smells like you remember me, darlin’.”

You’d let it slide, then.

The memory came unbidden: his cold metal hand brushing yours as you leaned against the edge of a starport, the city lights winking below like scattered diamonds. His voice, low and gravelly, had carried the same scent. “C’mere, sugar,” he’d murmured, pulling you close. Even then, you’d known better than to ask where he was headed next. Cowboys like him didn’t stay put.

But you’d loved him anyway.

The subway doors slid open with a hiss, and the scent faded. Your eyes stung.

You’d broken up not in a dramatic fight, but in the quiet ache of realization. He’d always been a storm—reckless, thrilling, impossible to pin down. You’d needed roots. He’d offered you only the sky, and even that was slipping through his fingers, chasing after ghosts like Oswaldo Schneider.

The last argument had been over a missed birthday. He’d sent a holocard instead, with a grin and a scribbled note: “Busy chewin’ up space scum. Love ya, sugar.”

You’d thrown it into the reactor core.

Now, in the dim glow of your apartment, your thumb hovered over his number in your comms log. Still there, buried under a months of spam and forgotten contacts.

What would he say? That he’d been busy? That the IPC’s latest bounty posters had his face splattered across half the quadrant?

The choice lingered, sharp as his scent.