I might stare at that bulge a little.
Okay, a lot.
"You look beautiful," Adiron says, a big smile creasing his blue face. Even his horns look buffed, the silver shiny, and I wonder if he spent all afternoon getting ready to impress me.
"You're…impressive." My cheeks feel hot just saying that.
As if he knows what I'm thinking, he grabs his junk. "Looks good in this, right? I figure I have one chance to impress you, so I might as well go all out. And you DID say to wear something sexy."
The absurdity of the situation gives me the giggles, and I put a hand to my mouth, trying to stifle them. It doesn't work, though, and I just keep on giggling. He just grabbed his junk. Right in front of me.
Adiron grins. "I know, right? But sometimes it pays to play the handsome pirate, so I bring out this uniform for those occasions." He mock-adjusts the tiny silver buttons at his wrists. "Learned that one from Kivian."
"Who?"
"Captain of the ship my sister's on now." Adiron winks at me. "If you look like a hot piece of tail, you can distract people into thinking you're little more than that. It gets you a lot further than you'd think." He moves toward me and puts a hand out. "Speaking of, did I mention how magnificent you look?"
"I'm open to hearing it again," I tell him in a light voice and put my hand in his.
He takes my fingers and lifts them to his lips, kissing them, and I admit it, my silly heart flutters like wild. He gives me a rakish grin, too. "Saw that in one of your human vids."
"It's…a good move," I agree, breathless.
"There are a lot of human vids about courtship, which I find fascinating. Most of ours are either gladiator battles or just go right to the keffing." He shrugs and then takes my hand and leads me toward the table, which he's covered with a tablecloth…another bedsheet from the extra linens we have stored. I recognize the faint gray pattern on it. "May I pull out your chair for you?"
"Of course," I say, charmed and more than a little amused. "You must have watched a lot of vids."
"My sister Zoey was obsessed with them. I think I spent months of pay just getting her bootleg human vids instead of actually doing anything productive with my credits." He chuckles as he pulls my seat out and, once I'm seated, pushes it back in.
"You must love your sister very much."
"She's one of the five best things in my life," Adiron admits.
"Five?" I ask. "Your brothers, your sister…that's three?"
"Our ship," he says, ticking a finger off as he sits down across from me. "That's four."
"And five?" I ask.
"You can't guess?" His grin is positively devilish.
"Me?" My voice is squeaky with surprise. "I'm on that list? After only a few days?"
"I didn't say where on the list," he points out, impish.
And I have to laugh.
36
ADIRON
I'm sweating. I hope Jade doesn't notice that I'm sweating, but…keff me, she's beautiful.
She's beautiful, and I'm so keffing nervous.
I wipe my hands on my legs, my palms sweaty. Sure, I've been pretty blatant in my affection for her, but to think that she's actually halfway interested in a rock-head like me is hard to believe. I'm going to kef this up, I know it. I'll say something stupid and then all that interest in her face will die away. I'd give anything to be half as smooth as Kaspar, and he's not all that smooth.
Jade smiles at me as if she senses my nervousness. She cocks her head slightly and gestures at the room. "Well? You promised me fine dining and music if I showed up. I can't wait to see how you manage that."
Right. Music. Food. Romance. I can do this. The trick is to keep her laughing. If she's having a good time, she won't be disappointed in what an idiot I am. So I make sure she's settled in her chair and then pull out the covered tray I've prepared. "Music first, then dining." I set the tray on the table and unveil what's underneath—a few standard containers, all of them bottoms-up. I immediately start to drum out a beat, using my hands. I lift my head and let out a ululating wail, starting into an old Sakh rhyme that we're taught back in our boyhood days. It's a combination that never failed to make Zoey erupt into fits of laughter when she was young, because it sounds so outlandish to human ears. I figure Jade will get a kick out of it, too.
So I beat the drums. Close my eyes and wail some more. Drum. Wail. Drum. Wail.
And as I finish the wailing first verse of the rhyme, I notice that Jade isn't laughing. She's utterly silent. I squeeze one eye open and she's frozen across from me, a tumbler of water half-raised to her lips. Her eyes are wide and startled.