[USS Amalthea - Deck 4 - Ready Room]
Tess was pleased to hear him say he was fine. His following comment made Tess grin; she knew he would follow through on his offer if she just so much as hesitated to decline. Her extracting herself from him wasn't to say in any way that she didn't like his offer, no, she liked too much and she didn't trust herself to resist her husband once they took a step further. Reality was, those meetings were pretty much the only 'alone time' they got in the day. So the notion was very tempting. But she didn't joke when she said they had much to discuss.
Tearing her thoughts away from what might have happened if she had agreed, she focused on Rayek's reply to her question. "An increase of 34% sounds very promising", she commented while the replicator worked on her order. Once that was done she ordered a chai tea and an osol twist for Rayek before she turned to him, smiling as he told her of his lunch with her brothers. "Oh, I hope you guys have left something of it for me", she teased with a grin. "How did you get along with Rah'ul today?", she asked. Ever since Rayek had demonstrated his telepathic abilities to the Ba'ku, he had been extremely wary of his brother-in-law. It seemed to be getting better only slowly.
With both their snacks and drinks ready, Tess returned to the chair behind her desk and carefully put the mug and plate down. On hit sat a rather big muffin, melted and hardened chocolate peeking out of the fluffy baked dough here and there. Not touching either of it Tess leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs as she looked back at Rayek, considering which topic to breach first. She decided to go with the quicker one first, although it also was the one that concerned her most.
"I wanted to talk to you about Ben", she began with a serious face. "His work morale is on a low, I feel it had been deteriorating ever since we came on baord the Amalthea. I'm not sure what's up, I feel like he's avoiding me. But someone has to speak to him. Only yesterday I heard that he showed up an hour late to his shift." Her forehead furrowed with concern.