Page 8 of Sloane

"First of all, you're going to love the cookies," I say, pointing my whisk at Essa and not removing it until she relents and nods her head. "Second of all," I look at Jovi and give him a seductive smile. "I get to flirt with anyone whenever I want."

Jovi's violet flush grows even more underneath his arms, and he shifts in his seat, obviously affected by me. I chew on my lower lip, wondering if this is really going to be much of a job if I'm already enjoying myself so much.

four

Alik

The three comm screens I have on my desk are supposed to be used to help me find information on the smuggling ship we're trading with in a couple of weeks. What they're not meant for is to be solely focused on three areas of my own ship where Sloane likes to hang out.

One camera watching the entertainment room, one in the kitchen, and the third in the navigation pit because she's been hanging out with Phial and Holoth, much to my displeasure.

I take a deep breath and rub my eyes. I've been watching the screens off and on since yesterday when I maybe reacted in a stronger way than I should've. Thankfully, Phial is a good friend, and he's been on the ship long enough to know I'm not normally that volatile.

He accepted my apology as soon as I stopped by his room last night. He didn't even let me get the words out before he was laughing and telling me it was fine.It's not the first time I've hadto apologize for being an ass, but it's the first time it's happened over a woman.

As soon as the apology was over, I began my surveillance of our ship. We have cameras set up around the ship, but most of them were switched off until I turned them back on. I might've waited until everyone was asleep to do it, because I do have some shame.

Anytime Jovi's been in our shared room, I've flicked the monitors off. He will no doubt make fun of me as soon as he finds out how I kill my time hidden away in our room. He's not in here often. Not when he gets to spend so much of his time flirting and courting Sloane.

It's not something he should get used to since Sloane will be gone as soon as this mission is over. As much as we'd love a permanent pleasure crew member, no one has ever been interested. I doubt Sloane will want to stay, either.

I don't blame any of the past pleasure crew females. They were here for a job, and they completed their job. I just wish that one of them, preferably the human female working with us now, would want to keep working for us.

Movement in my leftmost monitor has all of my attention moving to it. Sloane walks through the door to the kitchen, laughing as Essa follows right behind her.

I gave myself two rules when I started watching Sloane through the video feeds. The first is that I cannot, under any circumstance, turn on the camera in her room, even though all I want is to make sure she's safe. The second rule is I don't turn on the audio, so I can't hear what she's saying to anyone. I know I'm crossing so many boundaries already by watching her in communal areas. I don't need to make myself more pathetic by listening in.

"Are you serious?" Jovi asks from right behind me.His lower hands slam down on my shoulders, holding me in place in my chair because he knows I'm about to try to scramble away.

I growl, try to jump, and quickly turn off the monitors as though that will stop Jovi from having already seen that I'm stalking our human crew. Shame and embarrassment wash over me, so much so that my entire chest is violet. Jovi laughs harder and spins me around to face his stupid, smiling face.

"I don't think this is legal," Jovi says as he releases my shoulders. He tosses a cookie at me, but I'm still too startled to react. The cookie hits me in the chin before falling into my lap.

"I don't need to explain how I keep this ship safe to you," I growl, trying to regain some amount of dignity.

My statement is more or less true. Technically, and by the barest of metrics, I'm the captain of the Jolly Folly—yes, it's a dumb name for a ship. Essa can never know how terrible we all think it is. She was so proud when she told us.

When Jovi, Essa, and I all chipped in to buy our own ship, the Intergalactic Alliance needed a contact for the captain of the ship. While they both argued about it being one of them, I filled out the paperwork and sent it in. They never stopped their bickering until we got the confirmation notification that we could apply for jobs.

"Keeping us real safe from…" Jovi walks over to my monitors, swats my hand away from the one I'm guarding, and turns it on. "The females befriending one another in the kitchen. Those sneaky females always making us so unsafe."

I can hear the mockery in his voice. I choose very purposefully to ignore it. "I'm making sure our cameras work inside the ship in case the need arises."

"Need arises?" Jovi tilts his head to the side, resting his hands on his hips. It's clear he doesn't believe me, but he drops the topic. "When are you coming to hang out with everyone?"

"Hang out?" I ask.

The crew has been together in its current state for six years now, and we all get along pretty well. The only time things get iffy is on missions when Jovi and I have pleasure crew members. Not that I've ever acted like I did yesterday because I never have. The stress of being on a mission is enough to have Jovi and me more on edge. When that happens, we need pleasure crew members to help us calm down.

What we don't do is hang out with everyone when there's a pleasure crew member because being around other males when there's an eligible female around only has the length of the calm shortening. It's why Jovi and I stick to being around one another during missions unless the whole crew is meeting to talk about said mission.

"Yeah, come be normal around all of us," Jovi says, like it's something we've done with a pleasure crew before. "You'll like Sloane even more once you get to know her. She's so funny and clever, and she really seems to care about being friends with everyone. Essa loves her already."

"And how has it been for your irritability?" I ask.

When we're around everyone and a pleasure crew, we're on the brink of biting the other crews' heads off by now. I already have. Jovi seems more relaxed than normal, which is frustrating, considering I feel like something is crawling underneath my pelt.

"I think I'm doing a lot better than you are," Jovi laughs as he leans against the wall. "Seriously, you're going to keep yourself on edge in here all alone."

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