He laughed and knocked me away. “So that’s your type — muscle-bound and sweaty?”
“I’ve been fucking around with you, haven’t I?” I yelped when he smacked my thigh. “You best be careful, you know I like that kind of treatment.”
“We were having a nice moment with the stars, and you ruined it.”
Precisely.
“You’ve ruined plenty of moments. You’re practically a known mood killer,” I replied.
He scoffed. “When?”
“You always try to discuss serious topics.”
“Ethin, I say this with the utmost disrespect, but compared to your usual discussions, most topics would be considered serious.”
I smirked, my chest so warm I feared spontaneously combusting. “Fair point.”
Roys’ commlink went off. Wide-eyed, he scrambled onto his feet. A new smile came across his face like I had never seen, his eyes bright, enthusiastic. He nodded toward the doors. “I have to go. Come back inside, please.”
“What’s the rush?” I had barely got the question out by the time he reached the door.
“Get inside or I’m teaming you up with Galya again.”
Then he was gone, though I heard his earth speak as the doors closed. I sat there dejected… and disappointed.
021
Whatirritatedmemostabout 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.”
