CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Wayward Prince drifted, unmoving, in empty space.
They met to assess the situation in the room off the main cargo hold that was specially shielded from all computer systems on the ship. It seemed safer to be in a place where Dub couldn’t reach, even if there was no evidence that she was paying any attention. She had sealed herself away and was refusing all communication. Yelling at a wall had more effect — and Sebastian had already tried yelling at walls, floors, and ceilings throughout the ship.
Everyone was there — Jaime blanching as he stepped into the room with its bad memories for him — except for Bo who was off monitoring the ship’s environmental controls. Like a few other vital systems on board, they weren’t connected to Dub, but no one wanted to assume anything right now.
“So we’re stranded in the middle of deep space on a barely functioning ship by a pouting ship’s computer,” Sebastian said, pacing the small room. “Options?”
“Say you’re sorry,” Simi said.
“I have apologized,” Ren said tiredly. “Repeatedly. And I am truly sorry,” he added in a louder voice.
“I told you,” Kaz said with irritation, “this room is shielded. Dub can’t listen to us in here, even if she wanted to.”
“Both of you need to apologize,” Simi persisted. “And mean it,” she added when Sebastian started to protest. “I heard you, Sebastian, you were swearing.”
“I’m sorry if mutiny by my own ship’s computer has me a little worked up,” Sebastian said. “Before the shouting I was groveling quite sincerely.”
“But Dub’s done this before.” Rylan had his arms crossed as he leaned against the large crate Jaime was sitting on. “She was refusing to launch back when we first met Jaime.”
“When you kidnapped me, you mean,” Jaime corrected with a small smile. He and Rylan exchanged fond glances while Sebastian tried not to hurl something at them. His crew should appreciate the strain he was under and look appropriately miserable.
“That was different,” Kaz said. She actually had thrown a plate at Sebastian’s head when she’d heard why the ship had stopped. Fortunately, he had good reflexes when it came to blame and crockery. “Dub didn’t want to take off then because she knew we were carrying dangerous cargo. She was still maintaining other functions. This is… a total shutdown.”
Jaime’s fingers tapped worriedly on his knees. “Dub’s not talking to me at all.”
“Can’t you make her obey you?” Mags asked.
“It doesn’t work like that. AIs are too sophisticated to just force them to go against core programming, or whatever this is. Besides that’s — it doesn’t seem right.”
Ren frowned. “This is a computer we’re talking about.”
Jaime spread his hands. “It’s Dub.”
Sebastian rubbed between his eyes, striving to be the voice of reason. It was a poor fit. “We have manual overrides and controls,” he said. “This is a modern ship. Or at least it has modern modifications with extra bits and safety measures. Preventing a hostile AI from taking over is the reason we have them, after all.”
“She’s not hostile,” Kaz insisted. “She’s just hurt and scared. He,” she jabbed a finger in Ren’s direction, “threatened to take her away.”
“I misspoke in anger,” Ren said. He was back to not looking at Sebastian. “I regret it.”
“Well, Dub believed you. And I don’t believe you’re sorry now.” She stepped closer to glare up at Ren, her tattoos blurring over her arms as her anger grew.
“Kaz,” Mags said sharply from where she was sitting on another crate, back to the wall, facing the door. “Sit down.”
Sebastian realized that he had stepped forward as well, fists clenched, but that he was facing Kaz. Fuck. He was all but ready to raise hands to his own crew at this point, and Ren was the one he was actually angry at.
Fortunately, Kaz, like everyone else on board, knew better than to argue with Mags when she was sounding annoyed. Kaz drew a deep breath and turned her back on Ren and Sebastian, stomping over to sit on the floor near Lydia.
The doctor had brought in a folding chair and she shifted in it now. “There are ways to override the computer, aren’t there? I mean,” she paused delicately, “the ship was stolen before.”
Sebastian stared down, wishing he could sink even further, like a few decks down. “That time, in the past, Ren had, uh, given me the command codes. I was supposed to pilot the ship for him. Also, I think Dub liked me. She’s only gotten more stubborn since then.”
“Still,” Lydia said, “all those safety measures you mentioned, Sebastian. We aren’t simply at the mercy of an AI.” She glanced down apologetically at Kaz. “No matter how much we like her.”
“Everything has a work-around, sure,” Simi said. “But it takes time.”
Jaime nodded. “I might be able to take some systems offline, reroute others.”
Kaz shook her head. “I wouldn’t dare jump to FTL without the navigational computer functioning. Odds are we’d slam into something and vaporize the instant we got above light speed. And navigation’s all Dub.”
Sebastian rubbed at his beard. “How much can you calculate on your own?”
“What? Like with a pencil and paper? This is traveling through space.”
“Not literally by hand but with a computer that’s not connected to Dub. We’ve got those in sickbay and controlling the environmentals. There are star charts and formulas in the library.”
Kaz twisted at her bottom lip, considering. “Yeah, maybe. But it would need to be a short trip. A really short one.”
“To the nearest outpost then.”
“It’s still going to be days of work, Sebastian,” Simi said.
“So get started then.”
“It’s just in here, Sebastian. Something you need to see.”
Simi led him quickly through the corridors, her voice high and strained. Sebastian knew the crew’s schedules well enough to know that Simi should have been asleep hours ago, but he couldn’t order her to bed while they were still stalled in the middle of nowhere and vulnerable to anything that should happen to come along.
He couldn’t figure out why she was leading him to what he knew was a storage room off the main cargo hold, but she spun the locking mechanism on the door and stepped aside for him. “It’s important.”
Sebastian paused on the threshold. The small room, lit by one overhead light, contained little more than a bucket.
And Ren standing opposite the open door, looking displeased.
“What the—” Sebastian felt a surprisingly hard push propel him into the room, and then the door was slammed shut behind him.
“Simi!” he yelled over the sound of it locking.
“Sorry!” she called back through the door. “But while we’re all working on getting us moving you two need to figure out a way to make things right with Dub.”
He kicked the door. “How the hell are we supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know. But yelling at each other started all this. Maybe try talking. Nicely.”
Sebastian tugged and kicked at the door a few more times, even though he knew it was useless, because it postponed him having to face Ren. Finally he swung around, leaning his back against the well-locked door and heaved a sigh. “So how’d you get lured in?”
Ren’s face had that annoyingly calm demeanor that made it impossible to know what he was thinking. “Rylan said he needed help moving some heavy equipment.”
Sebastian looked pointedly at the bucket. “Well, it seems we’ve been well and truly trapped by their cunning plan.” He glanced around the bare room again. “I don’t suppose you have a deck of cards on you?”
Ren was a study in stillness. Sebastian didn’t think Ren was going to be the one to crack first, so he jumped in headfirst. “Look, you’re under a great deal of strain, I get that. I know you didn’t mean what you said.”
“What did I say that was incorrect?” Ren asked, as though inquiring about the dullest of weather patterns.
“Damn it, Ren, I thought back on Fortuna we were figuring things out. We were talking, and we worked so well together. You were having fun.”
“Fun?” Ren’s politeness took on an edge. “Being nearly killed is fun to you?”
“Sometimes?” Sebastian felt like he was losing control of the conversation. “The important thing is we did it. Impossible odds, countless obstacles, but we got the job done. That was you and me, together. And, well, other people helped a great deal, obviously.”
“You threw yourself over a cliff, Sebastian.” Ren propelled himself forward at him and then stopped in the middle of the room, fists clenched at his sides. “I can’t believe you have so little regard for your own life. Not to mention endangering a member of your crew. What is wrong with you?”
Sebastian frowned. “Is that what this is about? It was a bit of a gamble, sure, but it paid off—” Ren shook his head in disgust, but Sebastian moved closer. “Ren, listen to me. It wasn’t just blindly jumping. I’d been looking to see where we could climb out. I saw it wasn’t a sheer drop, the cliff sloped. I swear to you, I wasn’t looking to die.”
Something in Ren seemed to crack. “You left me!”
His voice echoed in the room, and Sebastian could only stare.
“Ren, I—”
He looked like he was struggling for control, eyes fixed on a point on the floor. “Again. Because that’s what you do.”
Sebastian had nothing to say to that. Ren continued on, calmer, but sounding like the words were being pulled out of him from somewhere dark. “Before. You stole from me, and you left me without a second thought.”
It was Sebastian’s turn to be unable to look at him. “There were second thoughts. Third thoughts. Fourth and fifth.”
“And yet.”
“And yet, I did it, yes.”
Ren started walking around the room, a restrained version of the pacing Sebastian wished he could do. He touched the walls, the door, even the bucket, as though assuring himself they were real.
“Why did you do it?” he finally asked, sounded more curious than angry. “Stealing was one thing, but we were together. I’d thought, that is.” He turned away from the wall he had been examining to look at Sebastian. “It seemed almost like we were happy.”
“I never intended to get as… involved.”
“Sleep with me you mean.”
“Yes.” He forced himself to meet Ren’s eyes and the hurt in them. “I wasn’t going to do that. Or drag it out so long. My intentions were to get the codes so I could fly the ship out of there. It should have taken me a few days at most. But I… liked being with you. I tried to think of a hundred different ways to avoid hurting you or even to stay, but I couldn’t figure out a plan. I needed a ship. Desperately.”
“Why?”
Sebastian looked at the door again, hoping against hope that it would magically unlock and let him get away from this. It remained closed, and he squared his shoulders to face Ren. “Just before we’d first met I had a run of very bad luck. More like stupid decisions and worse results, but in any case, I was wiped out, without any sort of prospects. Then I got some news — well, I told you about the place where I’m from.”
“Paruroa, yes, I remember.”
“Word had gotten back to me that there was illness there. A disease. I needed to get the vaccines to the planet before it was too late.”
Ren drew himself up and gave him a withering stare. “Stop treating me like a fool, Sebastian. A medical emergency? You could have alerted the Commonwealth, and they would have sent ships immediately. That’s what they’re for.”
Sebastian flung his hands up. “It was sheep, all right? Sick sheep. Their whole fucked up way of life is dependent on those sheep. For food, clothing, export, general philosophy. The stupid things were dying. No one provides free medical care for livestock, and the people on Paruroa, like my father, were too proud to beg for help. They didn’t even particularly want mine when I showed up in a stolen ship with stolen medicine. But they took it. And despised me for it even more.”
The nervous energy left him, and Sebastian set his back to a wall, sliding down it to sit on the floor, hands on his bent knees. He remembered the taste of mud, mixed with blood, in his mouth when his father had knocked him to the ground. He remembered the disappointed look in his mother’s eyes. He remembered all of it, and most painfully, the way Ren had looked when he’d left him asleep in bed.
“Why didn’t you explain all that to me at the time?” Ren asked quietly.
He peered up at him. “I couldn’t take the chance that you’d say no. Or laugh in my face when I proposed a rescue mission for herd animals.”
Ren gave a sad smile. “You thought so little of me.”
“No,” Sebastian said swiftly. “I didn’t want you to see how little there was to me. All those stories I told you, I’d made myself out to be… someone worth your time.”
Ren crouched down so he was level with Sebastian. “I stayed on that outpost until my family finally tracked me down. I kept hoping you’d come back.”
Sebastian twisted his mouth ruefully. “After Paruroa, I found out that Mags was being framed for the assassination of some cult leader on this weird little moon. She actually had done it, but the local government who’d hired her for the job wanted her to take the fall to cover for them. She’d been sentenced to death. Bo and I had to break her out before the execution date.”
Ren stood up, moving back from him. “Of course, and I’m sure after that there was some other adventure or scheme. I was easily forgotten.”
Sebastian scrambled to his feet. “No, Ren, you never could be. I regretted what I did to you.”
Ren turned his face away. “I was so naive.”
Sebastian moved closer, because this was important. This was about Ren. “And good and kind. All the things I’m not. I needed to get away from you before I ruined you like I do everything else.”
“Spare me the self-pity, Sebastian.” He leaned back against the opposite wall. “Just admit you’re a coward.”
“Oh, I’ll freely own to that. When it comes to you I’m terrified.”
“You’re lying again. Just playing another angle to get out of this room. You never cared about me.”
Sebastian got in his face. “That you don’t get to say. I used you, and I lied, and I left, and you should hate me for the rest of your life, but know this down to your bones: I cared. I care.”
Ren blinked, startled by his sudden fierceness. “Why?”
Sebastian stared at him because it should be obvious. “You’re you. You’re Ren.”
Ren was intent on Sebastian’s eyes and his mouth, but he still seemed unsure. Sebastian gazed back with every bit of intensity he possessed, because if there was one thing he needed to be able to do, it was to convince Ren of his own wonderfulness.
“You’re honorable and brave. You smiled when we flew through a mountain. You picked up swords to fight a robot. You traveled across half the galaxy to get something important to your people that you can never use. And then outsmarted a ruthless criminal and the police to get it. You know what’s right, which is something I generally only figure out after the fact. There is nothing about you that isn’t admirable and I — I wish I was more like you.”
“How can I believe you?” Ren wasn’t angry; he was staring at Sebastian with a helpless expression, all that haughty reserve gone away, leaving him looking lost and tender. “I don’t know how to trust what you say.”
Sebastian touched him then, just on the back of the hand, fingertips featherlight against warm skin, but it stilled Ren instantly. “I want to kiss you so very badly,” Sebastian said. “Because I think that will show you how I feel and somehow make it all better. Mostly it’s because kissing you is the best feeling I’ve ever had. But I’m scared that I’ll make everything worse.”
“Try,” Ren said softly, “and see.”
Sebastian leaned in, turning his face up slightly to catch Ren’s lips with his own. Those lips were soft, and they parted with a tiny sigh. Sebastian kept it gentle, because he had hurt Ren so many times, and he wanted to show that he could be careful with him. But Ren’s mouth was eager, and his hands were in Sebastian’s hair. Sebastian found himself pressing against Ren’s broad chest, pushing him back against the wall. There was so much Sebastian wanted, and Ren seemed to be offering everything, pulling Sebastian ever closer. When the tips of their tongues touched it was like an electric shock surged through him.
“Ren.” He pulled back to rest his forehead against Ren’s, both of them panting in sync. “What do you want?”
Ren pulled at the nape of Sebastian’s neck, getting enough distance between them to be able to study his face. He ran a hand along Sebastian’s jaw, fingers against his light beard, thumb brushing over his lips. “I want you to take your clothes off,” Ren said. “Would you do that?”
Under normal circumstances, Sebastian would have responded with a witty remark or at least raised an eyebrow, but he found now he could only nod, heart hammering wildly in his chest. He stepped back, shrugging off his coat. He did manage to swirl it dramatically as he tossed it aside — because he hadn’t lost himself completely. Ren’s lips quirked.
Sebastian got his shirt off easily enough, but when he started on his pants he remembered his boots. They were black and went to his knees, and, even once he’d undone the hidden fastenings with clumsy fingers, there was no graceful way to yank them off without being in danger of toppling over.
“Fuck it,” Sebastian said, abandoning any attempt at a seductive striptease and sitting on the floor.
Ren knelt, pushing apart Sebastian’s legs and grasping an ankle. “Here, let me.”
He took hold of one boot and then the other, sliding them off and casting each aside, all the while never taking his eyes off Sebastian’s body. Ren reached for the waistband of Sebastian’s pants, fingers touching bare skin and causing him to shiver. He lifted up his hips to help as Ren removed the rest of his clothing, feeling his pulse speed up in anticipation. Once Sebastian was naked, though, Ren didn’t touch him, just sat back on his heels, contemplating.
Sebastian propped himself on his elbows and cast a look down at himself, past the dark hair on his chest and the half-hard cock against his stomach, to where Ren knelt between his legs. Ren was still dressed in a gray, long-sleeved shirt and darker gray trousers, and Sebastian itched to undress him, but Ren’s eyes had gone somewhere faraway.
“Not what you remembered?” Sebastian asked wryly. It had been four years, and while Ren had become more muscled, Sebastian’s body had maybe gotten wirier and added a scar or two that he hadn’t bothered the doctor to remove. Also, he thought he could see what he hoped wasn’t a gray hair on his chest.
Ren looked up. “No, you’re the same. Better, because unlike my memories or fantasies, now I can touch you.” He slid broad hands along the outside of Sebastian’s thighs, causing Sebastian to flutter his eyes shut and draw in a breath. “I was just thinking that you were the first.”
Sebastian jerked his gaze back to Ren, thinking rapidly back to their previous encounters. He’d had all the enthusiasm of a young man, but Ren hadn’t seemed particularly inexperienced or hesitant about anything.
Ren laughed. “Your face! No, you weren’t the first person I’d had sex with, Sebastian.” His expression changed. “But you were the first person I’d been with who didn’t know who I was. Back home, there’s always the thought that maybe people are with me because they want some favor or to improve their standing. Even my friends. When we first met, I thought that you were someone who didn’t want anything from me.”
Sebastian no longer felt like he was the only naked one in the room. He sat up, clinging onto Ren’s arms. “I’m sorry. I am. I wish there was some way I could go back and do it all differently. I should have asked for your help. You would have gone with me and done a much better job of smoothing things over on Paruroa than I ever could have managed. Then we’d have rescued Mags together, and after that gone on to do so many amazing things. I know it. I definitely wouldn’t have ended up where I am now — a broke smuggler with a ship that hates me, a crew that would leave if they didn’t feel sorry for me, and you, here, not knowing how truly filled with remorse I am.”
Ren reached up to cup the side of Sebastian’s face. “I do believe you now, but we can’t go back. The past is what it is.”
Sebastian smiled sadly. “You’d think with all their tech our great-great-grandparents could’ve invented a time machine.”
“I suppose if we had one we should do something more important with it,” Ren said. “Like saving humanity.”
Sebastian caught Ren’s hand and brought it to his lips. “No, first on the time travel agenda is making it right with you. Then we save the world.”
Ren smiled at him, a bright flash of genuine warmth. “It’s one of your better plans.” He twined his fingers with Sebastian’s. “So you asked me before what I wanted. And you? What do you want to do now?”
Sebastian thought that maybe they should go on talking and somehow try to deal with all the hurt that he’d caused. But he was also completely naked with a handsome man between his legs.
“Maybe you could lose the pants, Your Majesty?”
Ren’s smile then was dazzling. He kissed Sebastian, leaning in and pressing him down onto the floor. Sebastian welcomed the solid weight of Ren against him, wrapping legs tightly around his waist and reaching to pull up on his shirt. The feel of Ren’s bare back under his hands was bliss, and he wanted more.
“This needs to be off,” he muttered against Ren’s mouth. “Now.”
Ren tore himself away from Sebastian’s lips to yank at the offending garment, both of them working together to get it hopelessly caught on his head and arms, until finally the shirt was able to be tossed aside.
Sebastian ran his palms over the hard swell of Ren’s chest, delighting in all the rich dark skin that was now available to touch. His fingertips plucked at one small nipple, and he felt Ren’s hands clutch tight against him.
“This is all very impressive,” Sebastian smirked. “But I believe my original request was for pants?”
Ren propped himself up on one arm above Sebastian, other hand busy opening the front of his trousers. He dipped his head down in search of more kisses, and Sebastian was happy to oblige, even happier when Ren’s waistband loosened and he was able to grasp the curves of Ren’s ass.
Sebastian pushed his pants lower, reaching for the cock that had finally sprung free of the confines of well-tailored cloth. It was hard and hot, fitting perfectly into Sebastian’s hand like it was meant to be there, and Ren groaned into his mouth as Sebastian traced the length with a sure touch.
“Lie back,” Sebastian urged, rolling them both onto their sides. He started to move down Ren’s body, thinking to take him in his mouth, but Ren pulled him back up.
“No, stay here with me,” he moaned, mouth next to Sebastian’s.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Sebastian assured him, but Ren still held him tightly, kissing his face and mouth wildly.
Sebastian gave into the sweet sensation of their bodies moving together, swaying his hips so that their cocks slid against each other. He brought a hand up and licked his palm — Ren joining in with enthusiasm, their tongues meeting between his fingers — and then slid it down to take hold of Ren’s cock again. He began to stroke, alternating soft and firmer grasps, judging the results by the reactions he pulled from Ren.
The hard stroke got his hips pumping, the light touch had him begging, and a firm press of a thumb against the tip caused Ren to bury his face against Sebastian’s neck and cry out. He spilled, hot and urgent, into Sebastian’s hand and across their stomachs.
Sebastian held onto Ren as he rocked against him, smoothing hands along his back, mouth nuzzling the roundness of his shoulder. Finally quiet reigned over the little room, and Ren lifted his face from Sebastian’s neck, mouth and eyelashes wet.
He looked at Sebastian dazedly. “That was—”
“Amazing? Spectacular?”
“Too quick. I had so many things I wanted to do with you. But I barely touched you.”
Sebastian smiled with well-kissed lips. His erection was still trapped between both their bellies, and he thrust it forward, calling Ren’s attention to parts he could definitely touch. “I told you I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Ren touched his face, eyes dark and serious, and nodded once.
Then he grinned and pushed Sebastian onto his back, pinning him firmly onto the floor. Sebastian expected more kisses, but Ren glided downward, the smile never leaving his face until he took Sebastian’s cock into his mouth.
Sebastian groaned at that first scorching touch and then arched as Ren began to play him with great skill. Ren may not have a liking for public speaking, but the things he could do with his tongue… He twined his hand with Ren’s, squeezing as he moaned and thrust into his mouth. Ren wasn’t the only one with fantasies, but Sebastian found nothing compared to the reality of Ren with his lips around his cock, his eyes watching Sebastian like he wasn’t just the only other person in the room, but the only other person in the universe.
Ren’s other hand moved lower, tugging on Sebastian’s balls, and then lower still, stroking and circling until finally pressing inside.
Sebastian barely managed to babble a warning before he came. Ren swallowed him down, staying with him for every groan and spurt, until finally Sebastian was spent. Ren kissed the inside of Sebastian’s thigh and rested his head on his stomach until Sebastian tugged him upward.
Sebastian reached out a languid arm and found a shirt, his fortunately, and used it to clean them both off.
He liked those soft moments after the initial urgency had passed best, when there was time to explore every part of each other. How else to discover that the inside of Ren’s left elbow was ticklish? And how sweet to remind himself that the skin in the hollows of Ren’s hip bones felt like silk against his fingertips. Sebastian, too, was surprised to find that the back of his neck — not an area he’d previously given much thought to — was a source of incredible pleasure, after Ren lifted up his hair to press his face there and inhale.
“You smell lovely,” Ren said, breathing out against his skin and kissing the nape softly. Sebastian closed his eyes and shivered all the way down to his toes.
The floor was very hard, but Sebastian was in no hurry to get up, pillowing his head on one bent arm to look at Ren. He looked back, raising himself up on an elbow, and frowning slightly.
“What?” Sebastian asked.
“I should apologize.”
“For what? Coming first? You more than made it up to me.”
“The things I said before. I was angry with you for risking your life, but you were doing it for me. I am sorry, Sebastian.”
“It’s still my fault. Most things are.”
“I didn’t want to lose you. It terrified me.”
“You won’t. Ren, I’ll see this through with you, I swear.”
Ren’s face grew briefly guarded, and he looked away. “The job, yes, I do appreciate that.”
Sebastian wanted to offer more — everything — but he had no right or credibility to be making more extravagant promises. Still, he added, “Until you tell me to go, I’m with you, no matter what.”
“I believe you, Sebastian. And I’m grateful.”
He wriggled closer. “So how does royalty traditionally show their gratitude?”
Ren frowned again. “Land titles? Government appointments, I suppose.”
“I was hoping for more… explicit suggestions.” Sebastian sighed. “It’s been a long day, my innuendo is not at its best.”
Ren caught Sebastian’s top leg under the knee and lifted it over his own hip. “I could assert my royal prerogative. Does that sound suitably suggestive?”
“Wonderfully so, Your Largeness,” Sebastian purred. “Why don’t I—”
There was a loud noise as the locks on the door spun. They sprang apart as the door opened, Ren scrambling for clothes and Sebastian jumping to his feet.
“Hey, Sebastian, it worked—” Jaime stepped into the room. “Uh…” His mouth dropped open and then he stepped back, out of the room, and into Bo and Simi, who were standing in the open doorway.
Sebastian followed, keeping himself between the door and Ren. “What worked?” he asked crossing his arms unconcernedly and leaning against the doorframe.
Out in the hallway, Jaime was blushing and staring at the ceiling, while Simi and Bo stared at him. Sebastian didn’t care that he was naked — they had a communal shower so there was very little his crew hadn’t already seen. Also, he and Bo had actually had sex once, years ago, during a rough patch in his and Mags’ friendship. Bo had suggested the three of them sleep together to smooth things over, and while the sex hadn’t been great, it had definitely given them all something to laugh about.
“The ship,” Simi said, her eyes dancing. “Guess you didn’t notice it was moving again, huh?”
“You got it working?”
“No,” Jaime said, eyes still upward, “that was, uh, you. Dub said that everyone had come to what she called a ‘mutually satisfactory understanding.’ This room’s not shielded, so I assumed you’d been talking to her.”
“Dub’s innuendo game is better than mine,” Sebastian said. “Is Kaz on the bridge?”
“Yeah,” Bo said, seemingly unconcerned by Sebastian’s state. “She’s checking the navigation.”
Simi meanwhile was trying to peer around him into the storage room. He shifted to block her view. “I’d better get up there now and see where we’re at.”
“Sebastian, what about your clothes?” Jaime asked sounding strangled.
“Oh, yes.”
He went back into the room and found his scattered clothing. The shirt was a lost cause but there were pants, and he threw his coat on over his bare shoulders. He winked up at Ren as he shoved his feet into his boots. “You want come up to the bridge?”
Ren was completely dressed and adorably flustered. He glanced over at the doorway where the others waited. Simi gave him two thumbs up. “I should, perhaps, return to my quarters—”
“Showers are free now,” Bo put in helpfully.
“Excellent,” Sebastian said. “I’ll see you later, then.” He hooked an arm in Simi’s, pulling her away down the hall before she could embarrass Ren further. Every place had different customs about nudity and sex, and whatever Ren’s were, Sebastian was willing to bet they didn’t include being walked in on in the middle of it.
As he headed to the bridge, Sebastian felt wonderfully light; he could almost believe that things were going to turn out all right.