“Hey, didn’t know you had such light hair.” Cora slides into the booth seat across from me.
“Grease and dust from working in starship engines make it look black,” I tell her, wondering what she wants.
She looks down at the racegrounds below. “So people like you are the ones who get us up here, huh? Wow.”
I’m not sure if it’s a she’s-impressedwowor a she’s-being-politewow.Or a wow, can we please move on…
I mean, she is a pink. She probably thought starships were magic.
“Believe it or not, I worked as a pharmaceutical scientist’s assistant,” Cora says.
The way that she says it, as if even she is surprised, makes me think she’s looking for an ego boost. “How’d you end up a pink?”
Cora shrugs and tills her eyes skyward like she’s thanking Heaven that I asked the question she hoped I would. “I was born into money. Anything I wanted to learn or try, I could.”
I’m weary of her entitlement already and push my plate aside. She may have gotten into this race selling a hot fart, butas far as I understand, we are equals this week. “So you’ve never been so tired you couldn’t sleep.”
Her smile wanes. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“There’s a point where the stress of staying awake makes you too wound up to relax. I call it zombie mode. If you start seeing a concrete slab as a bed, you’re there.”
She laughs once, then smiles. “You’re funny.”
“Maybe funny looking,” I mutter under my breath.
“What? No.”
“Do you see anyone else looking like a stripper in a huge fishnet body stocking like she’s trying way too hard?”
Cora snorts. “For real, that harness must’ve been painful.”
I lean back in my seat, shifting from my uncomfortable fullness. “Only time I’ve ever been on enough drugs to see a unicorn in moon boots rocketing around my room picking broccoli and singing trance beats.”
“Must’ve been morphenerine.”
“Think so. Don’t really remember, to be honest.”
“I bet.”
“So you’re hoping for a Mindor?”
“What can I say? I’m used to being taken care of. If my mate dies, I don’t want to be alone. Never have been. The thought scares me.” Cora’s finally getting a bit real.
“It’s not that bad,” I offer. “Sometimes, the silence is nice.”
“How can silence be nice?”
“No one is giving you their opinions on how you’re screwing up, lying to you, or manipulating you. Besides, you can let one rip, and no one will hear.”
She hums a note of amusement. “I see why they banded you purple.”
“Oh?”
“Quirky attitude covers struggle, helps you keep going through a tough life.”
A tough life.She has no idea. “Ah. I wasn’t sure. To be honest, I’ve never watched the show. I just picked up the packet one day in a minimart.”
“For real?”
