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“Just be yourself,” she repeated under her breath.
There were other instructions too. Like a strict command to ping a connection no more than twenty-four hours after she was on the colony ship. Or else. She didn’t worry about that too much. At this point getting into the orbit of the damn colony was the primary hurdle.
So she slid off her wobbly barstool and walked over to Orion Halen. For a second or two she hovered, staring at the broad back hunched over a shot glass of H2O. The collar of his synthleather jacket was lifted at the back, covering his neck. She smoothed her palms over the khaki pants stretched across her upper thighs and fingered for the knife in its sheath on the side of her leg, just making sure it was there.
Then she tried a little cough.
Orion turned his head toward her just a little, his jawline in sharp relief under the bar of the lights.
“H2O is a stupid name.” Kaia plopped her ass onto the rusted metal stool next to him.
The man’s scent hit her like a rush of air. She couldn’t put words to it exactly, but it was vaguely familiar. Kaia had been so used to the musky smell of human sweat mixed with the powder soap they all used that she was not prepared for the assault of cologne.
But this… Once her nose adapted to the potent sensation, Kaia realized Orion smelled pretty nice. There was something fresh underneath it, yet a warm bitterness on top.
“What is that?” She asked, finally turning to face him, and he was already there to meet her gaze.
Kaia fought the urge to recoil. Ice blue eyes tunneled into her face. Small pupils locked her down, unshifting, and she thought she saw something glowing underneath that had to be a trick of the shitty light in the bar. Kaia blinked fast, breaking the contact. He just had weird eyes, that's all. Lots of people looked weird around here.
“What’s what?” he drawled in a deep rumble.
“Your smell. That bitter thing.” Kaia elaborated, gathering the pieces of her resolve.
Orion shrugged, a lazy movement of one shoulder. “Coffee.”
Of course.
Memories of black pots on the fire and her father dissolving caffeine powder inside them brought recognition. She smelled it all the time as a kid, the one luxury her parents never skimped on down at Artega Seven.
“So you gonna tell me or what?” The question brought her back to the very uncomfortable present.
“What?”
“Why is H2O a stupid name?”
“Because that shit isn’t pure. Pure as we got, sure, but it’s hardlyH2O.”
Everyone knew pure H2O was a delicacy only the wealthiest and most privileged would ever try. It wasn’t even healthier—water needed minerals, salts. Rich assholes got hard for it just for the prestige. Pretended to appreciate the “taste”, when as far as Kaia heard, there was none.
“You always this pedantic, or did a rod just crawl up your ass?” Orion looked offensively bored.
Her cheeks flared, and the retort was on the tip of her tongue, but she was interrupted by the loud crack—Theo’s wrinkled palm slamming against the composite surface of the bar.
“Well?” Theo glared at her.
Kaia gritted her teeth. She hadn’t been expecting to be wasting her hard-earned take at the bar that night. But Theo would not tolerate her hanging around without buyingsomething.
“Gimme a kerogel,” she said, waving her wrist over the scanner, cringing when the vibration of a balance being deducted buzzed against her skin. Most people on Riker 109 didn’t have ID implants—they wore tags for that. But Loran had forced one on her when he earmarked her for the lower rings. He made a rule of ensuring his whores were trackable at all times. Couldn’t afford to have them making relationships and giving the goods away for free.
Kaia glanced to her right just in time to catch the flinching scowl on Orion’s mouth. He clearly didn’t approve of her cheap alcohol choice. She didn’t give a shit, ripping the plastic top off the packet Theo threw at her and squeezing a dollop onto her tongue. She cringed when the sickly sweet first taste morphed into a bitter kick. In the corner of her eye, Orion downed the remainder of his water in a gluttonous gulp.
“Another,” he said.
Theo and Kaia exchanged glances as he produced another shot of not-so-pure-but-pure-enough water, waiting until it had been paid for before setting it in front of Orion.
“Careful with waving that thing around here,” Kaia jerked her chin at the shot glass perched between Orion’s long fingers. “You aren’t exactly at the finest establishment in the sector.”
“Thanks for the tip.” Orion downed the second shot.
