Page 17 of All or Nothing
My throat tightened, lightness suffusing my limbs. I was too moved to speak for several seconds. “Oh, um, yes I think that would be a lot of fun! Let me just grab my personal tablet from my quarters—it has all the games on it.” Technically this shuttle was my parents’, but they hardly used it and I often borrowed it for quick trips. Still more technically, now that they’d cut me off my borrowing this craft probably counted as theft, but it wasn’t like I’d been able to ask permission to use it.
I hurried to my quarters and snatched my tablet off my desk. Underneath it was one of my drawings of Verilla, possibly my favorite sketch of her because of how I’d managed to capture the lighting and the fabric of her dress, and seeing it there made me pause. I’d been hung up on her for a while now—she’d been far out of my league and I’d been devastated to find that our relationship was entirely one-sided, but truth be told I didn’t really missher.I missed having a companion, I missed having her on my arm and showing her off, proof that I wasn’t unlovable, but Verilla hadn’t been what I’d missed this whole time. Now that I’d met Joss it was so obvious.
I held the well-worn paper in my hand, staring at what had once been my most cherished drawing, and was shocked to realize that for the first time in a long time, what I felt when I looked at it was…nothing. After a moment of hesitation, I folded the drawing up and tossed it into the recycler. My hearts clenched for a moment, and I braced like somehow Verilla would know what I’d done and try to punish me, but nothing happened, and I turned to rejoin Joss in the command room, smiling a strange little smile.
Once I was back in the pilot’s chair, I showed her several games that two people could easily play on one tablet (since the tablets that came with the ship all had the download function disabled), and we settled on one called Hunters, which had caused several fights between me and Derris in our youth, but which we’d had a lot of fun with nonetheless.
“It sounds kind of likeBattleshipmixed with checkers,” Joss mused as it booted up. Since I’d played it before I went first, holding the tablet so she couldn’t see it and setting the starting locations of my herd. Then, as the hunter, Joss would try and sniff out where the six different creatures in my herd were hiding in a field and stop them. But if I managed to get more than half the creatures from one side to the other then I’d win.
I took my time setting down the starting positions of my creatures, trying to keep them spread out but not too much, in case she tried a scattershot approach to start. Satisfied, I handed the tablet to her so she could take her first turn, and the game was on.
On the first turn, the hunter chose three spots along the starting edge of the field to inspect, and if any of them revealed one of the spaces my creatures occupied (with some of the larger ones taking multiple spaces) then she got another chance to inspect to try and flush the creature out.
Somehow, Joss managed to find one of my creatures on her first guess.
“You peeked!” I cried, forgetting for a moment that I wasn’t playing with Derris this time. I snapped my mouth shut, slouching back in my chair. “I’m sorry,” I hurried to add. My anxiety started to spike, my breaths growing faster and my palms going clammy as my vision went the littlest bit spotty on the edges. I’d only just met this female, had barely agreed to live and work together with her when we got back to Billieu, and I just had to go and ruin it.Stupid, Xollen. Stupid, stupid, stupid…
Joss looked a little shocked for a second, but she recovered quickly, smirking at me. “Listen, it’s not my fault your strategy is terrible,” she quipped, smirking at me in a way that made my stomach flutter. “If you don’t want people to figure out everything on the first turn then you’ll just have to, as we say on Earth, ‘get good’.” Then she giggled, putting her hand on my arm with a warmth I wasn’t expecting. “It’s alright,” she said, her eyes going soft. “If we’re going to be living together we have to get comfortable with each other, right? Become friends? And what better way to get close than to trash-talk each other over a video game?”
Some of her words didn’t translate well, but they still soothed me. I took a shuddering breath, then another, before managing a weak smile. “No, of course you’re right. I suppose I was just…not expecting you to dive right into it.” Merciful goddess, thisfemale.
I lost soundly, but somehow still had more fun than I’d had in years, so I was reluctant to let it end even after we'd had our fill of Hunters. To my surprise, Joss didn't seem to want to stop talking to me either—my brain was certain she was already sick of me and ready to slip away and join her more normal companions in the rec room, but after her third straight victory she merely put down the tablet and turned to me with a question that should not have made me as happy as it did.
"So," she began with a clap of her small golden-brown hands, "what do you want to do now? Watch a movie?"
I cocked my head. "What is a movie? My translator didn't catch that one."
She smiled, looking bashful. "Oh, sure. Um...it's like a story that you watch other people act out...from a...recording?"
I nodded, understanding dawning. "Oh, yes, a holo! Certainly, we can watch one." I opened the appropriate folder on my tablet and handed it to her to browse. "You go ahead and pick something, I'll be just a moment." I shot her a smile and then slipped out to use the hygiene room.
When I returned, I was horrified to find that Joss had found my collection of sappy, dramatic holos that I had been hiding from absolutely everyone my entire life. All it had taken was one encounter with my parents when I was six solars where they teased me and lamented my poor taste to get the message that it was unacceptable for a male to like such dramatic drivel, but I hadn't quite been able to stay away from it. When I felt lonely or sad there was something about them that perked me up and gave me hope. But I'd hidden my collection carefully on my personal tablet. Or so I'd thought.
"Oh! Um, not those—" I sputtered, trying to reach for my tablet before she could see any more. My hearts hammered, panic sweeping through me in a too-bright wave.
Joss looked up at me, her brow furrowed. "Oh, I'm sorry, are these private? I just thought they looked really good. Especially this one,'Til I Die."
That was my favorite one of the bunch, an epic fantasy where a hero went on a journey for selfish reasons and wound up finding himself and his true love instead. My hearts surged painfully in my chest; she wasn't making fun of me for liking what I liked. She was just as interested in it as I was. "It...is one of my favorites," I heard myself admitting with horror. "We—we can watch it if you'd like."
"You're sure?" she asked, watching me carefully. "We don't have to if they really are private. I don't want you to be uncomfortable."
Sweet glory of the Goddess, the things this female was doing to me. Tears threatened at the backs of my eyes, and I swallowed hard and blinked to try and keep them from falling and embarrassing myself further. "No, we will watch it. I...I want you to see it." I smiled at her, then took the tablet from her so I could queue it up on the spare holoscreen here in the control room.
I was damp with sweat, hearts pounding and stomach churning, but it felt good, it feltright, to be showing this to Joss. And if she responded poorly to it, if she made fun of me after all, then it was better to know now, when it was still early into our agreement, when I knew it would be easier to send her on her way. Even if the thought of losing herdidleave me cold.
I didn't pay attention to a single second of'Til I Die, my attention riveted to the fascinating female beside me. I was nervous that she wouldn't like it, or that she'd grow disgusted with me once she'd seen it because of what it would say about me that I liked it. I kept peeking at her out of the corner of my eye, hung on her every expression, watching to see if she laughed when I laughed, if she gasped when I gasped, if she found herself unable to keep the sappy smile off of her face when Callai and Destev finally admitted their feelings for each other.
When I realized that she was moved to tears by the holo, it felt like she'd reached into my chest and cracked both my hearts open. Warmth and feeling so intense it hurt suffused me, igniting me and making me feel alive in a way that scared me. Watching such a sweet and lovely female fall to pieces over the things that I'd only ever allowed myself to love in secret made me feel vulnerable and almost too hopeful.
As the credits rolled Joss turned to me, her eyelashes dark and clumping with the remnants of her tears. "Oh my god, Xollen," she sighed dreamily, smiling wide, "that was amazing! I haven't seen a movie that good in a while. What else do you have? I want to see all of it!"
I melted.
I WAS PRETTYsure Uraka was planning on killing me, and the only reason she hadn’t yet was because Joss and Djelani were so determined to keep me alive. Any time she had something sharp in her hands, she crowded close to me. Every time she looked at me her eyes were full of cold fury. I guessed I couldn’t blame her, given how we’d met, but it still frustrated and annoyed me. I wasreallytrying to put her at ease and prove I meant them no harm.
I turned the rec room into an impromptu dorm for them, grabbing every blanket and spare cushion I could find and dumping them in there for their use. No one except Joss wanted clothes, so I turned all my other spares into pillows by stuffing them into clean linens. It wasn’t a great solution, but they only needed to endure it until we docked at Escheva in three days. Everyone except Uraka seemed happy or at least content, but she seemed…very upset.
Luckily, most of my time was spent with Joss during the long three days standard. We talked a lot about what we might get up to once we landed. I did my best to prepare her for what might come next: we’d report the th'rak slavers at the trafficking shelter, after which they’d all have to give statements to the authorities. Then they’d guide us through the process of getting Joss citizenship and helping the others get home. Once she was in the system, we’d tackle my finances and living situation.
