Chapter 21
What irritated me most about Roys’ secrets was that they had me so curious that I couldn’t even appreciate him shirtless or those arm guards hugging his perfectly sculpted biceps.
Roys had us doing our usual drills, keeping ourselves lean and in shape.
He sent reports back to Headquarters every two weeks to ensure we weren’t falling by the wayside.
While the brainiacs were inside tinkering with their machines, we were under the blistering sun.
Sweat rolled off his chin, unfortunately clean shaven, and down his neck into his chest hair that I would be thinking about burying my face in if I weren’t so focused on that call last night.
Was it the same person I overheard him speaking to last time? Considering the hour, I would say so. They were galaxies away, calling when they could, which happened to be in the middle of the night for us. But why did he seem to want to hide it?
“I thought you got over checking out the captain when he was working out,” Ryker said, half dead at my side. He hated drills, could barely keep up with them and, for whatever reason, he never tried to fix that.
“He is by far the best thing to look at,” I said, smirking when Ryker puffed out his chest.
“I’m nice to look at.”
“You’re too scrawny for me.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not nice to look at.” He fell against my arm. “Don’t you think I’m pretty, Lucky?”
“Pretty ugly.”
“You walked into that one!” Zavir called as he sped by us on all six limbs. U’sek’s were wicked fast out in the open, though they didn’t do it often. Zavir was only doing it because no one else was running the perimeter, so there wasn’t a risk of him mowing someone over.
“Remember how I overhead the captain using earth speak?” I wandered over to the pull-up bars. Ryker followed drinking from his canteen and hummed. “I overheard him last night, too. Who is calling him in the middle of the night?” I hopped on the pull-up bar and got to work.
“It’s night here, but perhaps not wherever they are, and shit, it could easily be family. My parents call me. Sometimes. Arana’s partners call her constantly and send her who knows how many homemade pornos.”
“A lot!” Arana called from the weightlifter nearby.
“See?” Ryker threw out his arms. “So it’s family. Why do you care?”
“Feels like a conspiracy in the making,” I replied, arms burning, and maybe my chest, too, which I ignored because I didn’t really care who he was talking to. Just curious.
“Whatever you say. He probably doesn’t want us doing this,” Ryker gestured between us, “gossiping, so he'd rather keep it to himself. You know if we found out he had a partner we’d be tearing him a new one.”
They’d be tearing me a new one if they knew what we were doing on this field last night.
“Everyone is allowed their secrets. His happens to be a call at night,” Ryker added as I dropped off the bars. He took them next while I drank from my canteen, trying not to think of my secret in the lab.
Well, secret to some. Roys knew now.
I wiped the sweat from my brow and fell to take a break. The cool grass soothed my skin but not my mind.
I wish you were dead.
I dropped my arms over my eyes, which suddenly burned.
I thought she had left me alone. After Roys and I were out here, I didn’t think of her. There were no dreams. I woke up for breakfast, and she wasn’t there to remind me of anything. Half of the survey team left with half of us. She stayed behind, so did we, but I didn’t see her, so she was gone.
But then there she was. Secret — that was all Ryker had to say and Maddy burrowed so deep into my brain I couldn’t pluck her out without plucking out my sanity, too.
Getting up, I stopped Zavir’s rapid running by joining him. Exhausting myself to death made my brain fuzzy. A fuzzy brain meant no Maddy, no past, just pushing my body to move, move, move until I literally dropped. I kneeled under the suns, hands shaking to get my canteen.
“You shouldn’t push yourself like that.” Roys balanced on the heels of his feet to get the canteen and open it. He offered the water.
After inhaling half of it, I asked, “Keeping an eye on me?”
“You started it.” He grinned at my glare, then went on, “And there’s no one else to keep an eye on.” He held out his hands, signaling to the empty lot. I hadn’t noticed everyone leaving. “You have a lot of energy for someone who was up half the night.”
“Guess you weren’t enough to exhaust me.”
He patted his chest over his heart. “Ouch.”
“You could exhaust me later, preferably through another sweat-inducing exercise.”
“Sure. We can run an extra lap or two tonight,” he teased, offering a crooked smirk that suited him far too well.
“Fucking, sweetheart, I’d like for us to have a round of passionate fornication.”
Roys actually laughed, a deep sound rumbling in the back of his throat. “You are the least passionate person I’ve ever met.”
“Passion isn’t inherently romantic. It’s the intensity, and I am nothing if not intense.
” I dropped the last of my water on the back of my neck, not missing the way Roys stared and loving every moment of the attention.
His cheeks took on a slightly darker shade of red upon realizing I had caught him.
“Intensely annoying, perhaps," he said.
“Intensely hot, by your standards, you were practically drooling over me last night.”
“Clearly a bout of insanity on my part.”
It was my turn to place a hand over my heart and mock, “Ouch.”
My chest warmed, having got a second laugh out of him. He didn’t laugh often, showing little more than what a captain should be, save with me. In those rare moments of lust, and apparently, joking around. With me.
I liked it.
I stole the canteen from his belt. He said nothing as I drank from his, washing the sensation away.
When I stood, so did he. My exhaustion hadn’t quite settled, and I swayed, feeling lightheaded.
Roys’ hand landed on the small of my back.
I glanced down at him, finding concern there, attention that made my breath hitch.
I nudged him aside. “Ew. Don’t play sweet with me. That’s not my thing.”
“Believe it or not, but I’d stop anyone from falling over after exhausting themselves.”
“Anyone? Really?”
“There are exceptions. Admittedly, on one of your bad days, which are most days, you would be an exception.”
“But I’ve behaved today?”
“So far.”
His hand hadn’t moved. His rough fingers laid over my skin that remembered him all too well, the touch of him from last night, and how much more I wanted. But he proved what I said before — that he always ruined the mood.
“Have you talked to her?”
I knew who he meant but replied anyway, “Lilea? Yeah, we’re fine. She gave me a hug and everything. Makes me sick thinking about it.”
“Not her. Have you talked to your sister?”
He was supposed to take the bait. Of course he wouldn’t. He pushed, and I didn’t understand why. What was the point other than to mess with me?
I shoved his hand off. “That isn’t any of your business.”
“Says the man who loves listening in on people’s late-night conversations,” he half grumbled.
I shoved the water canteen against his chest. “Maybe you’re too fucking loud. It’s not my fault I heard you last night, too.”
“Why do you immediately get defensive?”
“Why did you come over here to piss me off?”
“I came over to have a conversation with you.”
I pretended to gag, causing Roys to take a vexed breath.
There was nothing to discuss, certainly not with him.
He was trying to counsel me, playing the good captain to his little soldier.
I hated the feeling of being his duty, another responsibility he played the part for. I wasn’t fucking interested.
“If you haven’t realized it yet, I like your mouth during adult playtime only; otherwise, let’s keep the conversations to a minimum,” I growled.
“Would it kill you not to be a prick for five minutes?”
“It might. I’ve never actually tried.” And to prove it, I tugged on the arm guards he wore. “Why don’t you take those off, Captain? Got something to hide?”
He looked genuinely taken aback when he should have expected this. “Every time I dare to think you might not be insufferable, you go around and prove otherwise.”
“I told you, you think too highly of me.”
“I guess so.”
Bile rose in my throat. I stepped away from him, barely resisting the urge to hug myself, to create a shield between me and his disappointment.
Roys opened his mouth to say more, but didn’t.
He left, a hand running through his hair before fisting against his hips.
He went into the habitat; the place meant to be a shelter that became my cell.
Roys was in there. Maddy was in there. I didn’t want to see either of them, to hear them or face them, and all the turmoil they wrought, so I walked out of the energy shield to stand beneath the flora.
My commlink buzzed. An order from Roys to get inside, simple and to the point, as a captain’s orders should be.
That’s what we were — captain and subordinate.
Fuck buddies. He didn’t care. I didn’t… want his care.
He shouldn’t be sending another message threatening to give me chore duty for a week if I didn’t get inside immediately.
The message conjured an image of him pacing in the habitat, worrying over me. A stupid thought, pointless and untrue.
I didn’t want to follow his orders, didn’t want to be there, around them, around anyone, so I took off the commlink, left it there, and kept walking.