Page 69 of Sunastara & the Venusian
she replied.
Shit.
Alone it was. I could handle it. I could somehow avoid curling up in my bed and spending the next two hours thinking about?—
Elanie commed cryptically.
Normally, I would press her on this, make sure she wasn’t making things harder for herself just to help me—which bionics were known to do. But today, I was desperate.
I commed, laughing miserably at myself.
I groaned. Until she said,
One very dirty martini later,the tightness that had bound my chest all day finally inched loose. I’d needed to talk to someone about Freddie, and Elanie cared just enough to listen, but not enough to offer advice, and she would never tell another soul if I asked her not to.
“You love him?” She asked this with a genuine curiosity, like she wanted to know in what possible equation variable A and variable B would combine to produce the solution of two beings falling in love.
I nodded, plopping the olive from my second martini into my mouth. “Unfortunately.”
“What does it feel like? Being in love?”
“Right now,” I said. “It’s a bit like an icepick through the heart.”
“What?” she blurted out, incredulous. “Why in the worlds would anyone want to feel like they were being stabbed in the heart?”
I was being sarcastic, but Elanie was not. So I answered her question as honestly as I could. “The problem with love, darling, is that it doesn’t feel this way all the time. It always hurts, at least a little. But only because it’s so precious. You don’t want anything bad to happen to it. Because when you’re in love, you get to experience feelings that are so much bigger than that little hurt.”
She leaned in so close I was a little worried she’d fall off her barstool. “What kind of feelings?”
“Excitement, for one,” I said. “The way your heart thumps and your breath catches when you see each other. It’s intoxicating. And then there’s the comfort of knowing you’ve found another soul in the universe who sees you, really sees you—that to them, you matter.” I took her hand, a bit surprised that she let me. “It is important to feel like we matter, Elanie. Also the joy. It is a joyous thing, being in love. Being loved in return. And when it’s true, it should be cherished.”
“But it isn’t true love with Freddie? It isn’t comforting or exciting or joyous?”
Releasing her hand, I downed the rest of my martini, then forced myself to say a heart-wrenchingly dishonest “no.”
Lettingmyself get tipsy before a work function with special guests was something I would typically never do.Thankfully, the Kravaxians weren’t opposed to alcohol. After the main course, we were all a bit soused. All except for Rax and Morgath, standing stalwart by the door, their arms crossed, their scowls menacing. And Elanie, who would rather shave her head and eat her own hair than lose an ounce of control over herself in public.
Tig and Reya seemed to be getting along at least, talking all through dinner with bright smiles. Tano and Marisia had spent most of the night in silence, occasionally joining Chan and Freddie in whatever they were talking about. I didn’t know. I couldn’t look in Freddie’s direction without reality shouldering its way into my buzz. So I spent my time chatting with Axel.
“How long have you worked on this ship?” he asked, swirling the Ulaperian red in his glass.
Not wanting to subject myself to the worst hangover of my thirties after no sleep in more than twenty-four hours and two martinis on an empty stomach, I took a sip of my vitoWater and said, “Going on five years.”
“What did you do before?”
I didn’t mean to glance to the side. I didn’t mean to lock gazes with Freddie for a breathless moment. I didn’t know he’d already been looking at me. “I worked on another LunaCorp ship,” I said, suddenly too warm. “One across the wormhole that traveled between New Earth and Mercury. How about you?” I raised my glass to my lips. “What did you do before LunaCorp snatched you up for BLIX?”
“Deep-space piracy, of course,” he said with a wink.
I choked on my water.
When Axel touched my shoulder, I heard Freddie cough across the table. “I’m only joking,” he explained with a low chuckle. “Customs. I worked in customs.”
“I see,” I said, clearing my throat. “So you allowed all the pirated goods to come into your planet legally, then.”
