Page 8 of Claim
He let her slide down his body, and it took her another heartbeat to get her legs back under her.Sheesh.Get swept off her feet once and it was like she’d forgotten how to stand on her own.Luckily he was so tall that she had some time to contemplate the humiliation of crumpling at his feet, her face at the level of his kilt closure…
With that long arm still looped behind her, Mag stared down at her.“Now that I am ghost, what do I do?”
She cleared the lump in her throat.He would be more—much more—than a lump in her throat… Oh geez, she shouldn’t be thinking that about her apex.“Um.We all wait by your throne and cover our eyes and count to a hundred while you go hide somewhere in the hall.Then we try to find you.When someone finds you, they yell, ‘Ghost in the graveyard!’and we all run back to base while you try to catch someone.If you touch them, you make them it.”She lowered her voice.“But really, it’s just an excuse to run around and scream until bedtime.Ollie reminded us how fun that is.”
“Not all Earthers play this game?”
“It depends where you’re from, and whether you have enough friends to play.”She glanced at the escapees watching them from the throne.“Uh, you should probably let me go now.”
He stepped back.“I will hide from you now.”
When his arm dropped away from her waist, the usually temperature-controlled hall felt a little chilly.She just nodded, and when he strode away, she went to the throne to tell everyone he was it.
The orcs exchanged startled glances, but only Ollie piped up.“Isn’t the apex too big to hide good?”
“I think sometimes it’s part of his job to make sure no one can see him,” Adeline said.“So he’ll probably be a tough ghost to catch.”
But she wasn’t looking at her son; she was watching June.
What was that supposed to mean?June stifled another nervous giggle.She hadn’ttriedto catch the apex.
When Ollie started the countdown, each number ratcheted her tension higher.When the boy reached fifty, her nerves broke.“It’s late,” she told Adeline.“And I haven’t gotten very far on your outfits for the Luster.”
“That’s for the work period,” the other woman said.She half closed her eyes.“Now is play time.And we deserve it.”
June tried to squelch an ugly surge of resentment.She knew Adeline had dealt with her own problems in life, but she’d also spent much of that time wealthier than probably June’s whole town.“I guess I’m still not used to so much free time,” she hedged.“I’d rather make sure I get a jump on these looks.It’s the biggest craft project I’ve ever done, and the Luster will be here—or I guess we’ll be at Luster Station—before we know it.”
As Ollie finished the countdown and trilled, “Ghost in the graveyard can’t catch me!”everyone went to hunt the apex—some of the orcs with more than a hint of bemused hesitation—June angled for the nearest exit.While many of the crew were playing in the gather-hall, or at least observing, she also heard voices from the galley as she drifted past.But she didn’t detour for a snack before bedtime.
So many years she’d longed for such companionship, and now she was sneaking away?Despite having her very own chair in the local salon, she’d never felt like she’d truly found her place in the small Nebraska town where she’d grown up.Stumbling upon the Intergalactic Dating Agency and discovering that there was an entire universe of beings who also apparently needed help finding their place had seemed like a dream come true.TheDeepWander, which was its own small town in space, had seemed perfect.
Of course she still needed to do the work.But she’d always done the work.
Making her way through the empty corridors, passing no one except the slymusks that left their bioluminescent glow on the walls, she felt a little like she was still the ghost, lonely and hungry.
Maybe she should’ve stopped for a snack after all.
Back in her quarters (empty and lonely) she made some orc tea and found a leftover dewdrop whorl.The orcs considered it a sweet dessert; she thought it was a little more like one of those French pastries that could’ve been improved with more icing.But the combo felt very artsy as she settled in one of the deep, comfy cushions with her datpad and reviewed the sketches she’d made so far for the Luster exhibition.
No one in her little town had considered her styling anything like an art, of course, even as they added their ten-percent tip to her charge without hardly complaining at all and then booked their next visit.She didn’t consider herself an artist either—not like Sil who sang dust into amazing new shapes—but she’d at least done her part to make her little world more beautiful.No, she wasn’t anything special, and Sil was obviously meant to be with Kinsley, just as elegant Adeline was clearly perfect for Teq.Many of the other orcs, with their jobs in mining and refining theDeepWander’s salvage, were very much like the blue-collar cousins she’d left behind.One of them would be a more than suitable life-mate for her.
So why was her finger sketching such a huge figure on her datpad—bigger than any of the orcs needed to be?
As soon as they got through the Luster,thenshe’d start thinking a little smaller.
Her door chimed, and she jerked upright.“Who is it?”
“Mag.”
Though her startlement faded, for some reason her heart kept up its heavy patter.“Come…” Struggling up out of the cushion to her feet, she cleared her throat.“Come in.”
How did he fill up even more of the space in her room when her friends weren’t there?Hastily, she swept her hand over the datpad, erasing the idle sketch.She didn’t need to save it since the faceless figure didn’t have any clothes on anyway…
She blinked.“Um.You’re supposed to hide in the gather-hall for the game.Not the whole ship.”
He inclined his head.“I hid too well.None of them found me.Then the game cycle came to an end when Adeline said the hatchling needed a bath, and my brother brought out his synthetar and Amma brought out her yezo.My presence was no longer needed.”
June smiled, maybe a little forced.“Sounds like I missed the after-party.”
