He didn’t know how he felt about that.
Warring impulses tugged at him in a jumble of emotions he didn’t understand. He wanted to keep looking at her, to tell her that she took his breath away, but at the same time, he wanted to ask her to wash off the makeup and put on her regular clothes, to remove the flashy polish and let the beauty of her naked toes shine through.
He wanted her to be the Solara he’d come to know—his Solara.
Cassia bumped Kane with her shoulder. “Look. He’s speechless.”
“We do good work,” Kane agreed, admiring their creation.
When Solara glanced up at him again, Doran found his voice. “Wow,” he told her. “I don’t know what to say.” But she deserved more than that, so he added, “Five thousand credits was a small price to pay. You’re stunning.”
Her answering smile warmed his heart.
“And you’re forgiven,” she announced. Before he could ask what he’d done wrong, she turned and padded away. He called after her to be careful, but he wasn’t sure she heard.
Sometime later, as he lay awake in the darkness with nothing but his pain to keep him company, it occurred to Doran that once he reached Obsidian, he and Solara would part ways. She would continue on to her job in the fringe while he finished his father’s errand and returned home to clear his name. Their paths might never cross again.
He didn’t know how he felt about that, either.
Actually, yes, he did.
But before he had a chance to examine the reason for the new tightness in his chest, another dizzy spell came over him, along with a vicious chill that seemed to leach the marrow from his bones. Doran huddled beneath the covers while his insides pulsed like an abscessed tooth. He hoped Solara returned soon with his medicine. Otherwise they might part ways a lot earlier than he’d planned.
With its flashing billboards illuminating the craters of an anchoring moon, the retail satellite was impossible to miss by any pilot taking the direct route from the nearest outpost to Obsidian—the route the Banshee had carefully avoided. This place was a tourist mecca, a respite from the months-long voyage where travelers could cure their cabin fever with honeyed wine, laser quests, and chintzy souvenirs.
But none of that interested Solara.
She leaned forward in her seat and peered out the shuttle window, scanning past multicolored scrolling advertisements for QUICK SHUTTLE REPAIR! and LOOSEST SLOTS IN THE GALAXY! to the single security checkpoint located at the top of the static bubble shielding the complex. That narrow apex was the only way in or out.
Not the ideal blueprint for making a quick getaway.
“Please tell me there’s a secret back door,” she said to Renny, who cut the shuttle thrusters and steered toward the checkpoint, essentially casting them out of the frying pan and into the fire. Their craft drifted near enough for Solara to make out the silhouette of a cloaked laser canon, invisible but for the distorted space around it, which rippled like heat waves rising above asphalt.
“I could do that,” he replied. “But I’d be lying.”
Solara blew out a breath and strapped a gel pack around her ankle while Renny tugged at the cuffs of his dress coat, trying to lengthen its sleeves. If he wanted to look dapper, he should’ve swiped a jacket from a taller man.
“Remember,” he said, holding up an ill-gotten credit fob. “I’m Uncle Jared, your mom’s brother, and you’re staying with me for the summer.”
He piloted their shuttle to the automated checkpoint scanner, two panels on either side of a narrow passageway monitored by a guard keeping watch from inside the station. While invisible beams swept the shuttle for weapons, Renny pressed his stolen fob to the side window. Casual browsing wasn’t permitted here, much like the auto-malls, and visitors had to supply proof of credit to gain entry. Through the station glass, the guard pointed a handheld scanner at the fob and asked Renny to state his name and identification code.
Renny tuned into the station’s frequency and said, “Jared Rogers,” followed by a series of letters and numbers. With no further delay, the guard disabled the security shield and allowed them to pass.
“That wasn’t hard,” Solara said, relaxing into her seat. She noticed that her palms had grown damp, and she glanced around for a place to wipe them, eventually settling on Renny’s sleeve. When he drew back in offense, she shrugged and pointed to her dress. “It was five thousand credits.”
He reached beneath his seat for a flask of Crystalline. “Take a sip of this, but don’t swallow,” he said. “Swish it around a little, then spit it in your hands and wipe it all over the front of you.”
She did as he asked but carefully avoided the dress. Even drunk, no girl in her right mind would spill booze on this gown. Leaning in, she asked, “Do I smell like a raging party?”