I’ve never been a good dancer, Michiko was drunk, and we were the only two on the dance floor. I couldn’t imagine a combination to make me more anxious, especially when Karnac was in the audience.
Being self-conscious made everything worse, and my already limited dance skills went out the window. Michiko didn’t seem at all embarrassed, and I wondered how she did it. Her flailing limbs were no more controlled than mine, but somehow she made it look good. Or, if not good, fun.
My logical brain pointed out the obvious — perhaps I looked just as good. Perhaps you should shut up, my anxiety replied. Not a reasonable argument, but a winning one.
Still, it was fun. No one laughed, Michiko danced as badly as I did, and Rod pulled Amy onto the dance floor. Once we weren’t the sole focus of attention, I started to enjoy myself.
“May I join you?” He phrased it as a request, but the tone left no doubt about what would happen now. Karnac loomed over me, a smile on his scarred, rugged, too-damned-handsome face.
I opened my mouth to answer and it just hung there. Silence. No words emerged as my brain came to a screeching halt, torn between the desire to tell the Prytheen to fuck off and the urge to leap into his arms.
“Sure, you kids have fun,” Michiko said after the silence dragged on for approximately five billion years. “I need some water anyway.”
With that she vanished, abandoning me with Karnac. My heart thudded so loud I was sure the whole room heard it. I couldn’t decide whether Michiko leaving was a favor or a betrayal, but either way I had no words to respond.
Karnac took my hand in his, the contact overwhelming. Like lightning shooting through me, his touch lit up my nerves and I gasped as his rough thumb stroked across the back of my hand. Suddenly my anxiety and self-consciousness vanished, and we were the only two people in the world.
The rest of the universe could go hang. Nothing mattered apart from us.
The moment stretched into infinity before Karnac pulled me closer, slid an arm around my waist, and led.
“What are you doing?” I gasped, my body pressing to his. Suddenly my dress felt like too much clothing — I wanted to feel his body against mine, nothing between us.
Karnac moved with grace, precision, and no skill at all. His hip slammed into a refreshments table, spilling punch, and I couldn’t help giggling.
“I do not know,” Karnac said, laughing too. Pressed against his chest as I was, I felt the laugh more than heard it. A deep vibration that made my body want.
“I have watched several videos,” he continued, pronouncing the last word as though he’d never heard of this primitive tech before. Maybe he hadn’t — Prytheen culture, from what I’d learned, was entirely about war. “Dancing with one’s khara is always shown as romantic, so…”
He swung me, and I tried to keep up only to hit a wall and bounce off, back into his arms. “You just learned from videos? That’s…”
I trailed off rather than insulting him, and he took over. “It’s ridiculous and foolish, I’m sure. You will have to show me how to do better.”
My blush was bright enough to signal spacecraft with, my face against his chest. How did I answer that?
Yes. You say yes, thank whatever lucky stars sent him your way. I didn’t get the chance to say anything. Allison stepped into the circle, her hand closing on Karnac’s upper arm.
“I’m so sorry, Molly, but I need to steal Karnac away,” she said, with a credible impression of sorrow. She might have fooled me if not for the vicious look in her eyes, a look which vanished as soon as the Prytheen turned to her.
This was why I didn’t want to risk my heart, aside from the piracy thing. I hadn’t even opened up, not really, and here were my hopes being smashed again. How would I compete with Allison, beautiful powerful Allison?
Pulling my hand from his, I backed away from Karnac. As soon as I lost contact with him, my cloak of self-confidence vanished as though blown away by a gale.
“I’ll leave you two to have fun,” I said, echoing Michiko’s earlier words, and turned before either could respond. A glass of punch called to me from the refreshments table, and I grabbed it. Downed it in one, my throat burning in the aftermath.
Whatever booze was in there, it wasn’t subtle. Good, I didn’t want subtle. I refilled the glass, drank a little slower, and finally dared turn around. Allison had her arms around Karnac, the pair of them swaying to the music.
Never had a wish coming true hurt so much. I couldn’t stay here and watch that — and worse, if anyone paid enough attention to me to ask what had upset me, I’d have to talk about it.
No thanks. Not happening. I put down my glass and, keeping my feelings as bottled up as possible, I made my way to the commons’ door and out into the hallway again.
My emotions flowed around me like a cloud of chaos, impossible to even identify. Oh, there was some lust in there, some anger. Sadness too. And relief, but not as much as I’d expected.
He’s a pirate. A killer. His people killed god knows how many people in the attack on the Wandering Star, and the rest of us might still die from it. Why the fuck would I feel jealous over him? Let the two of them bang it out and be happy.
Except that thought hurt, made me want to… I didn’t know what. Sighing, I leaned against the cool metal wall and tried to sort out my emotions. It wasn’t easy, not when the storm of them still raged in my mind.
Focused on figuring that out, I didn’t realize I wasn’t alone until someone big blocked out the light behind me. For a moment, the wild hope rose — had Karnac come to check on me? I had no clue what I’d say if he had, but my heart raced at the thought.
“You’re not going to slip away.” An angry hiss, accompanied by a cloud of booze. Not Karnac, then. Hope dashed, I grimaced and turned around.
“I just want to get to bed, Harmon,” I said, tetchy and weary. “We can talk in the morning, when you’re sober.”
Perhaps, if I hadn’t had those last two drinks. If I hadn’t felt so drained, if my limbs hadn’t felt like lead. If I’d had my wits about me, I’d have remembered just how touchy Harmon was about his drinking. His already flushed face darkened, a tremor ran through him, and he snarled.
“I am perfectly in control,” he snapped. “And you won’t put this off.”
His vehemence made me take a step back, then another. Harmon might be our resident poet, but he hardly fit the skinny, sensitive guy trope. Much of his bulk was fat, sure, but under it he had formidable muscle.
I glanced over his shoulder, hoping someone else had heard that, but he’d slid the commons door shut. Drunk enough to get angry and belligerent; sober enough to isolate me before making a scene. A dangerous combination.
“Look, I don’t know why you’re angry at me,” I started, trying to defuse the tension as I took a careful step back. He followed, keeping the distance the same. Too close.
“Don’t give me that, it’s perfectly clear what you’re up to,” Harmon hissed. “You’ve set your, your alien friend to seduce my darling Allison away.”
A burst of laughter escaped before I could clamp down on it, and Harmon’s face darkened even more. His fists clenched, knuckles white, his self-control slipping dangerously. Laughing at him was a mistake and I’d known it, but in my defense, I’d never heard an accusation as ridiculous as that.