Page 46 of The Pleasure Contract

I fucking hate whenever the guys call me that.

“But you could do it?” Lois jumps in to ask, cutting off the growl building in my throat. “You could contact my mom?”

Pax sticks his tongue into the side of his cheek as his eyes bounce from me to Lois and back again. He’s thinking it through. The difficulty of the task. The risks. I hope he’s also thinking about the times I had a word with Coach to give him a chance, how I saw that talent he has before anyone else, and championed him to be part of the team.

It’s when his shoulders sag that I start to grin.

“Fuck it,” he huffs, finishing off his bottle in one gulp.

20

Lois

“Are you sure you are well?” Pax asks me yet again as he looks up from his work.

I nod my head just like before, and clutch one of his decorative cushions to my front until he goes back to working.

It’s not like I’m unwell per se – it’s just that I feel about as anxious as a vampire at a garlic festival.

For one, Az thinks this guy can hook me up with a way to contact my mom. And if I get to hear her actual voice, I am absolutely going to burst into giant, ugly tears.

Ditto for if this whole thing doesn’t work, too.

And for two, Pax currently has DJ in front of him with a little hatch opened up so he can tinker about with her insides, and… well, as weird as it might sound, I’ve become quite attached to the little weirdo of a flying jukebox, and witnessing all this feels like I’m watching someone perform brain surgery on a loved one.

It’s not really helping my nerves that Pax keeps snorting pinches of this hot pink glittery stuff he keeps in a small box on his coffee table, either.

“Since when did you do that shit, P?” Az asks as we both watch the strange drug make his gray skin light up in tiny little twinkles – like he’s suddenly got multicolored fairy lights under his skin.

“Everyone in the Capital does it during off-season,” Pax shrugs. “Besides, the buzz only lasts a minute and helps with clarity, the lights-” he pauses to wiggle his twinkly fingers, “-last maybe an hour or two.”

Az grunts and folds his arms over his massive chest. “I’ve heard stories about Ceraphrixi getting hooked on that stuff pretty bad.”

Pax pulls down this visor thing that magnifies his left eye to a comical size. “Good thing I’m not Ceraphrixi, then,” he grins before going back to his work, tinkering around inside DJ. “Seriously, Az. It’s a problem for some species, but not us. No different to a few drinks, except it leaves you in a prettier state for the females to look at.” Pax looks up to me for a very brief moment, but thinks better of it when Az is very obviously not ok about that.

I pay no attention to any of this, though; I’m too worried about Pax being high-off-his-horns on space-glitter while poking all kinds of tools inside my friend.

“Lois,” Az says, his deep voice dragging me out of my anxiety-fog. “Pax here is the smartest Xaviann I know,” he says. “If there’s a way to contact your mother, he will find it.”

He then pointedly looks down at my leg – my leg that’s bouncing.

I take a breath and force my leg to be still.

After what seems like hours later, Pax finally says, “Okay, I think I’ve got everything I need.” I hold my breath. “I tried to patch a line to her personal comms unit, but there are too many carrier restrictions and encryption layers for me to get through.”

My heart sinks. That will be her phone – and I bet her diligence about cybersecurity is what’s causing the blockage.

“But,” Pax continues with a grin, “there is an autonomous sanitizing bot linked up to the same home network, and its encryption standards are quite frankly offensive.”

I blink at him.

“Seriously, even Az could hack this thing,” Pax tries again.

Az shoves his leg with his boot.

“Wait, wait, wait… autonomous sanitizing bot? Like for cleaning? A cleaning robot? On Earth?”

Pax side-eyes Az and then nods back at me. “Yes. It’s running right now. Sweeping something called a living room.”