Lucy shook her head and gave his pecs a pat. “Go ahead and put me down now. I need to at least get this helmet off before I suffocate.”
Sparx moved quickly at her words, and before she knew it, she was vertical with him tugging off her space suit.
“Why did you not tell me you couldn’t breathe,” he asked, his voice panicked. “Damnit. These buckles are too small for my fingers.”
“Or your fingers are too big for the buckles,” Rue chuckled, pushing his hands out of the way. “And stop fussing, she’s not actually suffocating. She’s just being a drama queen.”
“Oh,” Sparx said on a breath before giving Rue a grateful nod. “Thank you for your assistance.”
“No problem.” Rue lifted up one of her newly shod feet and wiggled it at him. “Quick question…if I don’t end up staying, would I be able to take a pair of these with me? I don’t think I’ve ever felt a more comfortable pair of shoes before in my life, and I’ve even tried the diabetic ones. They sucked.”
“How are shoes diabetic?” he asked.
“They’re not diabetic.” Rue leaned around Sparx and gave her the ‘is he for real’ look. “They’re for people with diabetes.”
“You have diabetes?” Sparx’s expression was one of concern.
“Nope.”
Lucy snorted. She snorted at the way Rue was enjoying herself, but also at the look on Sparx’s face.
He was so adorably confused.
He had no idea if Rue was joking or not—which she wasn’t—and looked as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with her—which was the way people normally looked at her. But he had said thank you, which ticked off a mark in the plus column, as far as Lucy was concerned.
So far, he seemed perfect.
Chapter Fifteen
Four hours later…
Lucy frowned at Sparx’s back as he walked away from her.
Maybe he wasn’t so perfect after all.
“What was that all about?” Rue asked, pushing the hood of her leather cloak back. “One minute you two were making goo-goo eyes at each other, and the next minute he was acting like you had crabs.”
“Rue!” she half yelled, angry at Rue for hitting the nail on the head.
“What?!” Her bestie exclaimed, appearing too innocent for her own good. “All I’m saying is that from the moment he picked you up and began carrying you—through jewel-encrusted caves that you paid literally no attention to might I add—the two of you were undressing each other with your eyeballs. Then, after he offers to bring you to your room, he’s suddenly colder than the cave we walked through to get here.” Rue shot her some side-eye. “Well, all of us but you walked through to get here.”
Lucy flopped back on the bed Sparx had unceremoniously deposited her on before hightailing it out of there. “I don’t know what happened.”
“Those were some mixed signals for sure. What were you talking about while he helped you get your furs on?” Rue climbed on the mattress and crossed her legs as if they were teenagers again having a sleepover. “Come on, tell me. I was too far away to properly eavesdrop and you know it.”
“I can’t even remember,” she said on a sigh, thinking back to the nervous chatter that had spilled out while he was helping her get the boots on. “He said something about how small my feet were, how small I was in general actually. Which was totally weird to hear, right?”
“Compared to them, we are small. Even the two of us,” Rue said, patting Lucy’s thigh. “They’re so big they even make me feel like a fragile flower, and you know that’s crazy. I’ve always been one of the biggest people in the room, and that’s counting some of the men. I don’t know, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of having someone under me I’m not worried I’ll break in half.”
“I know what you mean,” Lucy agreed. “You remember the last online date that I had, right? Tim?”
“Tiny Tim,” Rue said while sputtering laughter. “I totally forgot about that little fella.”
“Don’t call him that,” Lucy admonished, immediately feeling bad for bringing him up for Rue to pick on. “He was nice.”
“He was also a liar, Goose. L-I-A-R.” Rue shook her head. “I still don’t understand why men will list one height on their profile and then show up minus a few inches. I mean, you were expecting 5’11’’ and you got 5’5’’ including the lifts he was wearing.”
Lucy shrugged, wrinkling her nose at the memory of Tim and the awful date that followed. It wasn’t that he was short. Seriously. Coming in at just over five feet tall herself, Tim still was taller than she was. It had been more than his height that had fallen short; it had been his attitude. He’d blustered and complained almost the entire evening. His rudeness to the waitstaff had been an immediate turnoff, but that wasn’t where it ended. The moment he’d started negging her, she was over and done with the entire sham of an evening. She didn’t care if he was suffering from little man syndrome or not, he wasn’t going to get by with being a dick the entire night.
“These rooms are nice.” Rue bounced a couple of times on the mattress. “Not bad.”
“You’re just next door, right?” Lucy asked, scooting on her butt until she was lying down with her head on the pillows. Snuggling her face in, she took a deep breath. “You’re right,” she said without lifting her face, the words muffled.
“Huh?” Rue grunted, flopping down next to her.
Turning her head to the side, she blew the hair that wafted down out of her face. “I said you’re right. These are nice.”
“You look rough, Goose.” Rue touched her forehead briefly before booping her on the nose. “How about I leave you alone so you can take a nap? You can just put your foot up and chill. I know you didn’t sleep very
