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“No, you’re going straight into the bath,” Margot says. “You still have that other interview later this morning, and you have three days’ worth of crap to wash out of your hair.”
I freeze in the middle of the hallway. So close. I was so close to diving into those thick, billowy blankets. Grumbling, I turn on my heel and make my way back toward the bathroom.
“Fine, but this unit better have a whirlpool tub big enough to drown an entire house party in it or I’m rioting,” I say, then close the door behind me.
4XAVIAN
Instead of waiting hours for Aiken to finish up, I decide to cut my losses after a single beer and take a walk. No destination in mind. Just a walk around the streets of Latrixia, doing a little window shopping and who knows what else. The women of the brothel aren’t particularly heartbroken to see me leave. They’re tired of putting up with me and my awkward small talk, anyway.
Stopping at the corner, I glance down the busy sidewalk to find a long queue wrapped around a building. Twice. Do people in this city ever fucking sleep, or is that a foreign concept? Cigarette smoke billows through the air, some of it even strawberry scented. Gross.
As I pass the club, I’m forced to push through the throng of people in glittery, skin-tight outfits, and I roll my eyes. The music piping out of the front doors is loud. Too loud for my taste. I’ve never been a club sort of guy, preferring either a dive bar and a glass of whisky or to stay the hell home.
But Latrixia is located on the party planet of Sar Nouveau. Finding a dive bar will be harder than finding a sidewalk not covered in vomit.
Someone brushes past me clumsily, knocking into my arm so hard I actually take notice. I’m too large to move. Unless you’re a Gorcian, which this person is definitely not. Wearing a baggy gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over their head, the rude little asshole scurries off down the street and stops right in front of a neon yellow sign that readsLayla’s Bar and Grill.
Outside, a Humanoid robot beeps cheerfully at them, ushering them inside. Aha. Perfect. Looks like my rude little friend led me straight to the perfect watering hole.
I pull my blond mane, now damp from the rain, into a ponytail, step inside the bar, and look around. Okay, so it’s a lot bigger on the inside than it looks from outside, but at least it doesn’t reek of smoke. It’s dark in here. Too dark to see all that well, but I make out the Gorcian bartender behind the dark black bar, wiping glasses and chatting with the alien patrons.
Nothing special. It’s perfect.
I take a seat at the bar and feel at least a dozen eyes on me almost immediately. The person who crashed into me outside sits to my right, their hood still pulled up. The bartender shuffles toward me and rumbles a low growl. Working with Aiken for so long has prepared me for all sorts of interactions with his species. Even when they do know Universal, they prefer not to speak so much as grunt. The Gorcian seemed friendly enough with who I can only assume were his regulars, but for me, he only gives a curt nod. It’s easy enough to point to the bottle of rye whisky on the shelf behind his shoulder, and he nods his approval before grabbing it and pouring me a glass. No words necessary.
The little hooded figure next to me, however, clearly doesn’t know how Gorcians operate. They toss a few credits onto the bar and tap their nail onto the counter impatiently. The Gorcian eyes them up and down and snorts. Snorting is never a good sign as far as Gorcians are concerned. You hear them snort and, unless you have a swift apology ready or you’re a brilliantly fast runner, it’s probably the last thing you’ll ever hear.
“Order something,” I say, looking down at the top of their hood. “And quickly.”
A soft, feminine voice says, “I’ll have a moondust shimmer on the rocks with extra moondust.”
The Gorcian’s eyes narrow. My throat tightens. All I wanted was quiet, and now I’m about to see someone get their ass handed to them.
“All out of moondust, sweetheart,” I say. “She’ll have a glass of the house white.” And I point my chin at the bottle on the Gorcian’s left. “Put it on my tab.”
Little Miss Hoodie doesn’t move and inch. “You didn’t have to do that. I was fine.”
The bartender places a glass of white wine in front of her and shuffles off. Crisis averted. For now.
“You were about to become another stain on the floor, sweetheart,” I drawl before tossing the shot of whisky down my throat. It burns in the best way possible. Because it has to be imported from Terra, rye whisky is obnoxiously difficult to get, so when I see it being offered anywhere, I always order it. Helps to keep the homesickness from creeping in.
She scoffs. “Yeah, right. He’s a bartender. He’s not going to hurt his patrons. That would be bad business.”
Naïve of her, but I’m not surprised.
“You believe what you want to believe, but you should probably thank me for saving your life. Bartender or not, that wasn’t going to go down well for you.”
The mystery woman picks up her glass, swirls it, and raises it to the lone light behind the bar, trying to check the liquid within. “This looks terrible.”
“You’re used to better, I take it?” I look down at the top of her gray hood and scowl. “It’s a dive bar. What did you expect when you came in here?”
She shrugs, still not bothering to look up at me. It’s like she doesn’t want anyone to see her face. “I’m sorry,” she says, “did I ask for your fucking opinion?”
Oof. This girl has some serious balls on her. It makes me want to yank her hood down just to see who exactly I’m dealing with, but she’s not worth the escalation. Instead, I merely grunt and go back to sipping my drink while the rest of the bar starts to thin out. When I check the time on my terminal, I see it’s three in the morning.
“So … what’s a woman of your size doing out this late, at a bar?” I ask.
She doesn’t dignify my question with a response. Not like I expected her to, but damn, I’m curious. A woman of her size, in that outfit, alone in a bar at this time of night? It doesn’t seem right. She looks like she’s running from something, and this damned bleeding heart of mine won’t be satisfied until I know she’ll be safe. Either old habits really do die hard, or Aiken’s been rubbing off on me. Or maybe it’s both. Who knows.
