He pets her hair again. This time he's much more grinny about it, but there's still an element of That Look.
She quite happily lets him play with her hair, and her gaze lingers on his face for a moment before she goes back to hunting down her hair accessory.
"I'm going to need to re-braid that," she remarks, when she locates the set of combs she was looking for.
"I could braid it for you! I probably couldn't braid it for you particularly well, but that's what practice is for, right?"
"Sure. I don't do it myself particularly well either, I can't see what I'm doing without more mirrors than we have here and it's hard to reach."
In that case: he gets to braid her hair! Which means he gets to touch her hair. He is a happy Miles. The happiest.
Linya arranges for all of her hair to be within easy reach, and gives him instructions, but today all she needs is a simple three-strand braid containing all of her hair, so it's not that hard. When he is done she ties off the end and attaches it to her head with the combs.
"I am ravenous," she remarks, and she picks out an outfit and goes and puts it on and comes out of the lav again in record time. But she will wait for him before she goes to get breakfast.
Miles also gets dressed Very Very Fast! And then they can go to breakfast together.
Om nom nom breakfast. Even mediocre ship breakfast contains, say, calories.
Ivan shows up around the same time and doesn't make any pointed faces or oblique remarks, just bids them good morning and sits with them.
...Ivan is, when he discovers that Miles had not yet reached the ceiling of his possible chipperness, sort of tempted to make faces or remarks, but he doesn't do much of the first thing or any of the second. He just says, "I miss groats, do you miss groats?"
"I'm going to have to try them just to find out what's to miss or not miss," remarks Linya.
"I had maple sugar in something once - someone was doing culinary experiments with exotic ingredients. It was nice."
"Maple sugar is an exotic ingredient? I didn't actually know that," says Miles. "We produce it in my family's District; it's hardly exotic to me."