Page 59 of Throwing Fire

“Think breakin’ a toe or two while we’re dancin’ will alienate her?”

Kez knocks my shoulder with her cheekbone. “Snow.”

My perfect kitten, who never forgets. I put my arm around her, clasp her nape in my hand and tilt her head back. “Rather be dancin’ with you.” I give her a kiss on that soft pink mouth. No artificial color on Kez’s mouth. I’ve always liked that. I give her a little heat, but no tongue, since we’re in public. Brush my lips over hers instead of letting her go right away. Enjoy her touch and the lack of overpowering scent. The little monster stirs appreciatively.

Kez curves one long, pale arm up and over my neck. Licks her full lower lip. Grins up at me. “I thought you were supposed to be convalescing.”

“I’m better.” And I am. I feel stronger, more steady and sure, with each passing hour. Doc Gray did a first-class patch-up job on me, and myown modifications are mopping up the rest of the damage. “Definitely better enough to play tonight.”

Her eyes light up like supernovas.

“Christ, would you two get a room?”

I turn my head toward the voice. Find Ape and Chiara a few steps away. Ape’s wearing a black monkey-suit with a silver shirt and tie. With his stocky build, ruddy skin, and blond crew-cut, he looks like an old Earth orangutan. Chiara cleans up better in a long, black gown that bares one whole side of her newly toned body. She’s got something fancy on her head, sparkly with feathers, topping a pile of curls that are black to Kez’s moonlight. Probably the height of fashion. All I can think is that I’d want her to dump them if she had to run.

The heels and curls and feathers make Chiara taller than Ape. At two meters, I’m not insecure about my height, but it would bother me if I had to look up to Kez.

I nod to acknowledge them. Kez turns slightly in my arms so she can smile at her brother and his fiancée.

“You look gorgeous,” Kez says to Chiara.

Chiara blushes. Then she smiles ruefully. “You look dangerous. Both of you. Snow, is that a sword?”

“Yup. Badge of office.”

Kez sniggers.

I flick her on the ear.

While I’m playing with his sister, Ape snags a wait-bot, who surrenders two tall bulbs of bubblingargenté. Kez and I take bulbs of still, clear liquid: T-White, the highest quality water Tyng produces. Zero saline, zero mercury. Zero taste, if you ask me. I like my water with a mineral edge, so I usually buy mine from the mountains. Kind of ironic that we have an endless supply of high-quality water that I don’t like.

Kez tips her chin at theargenté, which is seriously potent. “Take it easy tonight,” she says to her brother.

He rolls his eyes. “Worried I’m going to embarrass you?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?” Kez says.

Over her shoulder, I glare at her brother. Infant.

Chiara breaks the tense moment by leaning in and kissing Kez on the cheek. “See you later, sweetie.” She puts her arm through Ape’s and leads him firmly away towards the clustered tables. Mike, all but invisible in a conservative unisuit, nods to me before he trails them at a discrete distance.

“She’s learning,” I remark to Kez.

She nods. “Too bad Ape isn’t.”

“Hard to be the Prince Consort,” I say. I don’t have much sympathy for Ape, but it can’t be easy to have his whole life dictated by his girl’s family.

“He made his bed.” Kez finishes her bulb and hands it back to a circulating ‘bot.

“Yeah? How’s that?” I’ve never heard the story of Ape and Chiara’s courtship. Kez tells me as we make another circuit of the party. I take it in in snippets as we greet Tyngalings we know, get introduced to their significant others, mothers, brothers and great-aunts-once-removed. They’ve all brought everyone they fucking know. No wonder the party’s so packed.

Ape comes off as the aggressor as Kez tells me the tale: pursuing Chiara from the time they met on the Liquid Circuit, which is an underground club scene Kez and her crew frequent. That Chiara was with someone else when they met didn’t seem to bother Ape, nor did installing her at Kez’s house before her ex was even an ex.

“The kid camped out in front of my house for a week, trying to win her back,” Kez tells me in a lull between a high-level Xec from Jielt who introduces himself only as ‘B’ and shakes my hand a little harder and longer than necessary, and a Secretary of Something from Nock and her nine adult kids. Fucking political pack. “It got so bad I let him sleep in the greenhouse. Helas bit him on the ear the fourth night. Poor guy woke up screaming. I think that’s what finally drove him off.”

“Blood shouldn’t be adeterrent.”

Not if you really want a woman. Never has been for me.

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