It was convoluted reading material, difficult to wade through and requiring the better part of an hour with breaks for sips of water.
Around midway through the documents, Ari felt a warm weight on his knee and glanced down to see that Orin had rested a broad hand there. Every few minutes, he would stroke the edge of Ari’s kneecap with his thumb in an oddly soothing motion.
The strangest warmth filled Aristotle’s chest cavity, like coming home to stand before the fire, only the fire was banked inside his rib cage. A truly peculiar sensation.
Peculiar and addictive.
*
Ari waited until the bay doors shut behind them before letting his knees turn to water, sliding down the wall to sit on the galley floor. Orin was already strapping into the pilot’s seat and flicking the controls to prepare for takeoff. He practically vibrated with his need to get far away as soon as possible, large hands shaking minutely over the controls.
Ari stumbled over to the copilot’s seat and buckled in just in time for Delilah’s release from the Enforcer ship dock, engines kicking on with a plaintive whine.
Orin patted the dash soothingly. “I know, honey. They treated you rough. I’ll make it up to you, pretty girl.”
Ari found himself fighting a fit of the giggles at Orin’s fond words, giddy at the relief of their release so sharp it went to his head like a glass of champagne. He turned his head at Orin fussing over the ship’s controls. “I can’t believe it worked! I am simply astounded by the power of a few well-placed filing errors. Truly, I never expected them to prove so effective when I was putting them into place.”
Orin laughed, shaking his head as his fingers flew over the controls. “Never woulda thought that, between the two of us, you’d be the criminal mastermind.”
Ari laughed along with him, buoyed by his good humor in the wake of near disaster. He kept on smiling as he asked the question that had been tickling at the back of his mind, too overwhelmed by panic to come forward until now.
“What did you mean when you said that Enforcer was your wife?”
Orin shrugged, busily working across the dash as his smile slipped away.
“Ex-wife. Name’s Izzy. We were young and stupid and coming out of a real bad situation. Loving each other was just about the only thing we had going for us at the time. Didn’t last too long, less than a year before she dropped me like a bad habit. Always knew she was too good for the likes of me. Real proud of how she turned out; Enforcer Academy ain’t nothing to sneeze at. Good to see her make something of herself without me weighing her down.”
His eyes were careful on Ari, lids lowered in a way that would have seemed nervous on another man.
Ari turned to fiddle with the copilot controls without actually altering anything about their takeoff. “So, you’re not. You’re not like me, then. You like, or rather, you prefer. Women.”
Now, Orin finally appeared uncomfortable, shoulders rolling as he kept his focus fixed on the controls, the both of them pretending this takeoff was requiring the utmost concentration.
“Don’t have a preference really. I just like people.”
A tightness crossed Ari’s chest, and he refused to examine the feeling further, fumbling out his words in a rush. “I suppose I just never knew there were people who could choose. Who they… Who they wanted.”
Orin’s eyes flashed soft and wounded before returning determinedly to the dash. “I didn’t choose any more than you did. Just how I am.”
Contrition flooded Ari at the stiff way Orin guided the ship away from the Enforcers, mouth held tight. He dropped his pretense of working the controls to swivel his chair in Orin’s direction, hands folded together in an effort to appear composed.
“I apologize. I’m afraid I still have much to learn. Thank you for always being patient with me. In all respects. I’m afraid I don’t deserve it.”
Orin made a rude noise out of the side of his mouth, attention remaining fixed on the controls. “You deserve better than I could ever give you, and that’s a fact. Got nothing to do with the men and women in my past and everything to do with me and where I come from. Some places leave a stain so bad you can’t never get clean of it. Doesn’t matter what I can give you, anyway, cause you and I got a deadline on this thing between us.”
Ari nodded, firmly tamping down on the rolling in his gut. He knew as well as Orin that their relationship was temporary by necessity. Ari’s focus had to remain on saving his brother. He understood that Orin’s focus needed to stay fixed upon securing his ship.
It was good for them to be transparent about these things. Ari could not afford to become too attached, even as he ignored the alarm bells in his chest that signified such a thing might have already come to pass.
They settled into a course toward the next settlement on the list. Orin barely waited to check the autopilot before shoving out of the cockpit to go bang around in the storage panels of the main compartment.
Ari followed cautiously, watched as Orin lifted out a large metal crate before kicking the storage panel closed in a way that left Ari repressing his urge to check for dents.
Orin dropped the crate onto the floor with a concerning metallic crash.
“I’m not—” He ran one hand through his hair before gripping it in frustration.
“I can read. Alright? I can make out most things in standard block, just not that loopy shit you see on fancy docs like that. I know I’m not the brightest bulb on the dash, but I don’t want you going around thinking I’m a complete idiot.” He crossed his arms over the broad expanse of his chest, holding himself tightly.
Something in Ari’s chest ached. His fingers itched to smooth the line that had formed between Orin’s brows, but he folded his fingers together in front of himself to curb the impulse.
“You are one of the most intelligent men I have ever worked with, Mr. Stone. I have witnessed you perform calculations in your head that would have any professor of mathematics at my university reaching for the chalk.”
Orin shook his head, clenching his hands around the sharp corners of his elbows. “That’s just because numbers come easy to me. Numbers just make sense, is all.”
Ari stepped close enough to pool the heat of their bodies in the space between them. He tilted his head up to Orin’s face. “You are brilliant, and I will not entertain any argument to the contrary.”
Orin stared down at him like he had been cracked open. His eyes shimmered with emotion threatening to spill over with every breath.
Aristotle found himself unwilling to resist the impulse to cup his hand over a darkly stubbled cheek. “Brilliant.”
Orin turned into the caress, his breath shuddering across Ari’s palm.
The world tilted, and for a fraction of a second, Ari worried that the ship had run into trouble. But, instead, Orin had swept him up into his arms, and his heavy boot heels now banged an urgent rhythm across the floor panels as he carried him into his bunk.
Chapter Fifteen
Ari bounced onto the mattress like a particularly delicate sack of potatoes.
“Off. Everything off,” Orin grunted.
Orin’s voice was muffled by the shirt he was wrestling over his head, braces already hanging in loops by his hips and trousers undone.
Ari rushed to comply as Orin’s face emerged, full lips parted around heavy breath and eyes hot enough to set Ari’s blood boiling in his veins.