the vents, turning on the fans to clear Mike’s sex-scent from the cab.

Yeah, it was all over his clothes and clung to his skin and hair.

It was natural, normal, but embarrassing since the only one to breathe it now was his pod-kin. He cracked open the side viewport on his side of the vehicle to let in some air and help the vents clear the area.

Steve said nothing else, but continued to throw glances Mike’s way. Each one felt like a slap. He slanted his own, less friendly, glances in return. If Steve didn’t quit, a swim in the river would happen, tossed in so his star-spotted hair map could bob among the waves like whitecaps.

Steve choked on a laugh.

Mike brooded harder.

Arvidnan had been a fantastic enhancement to Mike’s life. The wound of his adnama’s death still bled. He doubted that wound would ever heal. The vacuum of space had stolen the actual words, but Mike believed, to the bottom of his core, he’d interpreted the message.

Arvidnan had been both demanding and generous. He’d shut down his thoughts to keep Mike from feeling the trauma of his injuries, but one thing came though their link with a force. He’d wanted Mike to live. To do more than that. He’d wanted Mike to love.

Sweet stars, it fucking hurt. With every awakening, the hurt stabbed him in his heart. Finally, he couldn’t take the sideways glances anymore.

“Eyes on the path,” Mike snapped to his pod-kin.

“Sorry,” Steve said.

Steve didn’t sound apologetic. In fact, apology wasn’t the emotion coming from his pod-kin. It was closer to delight. Mike wondered if the pressure to say what was on Steve’s mind would cause him to pop a vein in his skull, so he gave in with a sigh.

“You may as well say it,” he grumbled.

Steve didn’t hesitate. “Welcome back to the game.”

“What game?”

“The game of life.”

He’d been on this planet for only two orbits, but he’d learned enough of the local vernacular to know a turn of phrase that was perfect for a moment just like this.

“Fuck off.”

CHAPTER 3

“Liam? Get out here, man!”

The excited shout pulled Liam’s attention away from his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He couldn’t call it “morning” when he managed to haul his ass out of bed, but at least it was Monday. Or had he lost a day and it was Tuesday A.M.?

Judging by the sick-ass cast to his face, he could have. Red-eyed and with a mouth that tasted like a trashcan, he could have been on a serious bender. Unless someone had dropped some serious party favors into his beer, though, a trashed weekend wasn’t what he remembered.

Liam spun his recent memories in his mind. He remembered the Festival; the dancing; Gorgeous; grinding on Gorgeous; the kiss—holy hell, the kiss—the mob after them; him getting dragged away by his buddies and to their RV parked at the campground; the mob following them; security protection summoned; Sunday spent with men in black; and finally, back home Monday dawn to crash.

No, not a bender, but something else, something way more fantastic.

He shrugged away the shout from the other room and tipped his head to the side to resume his study of the bruised skin at the hollow of his left ear. A hickey. Really? When was the last time he’d had one of those?

“Get the fuck in here!”

Matt’s shout was joined by other voices, those of his roommates, who also howled his name in summons. Eh, whatever.

He wiped the last bit of toothpaste foam from the side of his mouth and shoved the toothbrush onto his shelf in the medicine cabinet. A flick of his wrist swung the mirrored door closed, and he headed out of the bathroom toward the excitement.

In the living room, he discovered his four roommates perched on the dilapidated furnishings, staring at the scratched, divorce-sale television set against the wall. The display reported what looked and sounded like a live news feed from CNN. So fixated were they on the presentation, none of his roommates commented on his arrival.

“What?” Liam griped.

They hissed at him like a nest of snakes. Jeff grabbed the remote and turned the volume up. All the way up. Soon the voiceover narrative filled the room loudly enough that his ears rang. Or maybe his ears rang because his name and face were on the TV.

“What the hell?” He pushed farther into the room. The back of the sofa forced him to stop. He squinted, refused to believe, but yeah. That was him.

Someone had released the video of his brief make-out session at the festival to the news, and the news thought it was newsworthy. So, there he was, in all his vapid glory, tongue dancing with an alien amid the bright, neon lights of Paradiso.

“You gotta be shitting me,” he said.

“It’s all over the news,” Alex replied. He’d tilted the bowl of cereal in his hands and didn’t seem to realize it was streaming white liquid over the side and onto the stained brown carpet.

“Every channel.”

“Quiet,” Justin snapped. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his gaze unwavering on the screen. “Let’s hear.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Liam grumbled, “you don’t need to hear. You were there, you—” His tongue froze and his mouth went dry.

The screen now displayed the Urilqii’s mouthpiece, Mr. Robertson, standing at a podium in front of a crowd of news people and speaking into a cloudburst of microphones. Gorgeous stood beside Robertson. There was no way Liam could ever forget his— Shit.

“Liam, you seeing what I’m seeing?”

The screen had flicked to the soldier on the other side of Robertson. Or was this guy Gorgeous? What the hell? Two of them?

“Which one is your guy?”

That sounded like Jeff, but it was hard to tell with the buzzing in his brain. And in order to answer that question, Liam needed a closer look. He stepped over the back of the sofa, almost knocking Alex in the back of the head with his foot, and closed in

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