8. Chapter 8

Chapter eight

G arrett caught a short nap before his lunch date with Jezria, enough so that he could handle plowing through the reams of legalese she was going to be throwing at him. Fortunately, he didn't have to go far to meet with her since she was coming from a meeting with his father. They sat out on the terrace, placed their order with one of the kitchen staff, and got down to business. Which was, as Garrett had suspected, mind-numbingly exhaustive.

"Health insurance?"

"Naturally."

"That's not just an inclusive part of the setup? I'm going to be living there for three years; I think that qualifies me as a resident."

"But not as a citizen," Jezria clarified. "You're not going to be paying taxes to Pandora or, by proxy, Olympus. Therefore, you're not entitled to the same benefits the colonists are. The medical facilities in particular will be rather expensive, given the distribution of naturals. Hence, the health insurance."

"Is it any good?"

"Garrett," she groused, "the contract is right there in front of you. Read it for yourself. Evaluate. Decide."

"You know I can just private pay if anything disastrous happens to me."

"That's not the point," she huffed, "but if you don't want to take advantage of what we offer, that's completely within your purview."

Garrett laughed. "You sound so annoyed."

"Well, you're quite annoying sometimes."

"Good thing I make up for it with the view."

Jezria rolled her eyes. "Being beautiful can hardly be equated with being a good person, Garrett. Although for the record, I think that you're both. But I also think that three years in your company will inure me and pretty much everyone else on this expedition to your charms, so if I were you, I'd do my best to put friendly first."

"Wait." This was news to Garrett. " You're coming on this trip? Not just organizing it?"

"Indeed. I'm the chief administrative officer. Similar to my current position, really, except I expect I'll have a lot more grunt work to do getting the colony up and running effectively."

That had to mean … "You're leaving the mantle of senator behind?"

"I am. I've been a public servant for more years than I care to let on. I'm ready for a change of pace." She folded her small hands neatly over her soft, rounded midsection and smiled at him.

"Holy shit." Garrett shook his head slowly. "I feel like I'm in some sort of parallel universe. Everything is changing. I'm moving to the edge of the galaxy, you're giving up the Senate, Dad is having a baby …"

She laughed. "Is that what had you so worked up yesterday?"

"Yeah. It threw me for a bit of a loop, but I'm happy for him. Them."

"You just don't want to be around for it."

"Kids, Jezria," Garrett said with heavy emphasis. "Children. Frightening, needy, maniacal little creatures with no instruction manual and a million ways for a parent to fuck up. Of course, I want to get out of here. They don't need me to be any part of this kid's upbringing. It's probably safer that way."

"You don't think you'd make a good big brother?"

"I'm more the fly-in, fly-out type, I think. More like an absentee uncle or something."

"You have some very strange notions about yourself," Jezria said, her eyes dark and uncomfortably penetrating. "But you'll grow out of them, most likely. I think Pandora will be good for you."

"Yes, freezing my ass off in the middle of nowhere will undoubtedly help me build huge amounts of character," he said with an eyeroll. "Having a place to be and work to do while avoiding the impending rise of the happy family? Now that will be good for me. Where do I sign?"

"You haven't read the last thirty-seven pages," she pointed out.

"I can't; I feel like I want to gouge my eyeballs out with this fork as it is. It's fine," Garrett said with a wave of his hand. "Now let me sign this thing so we can eat. Your ambrosia salad is getting room temperature."

"If you're comfortable with it," Jezria said. She swiped to the signatory page. "And the thumbprint next to it, please."

Garrett signed with a flourish, pressed his thumb down hard so the tablet could read his DNA, and handed it all back to her. "Now let's eat."

"Gladly. Welcome aboard, Garrett."

After the meeting, the rest of his afternoon was spent getting the last of the things he wanted to take with him packed aboard his ship and getting rid of things he didn't have a use for. Wyl helped, in a manner of speaking, between tweaking Garrett's engines to run with more power and efficiency. He went through Garrett's pile of cast-offs and provided color commentary that was almost enough to make Garrett reconsider asking for Wyl's help in the first place, but not quite.

"What the fuck is this thing anyway?" he asked, holding up a dangling, twisted cord studded with brightly colored knobs.

Garrett glanced over at it from his pile of clothes. "Personal massager."

"Um … how?"

"It goes with a particular type of body art. You have to have plugs and the right kind of neural network."

Wyl raised his eyebrows. "And you have those?"

"No, I've never gone in for the massive body-sculpting stuff, but I had a lover for a while who did."

"And when did you kick him to the curb?"

"Oh, maybe … ten years ago? Or eleven?" Anistaz. Dumb as a box of rocks, but he'd had an amazing body, and Garrett had never been that interested in his conversation anyway. They'd spent a few exciting months together before the urge to nest hit his lover, and Garrett had promptly fled.

"And you've never bothered to get rid of this thing?"

Garrett shrugged. "I might have found someone else to use it on."

"Man, I hope you washed it first."

Garrett rolled his eyes and turned back to his clothes. In the end, Wyl took a couple of old-style paperback books off his hands that he thought Robbie would enjoy and some subdued vintage T-shirts that Garrett couldn't ever remember wearing, but which fit Wyl perfectly. They carted most of the rest of it to the recycling chamber, then parted ways with a promise to meet again for dinner.

Miles ordered in from a sea-themed restaurant, fish and crab and five different types of snails, and Claudia paired it with some light, crisp wines. Robbie and Wyl joined them on the terrace, and the five of them sat down to a comfortable, friendly meal. It was perfect. Everyone liked each other—Wyl had long gotten over his early apprehension of Miles—and between the security concerns, the upcoming baby, and Garrett's imminent departure, there was more than enough to talk about.

They spent three enjoyable hours together before Claudia finally couldn't control her yawns and excused herself, making Garrett promise to wake her to say goodbye before he left the next morning if she was still asleep. Miles followed her, and then Wyl rubbed his hands together and smiled evilly.

"Time to go clubbing."

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Robbie groaned, tilting his head back and sighing. "I'm too old for clubbing."

"Bullshit." Wyl patted Robbie's knee gently. "But nice try, baby. You really go all out on the ‘curmudgeonly' front sometimes; it's adorable."

"Gare …"

"It's my party, right?" Garrett asked.

Wyl nodded emphatically.

"Then I say you go clubbing with us." Garrett imitated Wyl's evil grin. "And you let Wyl pick your clothes. No fatigues or gray T-shirt and black pants. And do consider some highlights. Just a little across your cheekbones and along your eyebrows."

Wyl said, "Yes!" just as Robbie said, "Hell no. No makeup. No dyes. Absolutely not. Your party or not, I will stage a hostile takeover and run this my way if I have to."

"You are good at hostile takeovers," Wyl offered.

"Don't encourage him," Garrett warned. "My place in an hour, then we can head out together."

"Where are we going?" Wyl asked eagerly. Robbie just looked resigned.

That was a good question. Garrett hadn't been to any of the clubs in a while, not since his pickup a week ago, and since tonight would be his last night here for quite some time, he wondered if he shouldn't make a crawl of it and hit them all. But Robbie would get fed up with that fast, and despite Garrett's teasing, he did care if his friend was uncomfortable.

"The Palladium," he said at last. What the hell. He had promised Isidore he'd stop by again if he got the chance.