Page 75 of Starrily
Callie froze; but luckily, Simon didn’t. “Right. Yes.” He pointed to a door. “We were just getting there. Got a bit disoriented with all the … trailers.” He pulled Callie into a trailer across the path.
“Nobody will find out, huh?” she said.
“Technically, they don’t know we’re trespassers.” Simon looked around and picked up a catsuit in blue and silver colors. He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
“I’m not wearing that.”
“Of course, you’re not. Clearly, it’s mine. You can have this one.” He tossed a monstrosity in silver and purple at her. “Finding your cat will be much easier undercover.”
This was absolutely ridiculous. And yet, Callie found herself smiling as she turned away to change.
“How do we keep ending up in jumpsuits?” Simon’s voice came from behind.
“You’re asking me? You’re responsible for two out of three instances.”
“Hmm. Fair.”
“What kind of a C-list movie has costumes like this, anyway?” She put on the suit—a rather tight, spandex thingy—and turned around. They looked at each other for a second, then burst into laughter.
“Stop laughing at me. This isn’t my fault!” she said.
“You’re laughing at me, too!”
“Because you look ridiculous!” The silver suit was so shiny he might actually blind her if he stepped into the sun. Well, so would she—hers wasn’t any better.
“Here.” Simon fished a headband with two squishy silver antennae out of the pile and put it into her hair. “Now you’re perfect.”
She put her hands on her hips.
Simon laughed again, clapping his knees. “Beautiful, angry alien.”
“When we find Theia, I’m instructing her to scratch you,” she said, leaving the trailer.
“You’d never.” And, when she didn’t respond, “She’dnever. You’ll see. She loves me.”
“Well, she loves me m—” She stopped dead in her tracks.
“Callie?” Simon paused next to her.
A man exited a trailer down the path. He was wearing a costume, too, but a much more sensible one: a working jumpsuit in dark blue, with an insignia of stars and planets on the shoulder. He was in his mid-forties, and a bit of gray was starting to creep into his dark hair, but Callie would recognize that square, classically handsome face anywhere.
“That’s Jeff Anselm,” she breathed.
Simon scrunched his nose. “Sounds familiar.”
“Captain Wells? From Starship Andromeda?”
“Oh. That old show.”
“It’s notthatold. I watched it in college.”
“Your bedroom wall was covered in his posters, wasn’t it?”
“Hey. There were at least two of the ship itself.” She still had one of them in her apartment.
He leaned to whisper into her ear, “That’s a bad defense, Phoenix.”
“I don’t need to defend myself! It was a great show.”
