Gravity Between Us E-Book

Alexandra Norton

• Herausgeber: Alexandra Norton
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

I thought I could walk away. I've done it many times. But this time, all roads lead back to her.

Elaina Fairan knows she’s broken. Maybe that's why she’s been hiding at the edge of the universe, guarding herself with her work. Vulnerability has never been her strong suit, and machines are simpler than people. But when a magnetic Gaian stranger walks into her life, something about him makes her wonder if maybe she’s finally ready to stop running.

Cyan Orlogsson thought he was guided by fate itself when the ancient sword he bears pulled him to the edge of the known universe. He’s left behind everything—everyone—for this duty. He can’t let the aloof astrotechnician with striking eyes, or the electric connection between them, steer him off-course. But something about her makes him question everything he thought he knew about his purpose… Something about her feels like home.

As the fabric of their very universe unravels, Elaina and Cyan must risk everything—including their hearts—to stop the collapse. Can they find the courage to lean into a bond powerful enough to rewrite the stars? Or will their fear of falling tear them apart?

Gravity Between Us is a steamy sci-fi romance in which two fragile human souls must overcome their deepest fears—and fate itself—for a chance at love.

Leseprobe

GRAVITY BETWEEN US

UNFATED MATES SCI-FI ROMANCE

ALEXANDRA NORTON

Copyright © 2024 by Alexandra Norton

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Based on a true story.

PLAYLIST

https://alexandranorton.com/gravity-playlist

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Epilogue

Also by Alexandra Norton

ONE

ELAINA

The sandstone surface of Earendel was soft under her boot when Elaina stepped off her shuttle at 3400. Her head swam as she tried to orient herself in the planet’s higher gravity. Being back on solid ground after a full segment in orbit would take some getting used to.

The boxy slate-gray mechanical pack hound carried her luggage down the ramp. Elaina sighed at the underloaded machine, carrying a single backpack and a toolbelt. She strapped the belt around her waist and slung her pack over one shoulder. Flexing her toes in her boots to get a feel for familiar ground, she set off down the dusty road winding its way toward Chevron.

It was late at the edge of the universe, so the solitude of her walk wasn’t surprising. But something about the quiet of the road was unsettling nonetheless. There was a tautness in the air, something Elaina couldn’t quite shake—or maybe it was just her imagination, still reeling from the atmosphere pressing on her shoulders.

By the time Elaina dragged her feet up the metal staircase to her hab on the outskirts of Chevron, she could barely keep her eyes open enough to pass the retinal scan. Her backpack kicked up a puff of dust as she let it drop to the floor, soon followed by the clatter of her toolbelt. Elaina dragged herself to the bathroom, stripping her clothes as she went. She rubbed her eyes and stared at her barely visible reflection in the mirror, illuminated dimly by the motion sensor light orb at the sink. She had showered before departing the station, but now the dust of Earendel seemed to be in every nook and cranny of her body. As much as she wanted to collapse into bed, she felt her way to the shower pod instead.

Elaina lifted her face to the stream of water, letting the cascade relax her muscles. Once the grime was washed down the drain, out of her hair and nostrils, Elaina wrapped herself in a fluffy flaxweave towel and—finally—crawled into bed. That feeling from before was gone, the solitary tension of the walk. It had just been the adjustment to the atmosphere after all.

* * *

“You’re off today, El.” Tuskin glanced up from the circuit board he was soldering as she entered.

“I know.” Elaina trailed her hand over the metal tables lined with disassembled components. Her fingers itched to pick up the gutted satellite motherboard, to reconfigure and replace its broken parts. The urge to repair tingled at her fingertips.

“Busy down here too, huh?” she said.

“How’d you guess…” Tuskin grunted, magnified behind old specs he refused to ditch.

“Up there too. More than last shift,” Elaina mused. “Something is going on up there, and here too, I think. It’s… weird.”

“Things break, El. It’s in their nature.”

She clicked her tongue. “Not like this. The wear patterns I’ve seen all suggest⁠—”

“Station’s old,” Tuskin cut in. “Planet’s old.”

Elaina hummed. He was probably right. They were just going through a bad cycle. Or a good one, as far as work was concerned—more to patch, more tokens for them. Elaina should’ve been happy. She had done well for herself since she’d arrived on Earendel from Glacial Twelve a decade ago. There was demand for a specialist astrotechnician to do component repair planetside, and more intricate work up on the orbital station. Not to mention all the generic bits and bobs that needed patching. Elaina wasn’t yet in a position to build her own hab and retire in the mountains of Alpha Prime, but she did well enough for herself.

“Go rest, El,” Tuskin urged. “Take a walk. You’re still recovering from orbit. Mild paranoia’s routine after these longer shifts, remember?”

He was right again. Every time she returned from a stint at the orbital station, Elaina’s anxiety ratcheted up for a few sols. Something about the variable air pressure, maybe.

She just needed some fresh air.

* * *

Chevron city center was busy as usual, and Elaina took the quieter side streets as she navigated to her favorite teahab, a cozy little hole nestled inside an oversized cargo container. Repurposing materials was their specialty on Earendel. When you’re at the edge of the known universe, on a planet named after one of the most distant stars originally detected, you take what you can get.

“She’s back!”

“And awake.”

Elaina cut through the tables toward the voices, pressing a palm to the side of her neck in greeting. The corner table in the back was the coziest spot in the place, and that was where she’d always find the group—the Chevron Chatters, they called themselves. Four of them this time. She’d started attending their syncs to get out of her hab more. It was good for her to be around people, she’d realized a couple of cycles back. It was just… There were always so many other things to do! Repairs to make, new tech to deconstruct, hikes out in the arids.

Lance pushed a bowl of sandseeds toward her as Elaina took a seat. He jerked a strand of glistening golden hair from his eye. “How was it up there? A segment’s a long time.”

“Good.” Elaina popped a seed in her mouth. The dry, crumbly outer layer gave way to a burst of sweet nectar as it cracked between her molars. “Missed these, though. The ones on station are always stale. What are we chatting about?”

“The sand. Again.” Mia, the organizer of the conglomerate, sighed, adjusting her sheenlace hood around her neck.

“Not just the sand,” Petra protested, smacking her palm on the table in faux outburst. Petra was the dramatic one. “The fact that it gets everywhere.”

Petra had only been on Earendel for a season.

“You get used to it,” Elaina offered. It had certainly taken her a few windy cycles to get used to the sand and dust getting… well, literally everywhere. Now it barely bothered her anymore. It was only the dark segments that still got to her sometimes, when the sun was dimmer and almost completely obscured by atmospheric sandstorms. It had been an adjustment after Glacial Twelve. The station in the bustling center of the Kessler Galaxy had its lighting and climate strictly controlled for optimal mood enhancement and performance.

That was fine, though. Elaina was nothing if not adaptable. Besides, her decision to move hadn’t been about creature comforts. It was about adventure. The itch to go somewhere new and do something different. A fresh start in a new place to discover.

After the tea was cold, the sand topic worn out, and the sandseeds devoured, Elaina was happy but ready to trudge back home and crawl into bed with a book on her dataslate.

“It’s great to have you back,” Lance stepped out onto the curb next to her. “What are you looking at?”

Elaina tipped her chin up. “That.”

“What? There a ship up there?”

She looked at him. “No, just the sky.”

Didn’t he see the silvery wisps of cloud interspersed with red and orange grains overhead, weaving through like a glistening braid stitching together two halves of the sky? Hadn’t he noticed how beautiful it was?

“Oh, right.” Lance grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, it is. Hey, we should sync up here sometime. You know, without the others.”

Elaina’s first impulse was to politely decline. She had way too many other things to do, by herself. But Lance was objectively exactly her type in seemingly every way. And… wasn’t this what she wanted, in the end?

She realized he was looking at her. Waiting.

“That sounds really nice.” The pressure under her ribs subsided when she forced herself to ignore it.

“Great.” Lance’s shoulders relaxed. “I’ll ping you later and we’ll arrange something.”

“Sounds solid.” Elaina’s smile was mostly genuine. As she walked back home, her initial pang of trepidation morphed into tentative hope. Lance had been edging up to her for a while. He liked her, and maybe she could just let herself like him too.

But she had work to do, Elaina remembered as she passed by the garage. Too much work, by the looks of things. A nice problem to have. When would she even have time for Lance with all that work?

Stop it.

As Elaina climbed the stairs to her hab, that nagging disorientation of lingering gravity adjustment hit her again. She pressed her fingers to her sternum, massaging a spot there to will the sensation away.

TWO

CYAN

Earendel was hard under his boot as Cyan stepped off his shuttle at 3400. Dust puffed in a plume from the sandstone, settling quickly in the dry desert air. His first breath drew in a strange, salty tang—a sharpness that seemed to cling to his tongue. He brought up his dataslate for terrain composition, suspecting he’d find a good amount of sodium in the stone.

Only just as the damn thing began to pull up the data, the screen flickered and died.

Cyan sighed, stashing it in his jacket. Perfect timing. He ran his fingers absently through the tuft of fur on his left. Priad nudged into his leg, heavy breaths clouding in the dimness as the warg tasted the new air. Cyan scratched the beast absently, lifting his eyes to the vast expanse above them.

And then he saw it.

Where he’d expected darkness, a nebula sprawled across the night sky in vast, luminous swirls, its colors rippling like oil on water. Hazy clouds of violet and emerald wove together with threads of brilliant, shimmering blue, casting a faint glow over the landscape.

The nebula reached out from the galaxy's depths to brush against this edge-of-nowhere world, bathing the sandstone in spectral hues. Dust from his arrival caught flickers of light as it settled. The scene was surreal, vast, almost alive—and he, a mere speck in the face of all that eternity.

Cyan reached instinctively for the hilt of the sword at his hip, grounding himself as he stared upward. This wasn’t just another planet—it was a world on the edge of everything, where even the sky was different, and the universe was watching.

He’d never expected to end up here. Earendel was barely reachable, and barely desirable to reach by anyone except traders, suicidal explorers, and questionable characters who had reasons not to be found. Yet the weight at his hip led him here, and so here he was. The warg on his left looked up at him expectantly, tongue lolling from his mouth.

Earendel was warm.

Cyan tried the dataslate again to no avail, then looked toward the road leading straight to an illuminated city up ahead.

Chevron, he remembered from his preparatory research. He clipped the leash to Priad’s studded collar.

“All right,” he sighed. “Let’s go.”

The dark road was empty, and heavy with a sense of inevitability. Like he was treading the path he was supposed to tread—and so he would. The sword’s presence was a comforting tether. Its guidance was all he had to take. Its weight was great, but its direction always true. Cyan remained its loyal follower.

He smiled wryly to himself. Sometimes he liked to pretend he had a choice.

On the outskirts of the city, he stopped. It was a quiet street, and late enough for all the lights to be off in the windows, slatted blinds drawn shut. Beside him, Priad sniffed the air, ears pivoting. Was there danger?

Cyan turned toward a two-story block house, some kind of storefront at the bottom floor and grated stairs leading up to what was probably the shopkeeper’s residence at the top. It looked new enough, with a fresh coat of green paint. The whole street looked fairly neat and well-to-do. He thought he saw the faint glow of a dataslate behind the sheer curtains on the upper floor, but couldn’t be sure.

“Let’s go, boy.” Cyan was tired. He needed rest, and so did the warg.

* * *

In the center, he found more life. People doing business, sitting outside bars. The outerwear on Earendel was unmistakably functional but had an odd elegance—tailored for the harsh, sandy winds yet hugging the body in ways that felt almost ceremonial. A metallic sheen woven through the rough fabrics caught the light from the nebula above. Many had layered jackets that seemed heavy and heat-resistant, their colors a blend of muted ivory, ochres, and flashes of iridescent blue—a tint he hadn’t expected to find this far out from the galactic core.

Cyan found a holdover in the middle of the town square that doubled as a bar on the lower floor. At least he could get a drink on Earendel.

“We don’t take pets,” the keeper said gruffly, sliding a glass of brew across the bar toward him. “Not in here, and not in the rooms.”

“He’ll behave.”

“Yeah, they all say that. That thing is huge. I don’t need fur in my establishment.”

“Where else can we stay?”

“Nowhere, ‘less you make a friend, if you know what I mean.” The keeper nodded at a group of women and two men sitting at the other end of the bar.

“I don’t need those kinds of friends.”

“Then you can tie that friend outside for the night.”

Cyan worked his jaw, compelled to argue, but perhaps his first night on the planet was not the best to make enemies.

“Come, boy,” he tugged on the leash, leading Priad outside.

He found a quiet spot that would be shaded by an overhang underneath the tavern windows and secured the lead there. Priad, having realized what was going on, pawed the ground. Massive claws dug trenches in the sandstone.

“I’ll figure something out for tomorrow.” Cyan took the warg’s furry face between his hands, smoothing his brows with both thumbs. “Just lie low for tonight.”

Priad emitted a whine of protest.

“Down, now,” Cyan directed, pointing at the ground. He pressed on the warg’s back gently until the beast circled once, twice in his spot, then flopped with a frustrated huff. “Good boy. I’ll get you some meat.”

* * *

He insisted on the room with a window facing directly down to the spot where Priad was tethered. Inside, Cyan set his pack on the rickety chair at the wall. His broken dataslate came next, tossed on the bed like the dead weight it was. Finally, he unstrapped the sword on his back and walked to the window. Its weight was a comfort in his hands as he inspected it in the cool glow of the nighttime nebula. The dark, ashy gray of the broad tungsten alloy blade appeared to swallow more light than it reflected. It shifted under his eye, its will rippling silently beneath his gaze. The breadth of the blade spanned the length of his palm—a solid albatross that none but those it chose could have the strength to wield.

Cyan had wielded it for centuries. Or what felt like centuries anyway. Time stopped having meaning when the sword came to him, and now… well, he wasn’t even sure how long it had been.

He felt ancient.

The sword was a guide and an executioner. Thrice before, Cyan had used it to end a life. The powerful schemer siphoning orbital energy in attempts to create a new wormhole. The colony ship commander who had convinced herself to murder all on board and detonate the ship in range of a population hub. The cult leader convincing followers to end their own lives en masse for “redemption.” Cyan had learned a hard lesson with each—true evil, the sort his sword would guide him toward, cannot be redeemed. Cutting the rot at the root was the only way to restore order. And now he was here again, searching for whatever corruption the blade would have him uproot.

Evil does not change.

No matter that each time he used the sword, its weight had grown heavier on his back. That was his punishment to bear.

Cyan startled from his memories as the weapon of order in his hand caught the light. He stared at the blade. He was overtired and seeing things.

And yet there it was in front of him plain as day. The thin, jagged vein of hardened gold running down the length of the blade, hilt to tip… The lifeless thread he had traced countless times and knew as well as the back of his hand… It burned before him with a pulsing crimson glow.

THREE

ELAINA

Her hand was steady as she clicked the wire connectors into place in the satellite solar sensor on the workbench. This tech had come from a manufacturer she wasn’t familiar with, so it had taken some investigation to confirm the specs and config as best she could. If she’d gotten these wrong, the panel would short-circuit spectacularly, becoming just another piece of space junk. That wasn’t what people paid her the big tokens for.

Elaina was about to test the current when the aggressive chime of a visitor walking through the sensor made her look up.

It took a moment to register the full extent of the man in the doorway. Was that armor? She tried not to stare at the plating on his chest and shoulders, the lines too intricate, the material too thick. It looked… ancient.

Her eyes flicked to his face only briefly, registering short black hair with a sprinkling of gray that matched the salt in his trimmed beard. A sharp jaw and mouth set tensely in a thin line. Two frown lines, subtle yet nonetheless etched between his brows, added to the relative severity of his appearance. And then Elaina couldn’t avoid them anymore—the blue-gray eyes that met hers at just that moment. She averted her gaze.

Cute. A little retrofit, sure. But cute.

It hit her then, another wave of post-orbital gravity aftershock. Elaina rubbed her sternum, trying to distract herself from the jarring sensation.

“Can I help you?” Tuskin called out.

In her peripheral vision, the man approached Tuskin’s bench.

“I was told this is the place for repairs.” His voice was quiet and incongruously warm in its lack of inflection, with an accent she couldn’t quite place. The low, soft timbre of it was not at all what Elaina had expected from the man’s rugged appearance.

“That’s right,” Tuskin said. “Let’s take a glance.”

She flexed her fingers nervously, fighting the rising sensation that something is wrong. She should’ve recovered from orbit by now. Why was this paranoia, this dread, taking so long to stabilize?

She should’ve taken more time off. Her tools clattered as she pushed her stool from the bench.

She felt eyes turn on her, but didn’t look up. Clearing her throat, Elaina retreated to the back room. A customer shouldn’t see her like this. Leaning against the wall at the chest of electronics drawers, with the voices outside hushed to the point of incomprehension, Elaina breathed deep and waited for her head to settle. If this wasn’t going to resolve itself soon, she was definitely going to the doc. It had never taken her so long to get used to being planetside after an orbital shift before. Not longer than a sol. It had been three sols now and she was still not back to normal, and she did not like that.

Anchor down, Elaina.

As the feeling abated, Elaina made her way back into the main floor, where Tuskin was back at work, alone. A new dataslate sat on a pile at the edge of the workbench.

“Said he wants it back today,” Tuskin chuckled with a small shake of the head. Elaina eyed the pile of work in the queue before him—it would be a few sols at best.

“When’s he leaving?” Obviously the man had been an offworlder. Wouldn’t be staying around for long.

Tuskin shrugged. “Didn’t ask. Said I’d ping him soon as I had news.”

As Elaina picked up the slate, a familiar sensation tugged at her fingertips. A current pulling her to a thing that needed repair. “I’m ahead on that solar sat patch. I’ll take a look.”

“Elaina Fairan? Busying herself with a dataslate? Don’t you have ships to realign?” Tuskin eyed her.

“I’m still a bit off after orbit,” Elaina admitted. “Need something quick to distract myself.”

“Fair enough. His connect’s in there apparently. Said if we’re good enough to repair it, we’re good enough to find it.” Tuskan scoffed. “Clearly didn’t know who he was gonna be dealing with.”

FOUR

CYAN

The sands coloring the upper atmosphere of Earendel were as though straight from a painting. Cyan sat on the curb next to the holdover, Priad’s chin resting on his boot. The neon LED sign cast a sharp green glare on Priad’s ash black fur.

They’d spent the day outside of Chevron, exploring the arid jungle areas to the north. That salty flavor to the air was stronger there than even in the city, where it was somewhat masked by the scents of life, chemicals, and food. Priad had had room to run up and down the dunes that the shrubbery areas abutted, working off pent up energy for the first time since their last trip home.

He had missed the forests and mountains he’d grown up with—if it hadn’t been for the sword, he’d likely never have left his home solar system. He’d be on Gaia. Maybe with another warg to keep Priad company. Maybe with a family.

Cyan smirked wryly to himself, bringing the bottle to his lips for another sip of now-warm ale. Love had always been a fantasy. You built it—you didn’t stumble around all over the galaxies in the dark hoping for lightning to strike. If he wanted it, he’d have to look. And he had no time for that; not with the weight on his back.

He frowned, steering his thoughts away from his homeworld. Scratching Priad behind the ear, he smiled down as the warg met his eyes from beneath hooded furry brows.

“It will release us eventually,” Cyan assured the warg.

He didn’t know when, or how. But in the weeks of dreams and nightmares that followed the sword’s arrival in his life, he’d gotten glimpses of a sort of knowing that eventually he would fulfill his task.

Or maybe he just needed to let himself believe that.

“Someday we’ll make it back.” Cyan gave Priad’s head two firm pats. The warg yawned and flopped onto his side, tucking his paws to his chest in a gesture entirely incongruous with the fearsome beast. This was love. Guaranteed. Foolproof. Easy. Cyan scratched the beast’s barrel chest.

The comms adhesive at the back of his ear vibrated in that moment, the bone-conducting audio announcing an unknown connection within a two-kilometer radius.

“Yes?” he answered.

“Hi. Cyan Orlogsson?”

Cyan blinked, having expected the voice of the old man he’d met earlier that day in the repair garage and instead getting something else entirely.

He could guess who it was. He had seen her.

“You’re good,” he smiled.

“T-thanks. It’s kind of my job. Your dataslate’s ready for pickup, first thing tomorrow.”

“Is it fixed?”

“Well, I’ve got your name and connect, don’t I?” the girl quipped, though he heard the hint of pride in her voice. Cyan raised a brow at Priad.

“Then I’d like to get it tonight, if I can.”

“We’re technically closed …”

“Please. It’s important.”

It’s not that important.

Cyan turned away from Priad’s unblinking stare.

The other line took a beat, thinking. “Yeah, okay. Can you get here in the next ten minutes?”

“I’ll be there.”

FIVE

ELAINA

It was not ten minutes. It was 2400, way past time, and Cyan Orlogsson wasn’t there yet. Part of her wanted to be offended. Part of her was.

Elaina looked down at the carton of half-eaten noodles at her workbench. Honestly, she always ate dinner at the garage anyway. Not like she had anything better to do. But she could have. Who runs twenty minutes late past closing time?

The things she found in that dataslate, though… She was curious enough to be a little more forgiving.

A little.

Elaina was just about ready to give up and close shop when he arrived, still in that armored plating and the thick shoulder guards. Weren’t those heavy?

“Sorry I’m late,” the man said with a look that didn’t seem that sorry at all.

“It’s sand off the helix.”

No, it’s not.

Only the agitation that had been building melted away as soon as he offered her a broad, open grin, and something about it struck her as so innocent… so… boyish? How could anyone possibly be mad at that smile?

Or maybe she was just too curious about what she’d found in that dataslate. There was something off-axis about this guy, though not in a bad way. Or maybe in a bad way. Elaina wanted to find out.

He was already taking a seat on the stool across from her workbench as if this were anything other than a quick handover.

“Cyan Orlogsson,” he said, clasping a large hand to the side of his neck.

“Elaina Fairan.” She returned the greeting. “Here’s your dataslate. All patched. I had to crack the passcode.”

“Ah, so you found my list of victims?”

A laugh escaped her, so sudden that she had to cover her mouth, and the way something sparked in his eye and his brows went up a bit for a moment made her look away.

“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you, would I?”

“Smart.”

“How did you break it?”

“Hmm?” He cocked his head.

“Your dataslate. How did you break it?” She slid the slate over to him.

“I… didn’t, actually.” Cyan Orlogsson scratched his chin through his beard. “Or I don’t know. It must’ve gotten damaged in the landing somehow, when I got here. Or maybe I just sat on it and didn’t notice.” He chuckled.

Elaina frowned. “I don’t think that’s it…”

“Tell me.”

Something came to attention in him. His expression didn’t change, but the air around him stilled somehow. He was curious, and… well, she’d been dying to tell this to someone who was actually curious for a while. But also, for some reason, she didn’t want to come off like a crazy person to this man.

“Just something I noticed during the repair. Similar patterns of damage to other devices that have been failing around here, and in orbit.”

“You work in orbit?” He perked up.

“Yeah, up on the orbital station. One-segment shifts.”

“Segment?”

“Umm…” He was definitely not from around here. “A segment is thirty planet sols.”

“Ah. A month.”

“Month.” A clue to his origin, perhaps?

“Anyway,” Elaina shook her head, “it’s probably nothing.”

Cyan propped his elbows on the workbench and leaned forward. His eyes, deep silver in the low light, fixed on her in a way she didn’t like, but didn’t… not like either. “What if it’s something?”

Good question. What if it was something?

“What brought you to Earendel?” she changed the subject. “And what is that thing about?”

She had been dying to ask about the sword on his back, its hilt jutting up over his left shoulder. And other things too.

He paused, as if weighing how much he wanted to share. “It’s part of my work.”

“What do you do, joust?”

His laughter was full and deep, straight white teeth flashing handsomely.