I let out a quiet chuckle and held her a little tighter. "This'll have to do, huh? I paid a fortune for these parts, Esme. Do you know how much sixty-four gigabytes of RAM costs these days?"
"Thank you," she said, her face buried against my shoulder. "Really. Thank you."
"No problem."
I was about to make another joke when I noticed her shoulders start to shake. A moment later, I felt something damp against my shirt.
She was crying.
That caught me off guard. I slowly reached up to lift her head so I could look at her, but she refused to let me. Instead, she buried her face even deeper into my shoulder, hiding from me like she didn't want me to see her like this.
"Esme?"
"N-nothing," she mumbled. "Let's just stay like this for a second."
"Okay…" I muttered, clearly confused but trying to keep the mood calm. "If that's what you want."
I wanted to ask more, but I figured pushing her right then would just make things worse. So I changed the subject instead.
"Where's Cora?"
