Page 23 of Red Scale Daddy
“I did not ask yet.”
“You were about to.”
I grin despite myself. “You make a habit of answering questions before they happen?”
“When the question is obvious and the answer is no.”
Loklo lifts one finger. “For administrative clarity, I would like to hear the question.”
I look at Roma. “I’ll go.”
“No.”
“You didn’t let me finish.”
“You had reached the relevant part.”
“I’ll go with you,” I say anyway, because irritation is a form of seasoning and she brings out the best-worst in me. “You need muscle, combat experience, emergency judgment, and someone who has been in enough collapsing ships to know which sounds mean panic and which sounds mean move your ass right now.”
“No.”
“I am also charming.”
“No.”
“Handsome.”
“No.”
“Difficult to kill.”
“That is not the same as useful.”
“It is in space.”
She steps around me. I shift with her, blocking just enough to keep the conversation alive. Her eyes narrow.
“Do not physically obstruct me,” she says.
“Then stop trying to end a useful discussion.”
“This is not a discussion. This is a man with a death wish attempting to hitch himself to my mission because it flatters his appetite for catastrophe.”
“That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week.”
“It was not nice.”
“I have flexible standards.”
Loklo’s gaze slides toward the main room. “Dux.”
I hear it too.
A bad change in the noise.
Bars speak. Mine is a filthy, temperamental old bastard, but I know its language. Laughter fades at the edges. Chairs shift without the rhythm of ordinary movement. Someone near the door says something under their breath. Metal clicks, not loudly, but with the intimate little confidence of a weapon being readied by someone who thinks no one important has noticed.
Roma notices half a breath after I do. Her pupils tighten. Her shoulders square.
