“Me neither.” He shifted his weight to one elbow and paused to catch his breath. “My lips are numb. My skin’s numb. Everything’s numb.”
She pushed his chest, and he rolled off her and into the grass. After their breathing slowed, they lay there for a while, side by side, occasionally giggling or commanding the moons to stop spinning. Doran was about to say that the mushroom they’d eaten would make a better anesthetic than a drug when a thought struck him and he sat upright.
“I know what I want for a souvenir,” he said.
“Yeah?”
He took her wrist and brushed a thumb over the delicate skin there. “Let’s get matching tattoos, so we never, ever, forget this day.”
Her lips parted in a gasp of delight. “That’s a great idea!”
“Really? So you’ll come with me?”
“Of course I will,” she said. “Let’s hurry before we change our minds.”
“Rise and shine, you crazy kids.”
Someone kicked Doran’s boot, jerking him into consciousness. He didn’t have to open his eyes to know the sun was up. It pierced his brain right through both lids, causing his whole head to throb. Groaning, he rolled onto his side and clutched his temples. Something dry and scratchy tickled his hands, and he cracked open one eye to find brown grass beneath him.
Grass?
“You look kind of rough,” came the voice again. It sounded like Kane. “But hey, at least you’re not naked on the lawn of First Pesirus Presbyterian. There’s no living that down.”
“Nope,” Cassia added. “I can testify to that.”
“The captain said to get your drunk asses on board—his words, not mine,” Kane said. “We should’ve lifted off an hour ago.”
Doran pushed into a sitting position, though half his muscles ached in protest. “We’re not drunk,” he whispered in a dry throat. Damn, he was thirsty. He glanced beside him and found Solara lying next to the barn wall, massaging her forehead with one hand, and a strip of white gauze covering the wrist below it.
At the sight of that bandage, all his memories from last night came rushing back in a sucker punch to the face. He didn’t have to look at his wrist to know it was covered, too. And the skin there wasn’t numb anymore. In fact, it burned like hellfire.
“Oh no,” he said. “What did we do?”
It was a hypothetical question. He recalled every word, every giggle, every clumsy grope, and, most of all, the ink-stained needle that ensured he would never, ever, forget any of it. Doran had wanted a souvenir, and he’d gotten one—in the shape of four antique pirate swords curving into a figure eight.
The symbol for the Brethren of Outcasts.
Have fun explaining that to the shareholders, he thought.
Solara slung an arm over her eyes. “Please tell me that was a dream. Please tell me we weren’t inked by a retired accountant who took up body art last month.” Then she peeked beneath her bandage and whimpered. “Nope. Not a dream.”
“I’d ask what you’ve been up to,” Cassia said, “but I can already tell.” Smiling, she leaned down to inspect Solara’s neck. “You two are animals!”
Kane laughed and elbowed her. “It’s always the quiet ones.”
Doran’s eyes locked with Solara’s before he glanced at her throat and felt all the blood drain from his face. Her skin was covered in hickeys. She was going to kill him once she looked in the mirror.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but then he remembered how the mushroom had rewired his brain and given him some kind of eargasm, and the whole thing was so crazy that he couldn’t stop a laugh from bubbling up. “I haven’t,” he choked out between chortles, “given anyone a hickey since seventh grade.”
Her face turned so red it almost matched her neck. “You owe me a visit to the flesh forger,” she said, standing up. “And this”—she pointed back and forth between them—“will never happen again.”
She stormed away, and Cassia followed, clearly struggling to keep a straight face.
Doran was still laughing, though he knew that wouldn’t last long. The tension in his stomach warned that he’d soon be kneeling in front of the merciless toilet gods.
Kane gave a sympathetic wince and offered his hand. “I’ve heard that before. Last year after the hellberry festival.”
“She’ll get over it,” Doran said, accepting the help. “Eventually.”
Kane hauled him up with a laugh. “That’s what I thought, too.” He clapped Doran on the shoulder and said, “Good luck. You’re going to need it.”
The hickeys faded after a week, but the crew’s nightly wisecracks in the galley were much like the scent of burnt porridge—never ending.
“No scarf tonight?” the captain asked, pointing at Solara’s neck. “I guess you finally beat that cold virus.”
“I don’t believe she had a cold,” Renny said thoughtfully. “I’ll bet it was the Hoover flu. You know, named after the old vacuum cleaners on Earth?”