Jun sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He grabbed his trousers from the floor and jumped into them with both feet at once. Theo made a valiant effort not to fixate on the still-visible shadow of dark curls at the open front to the exclusion of all else.
Jun hesitated, then slowly, gently combed through Theo’s mussed hair and rubbed a few strands between his fingers. His expression was anything but distant when he met Theo’s eyes. “You should get some rest, Theo. Tonight, you were— That was—was really, um…”
He looked so lost, floundering beneath that tough, inked-up, muscled exterior, it made Theo’s stomach flutter with simmering affection.
Taking mercy on his captain, Theo stroked a hand up the outside of his thigh with an understanding expression. “Good?”
Jun’s relief at not having to articulate the thought himself was palpable and gave Theo the oddest urge to gather him into his arms. He gusted out a grateful sigh. “Yes. That. You were. You are.”
Theo padded after him to the door, carelessly nude and love-rumpled. Jun stopped in his tracks to stare at him like a starving man before a feast when Theo dangled one crushed red satin ribbon in front of his face. “Dream of me, Captain.”
Jun’s nostrils flared as Theo tucked the ribbon into Jun’s front pocket with a conspiratorial smirk and a little pat.
The door slid closed across Jun’s stricken face, his Valor hand raised to cover his pocket as if it contained something precious.
Something he didn’t want to lose.
Chapter Nineteen
Theo wore his cravat to the bridge in the morning, the thin layer of linen and lace covering up the enduring marks Jun had left in the shape of his mouth.
It was strangely akin to the imagined sensation of wearing a lover’s locket tucked away beneath his clothes. Something beautiful and secret, a trifle risqué, that only Theo and Jun knew about.
The very thought of such a thing brought a spring to his step. The rest of the Crew did not share his jocular mood.
Marco rushed in and out of the bridge with various small metal parts for Jun’s inspection, until one finally passed muster and he jetted off to his lair in the bowels of the ship, cursing in Patch.
Theo now had a decent (or, rather, indecent) vocabulary built up in the language.
He had yet to use it and was waiting for just the right opportunity to catch Jun unawares. To make him smile, perhaps.
Every one of Axel’s screens held maps and figures that scrolled too rapidly for Theo to follow as the pilot worked at his station with unusual focus, not a snack in sight.
Boom and Jun stood grim-faced before their stations, shouting back and forth with tense, clipped voices. “Orders, Captain?” Boom asked.
So many screens hung open above Jun’s console that the translucent rectangles overlapped one another. He moved one angrily aside with the cut of his hand. “Commence defensive preparations. Our contact will be waiting on Drei X in six hours.”
Grimacing, Boom entered something into her console that caused one of the dozens of closed doors on her screen to slide open and reveal a stack of metal crates somewhere inside the ship. “Drei X? They really don’t want to be seen in our company if they’re dragging us all the way out to the Wastes.”
Still focused on his screens, Axel gave a low, foreboding whistle. “You gotta admit, we don’t exactly have a stellar reputation. Makes sense to lay low. Keep our grubby little noses out of big Crew business.”
Jun swiped away three more screens with a growl. “Cowardice is never rewarded.”
Cracking his neck, Axel leaned back in his seat with a disdainful snort. “Yeah, okay. Thank you for that dour bit of wisdom, Captain. Where are you gonna get that one tattooed? I think there’s still some space left on your pinky.”
Theo stood up from his seat in objection, pad clutched in hand. “Surely adding a second condemnation of cowardice to his knuckles would be the height of redundancy.”
A small scoff from Boom drew Jun’s scowl. But Theo’s attention remained on Axel when he made a high-pitched sound of epiphany.
“Oh, I get it, now,” Axel crowed. “You’re both pretentious assholes. That’s why you go so well together. You know, me and Marco”—he blithely ignored Marco’s shout of protest over the open coms at being included in the conversation—“we’ve been trying to puzzle it out. Like, is it just chemistry? Opposites attract? Novelty? But, no. There’s more to it than that. You’re both huge fucking nerds. You deserve each other.”
The storm clouds in Jun’s face gathered and intensified in such a foreboding manner that Theo stepped in to divert the next lightning strike, offering himself up as a sacrificial lightning rod. “I believe I would like to see these Wastes. I’m coming with you when you drop.”
“Make the drop!” Marco shouted over the coms, then cursed and hammered at something that echoed through the speakers.
Theo was forced to raise his voice to be heard over the clanging. “Yes, that. I’m coming with you to make the drop. It would be lovely to take a stroll planetside after being cooped up on the ship for so long.”
He didn’t need to wait for the lightning strike.
Jun’s hand clamped down around his wrist. “You’re staying aboard.”
Theo pretended to give it some thought, lightly tapping his chin, and then reached out to boop the rounded end of Jun’s nose. “No, I don’t think so. I’m coming along.”
A smooth, sharp snick of metal on metal drew their attention to the side, where Boom had drawn a pair of wicked-looking knives from her thigh holster. She balanced one on
