“Do you find me attractive?”
Just like that, I ask him. And why not? We’ve been flirting a little lately, I think. Unless I’ve read him completely wrong.
It’s likely. It’s been a long time since I’ve flirted with anyone, and I’ve never found reading people as easy as others make it out to be. My friends have a knack for sensing the difference between a signal for affection and someone just being friendly. But not me.
The first boy who broke my heart was named Vaughan. His family was from the Aegis colony. He had those beautiful green eyes and high cheekbones his people are famous for. I was thirteen and too tragic. He was kind to me once when we both had detention, and I was too inexperienced to know how easily I could embarrass myself in the months that followed.
Finally, we both attended a Christmas party at the home of a mutual friend. I kissed him under the mistletoe. He hugged me with one hand on my ass. I skipped away, thinking he might ask me out. Later, I overheard him and a big-breasted girl from another school making fun of me when they thought I was out of the room.
The music stops. The whirring fades as twelve spinning wheels slow to a halt. At first, I think I’ve fucked up, and my face and neck are warm—warmer than they would normally be after a spin class. When he leans over the handles instead of looking at me, I think maybe he just didn’t hear me. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse. I step off my bike, but before I can leave, his hand is on my arm.
“Wait.”
The word falls out of him between breaths. He is drenched in sweat, and the heat emanating from him ripples the air around the surface of his skin. He squeezes my wrist, forehead resting on his other hand, shoulders rising and falling.
The studio walls glow with a dewy light. It’s morning, almost my last. By this time tomorrow, the AMS Celestial Dream will reach Planet Paradiso, the end of my journey.
Or rather, the beginning. But Alexei will carry on and circle back home, wherever his home is. The universe is a big place. We may never see each other again. This is my last chance.
And so, even if I wait for the answer to be no, I suppose I’m glad to have asked. I could have opened by asking, Will you go to bed with me? But we barely know each other beyond light conversation and laughter, three times a week or less. A spin class here, a yoga class there—quips and commiserations, captured in forty-five-minute aerobic snapshots, and passing glances in amenities around the ship.
After one final, deep breath, Alexei looks at me. His blue eyes offer the smile that connects us before it travels to his lips. His hand moves to my hand. He gives me another squeeze.
The Only Question That Matters by JL Peridot
“Do I call this love already? I am almost disgusted with myself. How pathetic to fall so easily. Perhaps I was the cause of my past heartbreaks. Not stupid schoolboys or an arrogant rich man, but a gullible girl from a flower farm who opens her heart too readily and expects too much.”
Sofia is en route to Planet Paradiso, ready to start a new life after her divorce. But when she accepts Alexei’s dinner invitation on her final evening, she realises she’s in for more than she bargained for.
As the AMS Celestial Dream arrives at its destination, and their one-night stand draws to a close, Sofia must choose between a newfound possibility with Alexei and the freedom she so desperately craves.
This sci-fi romance novella is a revised re-release, originally published in 2018.
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JL Peridot writes love letters to the future on devices from the past. Visit jlperidot.com for the full catalogue of her work.
1 comment:
Great excerpt, JL. :)
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