Chapter 11
11
“What shapes our lives?” bellowed a lanky wizard in flowing robes who stood beneath a glowing spotlight, his arms sweeping over his head as yellow and orange flames erupted from his fingertips. “What inspires our destinies? What fills our dreams and fuels our passions?” His voice thundered through the sound system as he roared, “Magic!” to a wild onrush of applause.
Deafening techno music surged through the ballroom in driving, oontz ing beats that vibrated through my chest while twenty more wizards took the stage. I sensed a sharp tension radiating off Freddie’s shoulders when the wizards began chanting incantations in time with the music.
It’s all right, I commed him. Tig promised, no dancing.
He scanned the ballroom, wincing when his gaze landed on the bank of tables where that large party of frizzy-haired Gorbies sat. Three Gorbies stood from their seats, posturing with two of their four hands on their heads—which, on Gorbulon-7, was an indicator of outrage. Something like you dare to flatten my hair !
Tig is wrong, he commed back. They’re going to dance. It feels like they’re going to dance. Please don’t dance. Please don’t dance.
Squashing my smile between my lips, I commed Tig. No dancing, right? Freddie’s about to rush the stage.
No dancing, she replied. Tell Freddie I’ve got his back.
Tig? How do they do it? I asked as two wizards rose above the stage with fire shooting from their bare feet like rocket boosters.
Do what?
The magic, you cheeky little pixie. Are you helping? Is it tech?
Sunny, have you ever considered that it might be real?
Of course not. I scoffed. Wait, are you serious?
Did you think I kept that pool on sixteen cursed all by myself? With effects? Why would I do that?
I don’t know. I always figured they’d put sand guppies in the filters or something.
We replaced all the filters, the drains, everything. Not a sand guppy in sight. It’s magic. Deal with it. And with that, Tig clicked off the comm.
Leaning in close enough that Freddie’s linen scent surrounded me, rudely taking advantage of the relationship between breathing and inadvertently smelling things, I said, “I’m going up front.”
“Be careful,” Garran shouted, making my ears whine. “I do not like magic. It is not natural.” As if on cue, a dragon made of fire leapt from one of the wizard’s hands, growing to the size of an Imperion gunship as it roared above the crowd. Garran’s eyes slammed shut while he uttered some guttural Argosian oath, making the sign of the Tilth—his planet’s three-pointed constellation thought to be the giver and taker of abundance—on his forehead.
After squeezing Garran’s arm, I gave Freddie a tight and awkward smile, receiving a tight and awkward nod in return. Then, taking a deep breath once I was out of Freddie’s scent-range, I skimmed along the wall to move closer to the stage, and to Raphael. On my way, I spotted Chan staring up at the magic show with wide eyes and an even wider grin.
With her braids lashing through the air around her, Chan’s mystery Delphinian summoned a ten feet tall ring of fire stage left while another wizard conjured an oorthorse made of light to leap through it. Before the oorthorse’s hooves touched the ground, the animal exploded into thousands of tiny embers that flitted away toward the ceiling, winking out one by one.
Sneaking up beside Chan’s hoverchair, I leaned in close. “She’s lovely.”
His head whipped toward me. “Sunny,” he shouted over the music. “You scared the shit out of me.”
I tilted my chin toward the stage. “Who is she?”
With a wistful glance at the Delphinian, he muttered, “Someone I don’t stand a chance with.”
If I was a genie, those would be the words that would summon me from my lamp. “Is that so?”
He nodded miserably.
Stooping to take his chin in my hand, guiding his attention to me for a moment, I winked and said, “We’ll just have to see about that.”
There was an unmistakable, if fledgling, gleam of hope in his eyes. “We will?”
“Chan,” I said. “If it’s what you want, I promise to do everything in my power to get you laid. ”
He snorted, his cheeks flaring redder than the fire rippling below his hoverchair.
After I kissed him on one of those blushing cheeks, I walked in long, determined strides toward Raphael’s table.
Sunastara Nex. As I live and breathe. Raphe’s deep voice sliding into my VC felt like sliding into a warm bath. This was exactly what I needed. A night of no-strings-attached fun. A night to remind me of who I was, what I was good at. A night to move forward, even if I was really only standing in place. Semantics. Whatever .
His wry smile fell. You don’t look surprised to see me.
Settling into the seat beside him, I explained into his ear, “Elanie.”
“Hmm. She’s usually better at keeping secrets.”
Without warning, I burrowed my face into his neck and breathed him in. I probably seemed deranged, judging by his “uh, Sunny?” response. But this was important. It was important for me to remember that Raphael always smelled good too, like citrus and sandalwood, like comfort and familiarity. And he looked phenomenal: smooth black skin, dimples bracketing a neatly trimmed goatee, sharp brown eyes.
“I love that dress,” he said, his lips brushing against my ear.
The sensation was nice. When by all rights it should have been exhilarating, erotic even, it was…nice. “I’m glad you came, Raphe. I’m sorry I have to work so late.”
Leaning away, he commed, Save me a dance? It’s all I want.
It was so not all he wanted, but he’d always been good at taking my cues, sensing my moods. As soon as I’m finished making a lovesick Argosian appear irresistible, I’m all yours.
He chuckled. You do have the most fascinating job.
After a quick brush of my lips over his cheek, I pushed my chair back, stood, then froze as a spotlight flooded our table. Raphe shot me a concerned glance, and I grimaced, realizing all too late that we were about to be part of the magic show.
Tig, I commed while the wizards gathered at the front of the stage, gesturing wildly at our table, uttering some indecipherable incantation that sounded nothing like bears or butter . What is about to happen to us?
Oh no. Tig’s giggle trilled between my ears. I should have told you not to sit there.
What? Why?
“What is going on?” Raphe asked, his shoulders coiling and his body tensed like he might burst from his chair. Grabbing his hand, I held him in place.
It’s not that bad, Tig commed. It’s just the?—
Before she finished her sentence, Dave the goat materialized out of thin air on top of our table, and I let out a little scream. Furiously flicking his tail, the goat met Raphe’s wide-eyed stare, leaned forward until their noses touched, and bleated.
Shying away, Raphael cried, “What in hells is that?”
Raphe, I commed, trying my hardest not to laugh, but the whole thing was so absurd. Meet Dave the goat.
As quickly as he’d arrived, Dave blinked out of existence again. Only to reappear on another table, then behind the bar, then on some unsuspecting Blurvan’s tail. The entire ballroom burst into squeals and laughter while the wizards deployed poor Dave as their grand magical finale, whisking him through the crowd.
Calmer now that he understood the gag, Raphe grinned, cheered the goat on, and said, “This is ridiculous. ”
It was ridiculous. So ridiculous I’d almost gained a new appreciation for the showmanship of Delphinian magicians.
As the wizards exited the stage, the applause died down. Dave the goat continued to wander around the ballroom like the most irritable party favor. And I left Raphael at his table with instructions to a nearby serving drone to re-up his martini.
Walking back to the bar, I looked up in time to catch Sai waving goodbye. I waved back as his moms led him from the ballroom—the senator holding his hand, Lena carrying a plate with a worryingly large piece of warple cake atop it, all of them smiling and laughing, the portrait of a happy, healthy family. My arm dropped to my side, my smile fading, my chest burning. My heart aching.
What was happening to me? I didn’t do this. I didn’t let my heart ache in public. Hardly even in private. I didn’t look back like this. I didn’t live in the past. I didn’t dwell. Because life was hard. Terrible things happened every day. There was no fairness. I was not special. And I was not going to spend another second of this night feeling sorry for myself. Or, more to the point, feeling anything at all.
I spun on my heel but stopped short with a gasp, narrowly avoiding running face-first into Freddie’s chest.
“That show was outstanding,” he said brightly, pointing at Dave, who was busy licking an Aquilinian’s dessert plate clean on a nearby table. “That goat bit was…” When he turned back to face me, all the brightness in him dimmed. “Sunny, are you all right? You look?—”
“I’m fine,” I snapped more than I’d meant to. But why was he asking me if I was all right? After what I’d done to him in the hallway, why did he want to talk to me at all? “I’m heading up to chat with Tig. ”
Giving me a thin, polite smile, he said, “And I’m off to congratulate the wizards.”
Who was this man? How was anyone so unflappable? He should’ve been upset with me. Angry, bitter, anything. But he wasn’t. He was entirely, perfectly, infuriatingly fine. And it was such utter bullshit!
When he turned away, my arm shot out before my brain could hold it back, my fingers grasping his forearm.
“Sunny?” He frowned down at my hand. “Did you need some?—”
“Why did you ask me if I was all right?” I blurted out, ignoring the electric spark where my fingers wrapped around his tensing muscles. “After what I did, what I said to you, why do you care? Why aren’t you pissed at me? Why don’t you hate me? I mean”—I scoffed, fairly hysterical—“are you all right?”
Faster than I ever had before—possibly a worlds record—I slammed my mouth shut. Because in the next blink, whatever wall of detached civility he’d built around himself came crashing down. His expression transformed, hardened, his eyes shadowed, as he slid his arm out of my grip.
Pulling my hand back, I held it against my chest, curled it over my pounding heart. I waited for him to say something, anything. But he only stared at me, his jaw clenched, his chest rising and falling with every silent breath. Until, with a dark growl, he bit out, “Am. I. All. Right?”
While the lights came up and softer, atmospheric Delphinian synthwave replaced the booming bass of the magic show techno, he took a single step back, shoved his hands into his pockets, and let me have it.
“Let’s see, Sunny. Let’s see if I’m ‘all right.’ Hours ago, I tried to kiss the woman I am out of my mind about in a public hallway because I thought she was trying to tell me something she wasn’t. I stood there, begging her to give me a chance, again , even though I knew better. Even though I knew”—his eyes closed long enough that it couldn’t be called a blink—“I knew she didn’t want me.”
When I opened my mouth—planning to tell him…what? That he was wrong? That I did want him? A hundred other things I shouldn’t say because whether they were true or not, they wouldn’t be fair?—he said, “And now I have to stand by and pretend that everything is normal, just perfectly fine, while knowing she’s about to spend the night with another man. A man she does want. And to top off my shittiest day in recent memory, I can’t even get drunk over it because I’m on the clock.”
Forfeiting any distance he’d put between us, he stepped close enough that the flecks of blue in his gray eyes shone under the lights, his voice barely raised over a whisper. “I know I have no claim on this woman whatsoever, and she is free to be with whoever she chooses. But the fact that she isn’t choosing to be with me tonight might actually be killing me. So to answer your question, Sunastara, no. No, I am very much not all right .”
His words were an assault. Quick, darting jabs aimed at my chest. And I decided—clasping my hands behind my back to suppress the temptation to slap him, or possibly grab his face and disappear into his mouth—that his anger was wildly unfair. Only a moment ago, I’d been sinking into an endless pit of despair. But now I was abruptly, intensely, refreshingly enraged. “Now you listen here, Fredrick. I never once said?—”
With a raised hand and an exasperated “pffft,” he shut me down, turned around, and walked away.
The nerve .
“Hey! Stop!” I ran after him, grasping his forearm a second time, again ignoring the spark, the muscles. “You don’t get to just pffft and walk away.”
Wheeling around with fire in his eyes, he ground out, “Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“ Yes , I do,” he insisted. And when I opened my mouth to disagree again—because I’d be damned if he got the last word—his shoulders fell, all the fight leaving his body in a ragged breath. “ Christ , Sunny. What do you want from me?”
In the silence that followed that question, I only stared at him. What did I want from him? I didn’t know. He confused me, confounded me, made the ground beneath my feet slant sideways. I couldn’t stand it.
“You asked me to back off,” he eventually said. “So that’s what I’m doing. But you don’t get to dictate how I do it. You don’t get to tell me you don’t want to be with me, or to even try to be with me, then expect me to react exactly how you want me to. It’s not fair.”
As if gravity had instantly quadrupled, my mouth hinged open, my jaw dropping. “I didn’t… I haven’t…” I sputtered out, my anger ebbing a fraction. Was he right? Was I being unfair?
“You want your space,” he said, his voice strained. “And I really am trying to give it to you.” His features softened as he reached for me, sliding the loose strap of my dress back up my shoulder. “I’m just doing a terrible job of it.”
This time when he turned away, I let him go, watching on in a dazed, bewildered—and somehow also blisteringly aroused—silence as he paused on his way backstage to lean down and scratch Dave the goat between his horns.
Crossing my arms over my chest in an attempt to hold back the emotions warring beneath my ribs—anger, desire, confusion, annoyance, did I say desire ?—I stomped across the ballroom like a petulant teenager. It was possible, I realized, that Freddie had a point. Maybe I was being unfair. I knew I wasn’t perfect; you couldn’t toss a rock on this ship without hitting one of my insecurities. And I’d accepted the blame for wearing that dress. I should have been more careful. But I had been crystal clear with him since his first day on this ship. It wasn’t my fault he was upset with my choice to keep our relationship professional.
He was mad now, but his anger wouldn’t last. Eventually, I had no doubt, he’d realize the atomic bomb he’d avoided by not being with me, and he’d be grateful.
Taking a deep but not very cleansing breath, yanking my dress strap up again because the fucking thing refused to stay put, I forged ahead through the crowd. I still had an Argosian love match to make, and nothing—not wizards or fire dragons or confoundingly gorgeous coworkers—was going to get in my way.