Sol by Elsa Jade

Author:Elsa Jade [Jade, Elsa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction romance
Publisher: Red Circle Ink
Published: 2020-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

He’d made a terrible mistake. He’d thought he could buy her appreciation, and instead he’d won her suspicion.

Sol withdrew between the dark pines beyond the reach of the bonfire flames as Brin paused to chat with another group. The UFOooooktoberfest—”Spirits and Spirits!” a banner at the entrance to the campground had proclaimed—was already in full swing by the time she’d arrived, and the flow of artisan alcohol had only made the fest more boisterous. Some people were dressed in elaborate costumes representing planetary oddities and in-jokes he didn’t know, and he still wasn’t sure what disembodied etheric emanations and ethanol had to do with extraterrestrials, but the enigma didn’t seem to bother anyone else.

In the press and jostle of warmly dressed, strangely augmented bodies, a few times he’d managed to get close enough to overhear her conversations. So far, she had not asked anyone directly about the Intergalactic Dating Agency rumors. Mostly she seemed curious about the town and its people and its own stories, not the ones that the IDA had sneaked in.

But that couldn’t last forever.

And what he’d do about that… He wasn’t sure. He’d sent a message to Cross but hadn’t heard back, which made every muscle in his body tense. Too many unexplained comings and goings in Sunset Falls.

But he couldn’t leave while Brin was here, circling among these Earthers who admittedly seemed more interested in tiny paper cups full of flavored fermented vegetation than “little green men”—but they were too close to the still nonoperational IDA outpost for his comfort.

Judging from Brin’s encounters with New Fan/Farah, the woman knew Evens and wanted to interfere with the IDA. Whether she’d actually done something to him or just wanted to was less clear, but her angry diatribe against “love liars” seemed very pointed—like the sharp end of a laser scalpel. If Brin recognized her, he needed to be close to have his own chance at a questioning.

Watching her move so easily through the crowd—smiling and engaging though she was a stranger—reminded him just how far from home he was. His crewmates and Evens, of course, knew about the IDA, and there were a few inhabitants of Sunset Falls, like Kailani and the IDA construction workers, but he couldn’t be himself even with most of them.

What he himself was, was a problem.

So he stood in the cold shadows and watched while Brin perused a lineup of flavored vodkas from a local distiller with the name Gloaming Spirits Distillery on the sign overhead. The proprietor said something that made her look up with a laugh, and her brown eyes caught the flicker of the bonfire, flaring to gold.

Something flared in Sol too.

After she showed her wristband and handed over one of her tokens, she selected a small cup—he couldn’t read the label at this distance—and ambled off with it to stand nearer the bonfire.

The dance of the flames behind her mesmerized him, the way they licked around her, highlighting her skin and teasing him through the strands of her black hair flagging on the night breeze.

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