Page 23 of Sunastara & the Venusian
I sat as gracefully as I could for someone whose legs wobbled like flicked springs. His arm was still stretched across the table, his hand open and waiting for me, and I couldn’t stop myself from taking it. When his fingers closed around mine, so soft and warm, I knew I’d made a mistake.
I was drawn to him; there was no denying it. But giving in to that pull, letting myself fall into bed with him, possibly into more, would be like willingly venting myself into space: exhilarating at first, painful later, and ultimately disastrous.
Taking a shaky breath, I pulled my hand from his. “It’s fine.”
“It is not fine.” His fingers curled in toward his palm before he placed his hands in his lap. “I was out of line.”
“No, you weren’t,” I said.
“Yes, I was,” he insisted.
“No, you weren’t.”
“Yes—”
Tig wandered into the room, saving us from going back and forth another round. She didn’t notice us, her attention focused on the techPad in her hands, her pink hair poking out from under her hood.
“Afternoon, Tig,” Freddie said.
She jumped, almost dropping her pad but recovering quickly. “Oh. To you too. Um”—she pulled back her hood, taking the seat to my right—“to both of you.”
“Thank you, darling,” I replied while my heart sagged against my ribs, either relieved that my conversation with Freddie was over, or miserable about it. Maybe both. “Are you ready for tonight?”
Tig nodded. “It shouldn’t be too bad this year. Only some fancy lighting, mist generators, sound effects. And, of course, the pyro.” Tig managed all the special effects for the ship’s various events.
“Any concerns about the magic show?” I asked. Apparently the Delphinian wizards planned to “wow the ship” with their tricks during the Fire Ball.
“Right,” Freddie said, straightening his tie. “I heard about what that other group did to the pool on deck sixteen. I wonder what they’ll accidentally mess with this year.”
“I think it’ll be okay,” Tig replied with some confidence. “They seem to know what they’re doing.
“There’s no unexpected group dancing during the show, though, right?” Freddie asked. “There’s a large group of Gorbies vacationing on the ship who want to come to the ball, and I’d prefer not to upset them. They’re already right on the edge with how dry it is in their rooms. The humidifiers are on the fritz, and apparently it’s a ‘nightmare situation’ for their hair.”
On a planet as humid as Gorbulon-7, big, frizzy hair was as much of a status symbol as bountiful crops on Argos or the number of bathrooms in a Martian billionaire’s mansion.
Tig shook her head. “No dancing. But there will be animals. Hopefully nobody has any objections to that.”
“Animals?” Freddie and I said at the same time, equally concerned.
“Well, just one,” Tig clarified. “A goat named Dave. But he’s very well trained.”
“How in the worlds did they get a goat on board?” I asked. “I’ve had no luck at all trying to get a kurot for the FFKs approved for interplanetary travel, and they have a goat?”
Tig’s grin was mischievous as she twirled her fingers in the air and whispered, “It’s magic.”
“No shit? Any chance they could”—I mimicked her finger twirl—“magicme a kurot?”
Freddie snorted.
I was only half joking, but Tig shrugged and said, “I can ask. Oh, and speaking of the pool on sixteen. One of the wizards fixed it for us. She said it was a fairly simple spell. Any child could do it.”
“What?” I scoffed. “We’ve had, like, twenty Delphinians try to reverse that spell. They all said it was impossible.”
Tig shrugged again. “Like I said, these wizards seem to know what they’re doing.”
That was music to my ears. Before that drunk Delphinian’s spell had made it unfillable, I’d gone to the pool on deck sixteen nearly every day. It was the smallest pool on the ship, almost private since only a few guests had known it existed. I used to love swimming laps before bed, or floating on my back and watching the stars slide by through the pool’s flexGlass ceiling. “That is fantastic news.”
Tig grinned. “I knew you’d be happy to hear it.”
