Chapter 13 Lacy
Lacy
I rubbed the data chip between my thumb and forefinger like a talisman as I followed Dax onto the bridge.
My stomach had made a very loud, embarrassing gurgle while I’d tried to decide how much to tell him about my sister.
He’d huffed out a laugh and then ushered me out of my room. My room. At least for now.
I’d grudgingly followed him to the dining hall where he’d heated up two packaged military meals. Gross. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. If he had a fully stocked pantry, or utility closet, those things would just be for true emergencies, not everyday dining.
He took the captain’s chair with a smile. A smile that read triumphant to me, like he’d beaten me at something.
Whatever. Little did he know that I could pilot Fortuna from almost any console on the ship. If he did, that smile would be gone in a trace.
He pointed at the navigator’s seat and I sat.
“Veggie Surprise or Poultry Party?”
“What?”
“Which one do you want? Veggie Surprise,” he held up a shimmery green pouch, “or Poultry Party?” He held up the shiny pink pouch.
It was impossible to keep the grimace off my face.
“Here, take the veggies.”
I grabbed the bag he extended toward me. “Um, were any actual vegetables harmed in the making of this?”
He shrugged, his broad shoulders shifting up and down under his black shirt. “Would you really want to know?”
“Good point.” I opened the pouch gingerly, then sniffed the steam that escaped. It didn’t smell too bad.
He handed me a fork and then tilted a bottle of hot sauce toward me in offer. “It helps,” he said with a smile. Just a little half-smile, but it was enough for me to see the hint of a dimple.
Dax Cooper was really fine. His clothes hinted at a nice body, but when I’d had my arms around him? Well, it had felt like heaven. I’d felt warm and protected.
Dashing away those thoughts, I accepted the hot sauce, our fingers brushing in passing. I sighed.
“Something wrong?”
“I can’t believe you ate the rest of my noodles! Those were my favorite.”
A hint of pink colored his cheeks and that dimple winked at me. He must have been adorable as a kid. “I was hungry. And they smelled amazing.” He looked at his meal pouch and it was his turn to sigh. “Bottoms up.”
After seasoning the pouch with a few generous shakes of the hot sauce, I took my first, tentative bite.
It was . . . not awful. Not good. Especially not nearly as good as my noodles, but edible.
I wouldn’t want to live on these. Then the hot sauce hit, eradicating my taste buds and I didn’t taste anything else.
My lips were on fire and my nose was running by the time I finished my pouch, but at least my stomach wasn’t growling any more. “Why did you stock up on these instead of regular food?”
Dax reached over and took my pouch, folding it up into a tiny square. He’d obviously done this a lot. “I didn’t know what to get.”
I stared at him, confused. “Food,” I said. “Real food.”
“But what kind?” He looked lost.
“Whatever you like to eat.” It wasn’t that complicated.
Dax looked away, that hint of pink staining his cheekbones again. “For the last ten years, I’ve served in the space corps. Three hots and a cot. Meal pouches when we were deployed.”
Ah. Gotcha. He didn’t know how to cook. “How long have you been out?”
“Three months.”
That made sense. The hair. The vibe. The reflexes. And the lack of knowledge about civilian spaceships. “I can help. Teach you to cook. How to stock a ship.”
The look he gave me was disbelieving. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll figure it out,” he said sharply. “Sounds like you should worry about your sister.”
Asshole. I was just trying to help.
But he was right too. He was a stranger. What did I care that he didn’t know what he was doing? I needed to focus on my family. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
After a long beat, he said, “Everything.”
Everything? I didn’t think so.
Ignoring the way he was watching me, I swung my legs up so I was sitting cross-legged in my chair. “Layla’s a year younger than me, so we’re pretty close. But where I’m more mechanically minded, she got all the book smarts. That girl always has her nose in a book.”
“She was talking a lot about books and libraries in those videos. And star maps.”
My breath caught. I forced it back into a normal rhythm and hoped Dax hadn’t noticed. “Yeah, whenever we were in port, she’d beg and plead to go to the library or a book shop or a museum. If she could learn something, she wanted to visit.”
“You grew up on a ship?” He sounded surprised.
“Yeah, my parents weren’t the homebody type.” That was an understatement. I’d been back and forth across the system half a dozen times by the time I was ten.
“And yet you were living on an asteroid station.”
His question was unspoken, but I answered it anyway. “I wanted to try something new. And, for me, new was a permanent station.”
“Interesting. So, you ended up stationary and your sister ended up the space-faring one.”
This was the easy part of the story. “Ever since she was little, my sister has wanted to be an archaeologist. She loved tales of lost civilizations. Lost treasures. That kind of thing.”
“So that’s what she does?”
“Not exactly,” I said, trying to figure out how to describe my sister’s occupation. Obsession? Our dad wasn’t really supportive of her dreams, so it’s more like she dabbles.” And boy did she dabble.
“What about your mom?”
I rubbed the space over my heart, the place with a permanent hole. “She died when I was thirteen. Caught some exotic bug from one of our cargo runs.”
“Crap. I’m sorry to hear that.” His smile was gentle.
I gave him a wan smile. “That was a bad time, a really bad time.” My father had held us close—suffocated us, really—while he meted out the justice he thought appropriate to those he held responsible.
“I spent more time in the engine room after she died. I studied hard and tested for my rating. Layla buried her nose in her books.”
“And that’s why you left?”
Another carefully calibrated shrug to hide how much that decision had hurt. “Eventually. Dad’s ship had a master mechanic and a full mechanic crew. If I wanted to learn and grow, I’d have to do it somewhere else.” It was the same reasoning that I’d given Dad.
“Your sister did the same?”
“Last I knew, she was back home, working for my dad.”
“Then what’s she doing out there?”
“I don’t know!” I couldn’t sit still any longer. I untangled my legs and shot to my feet. Dax shifted in his chair to watch me as I paced back and forth.