I crossed my arms, one hip jutting out as I shifted my balance. “If you already knew, then why did you ask?”
He shook his head as though dismayed, his close-cropped brown hair glinting in the slanting, mote-filled rays. His hair spiked a little haphazardly in front where some cowlicks seemed to have minds of their own. My fingers twitched with the sudden urge to reach out and smooth them down.
Strange. I usually resisted all forms of uniformity in conscious protest of the oppressive galactic order. And wanting to touch a total stranger was weird in itself.
“Why. Did. You. Ask.” He enunciated each word pointedly, although even that didn’t mask the slight drawl in his voice or the humor underlying it. “Hear that? You’ve got to slide it all together, fancy pants. Like this: why’d’ya’ask?”
Fancy pants? I arched one brow—high—and then dutifully parroted, “Why’d’ya’ask?”
“Good.” He gave a quick nod of approval. “Now lose the imperious look, and you might fit in around the docks.”
I gaped—inwardly, at least. On the outside, I just stood there. What the hell? How had he pegged me so fast, and so freaking well?
“I haven’t been to Sector 12 in a long time. I’m from 8, if you really want to know.”
“Really wanna know,” he corrected.
I didn’t parrot this time. He was exaggerating. Except for a few prolonged vowels and slightly sloppy articulation, his speech sounded perfectly neutral to me.
He pursed his lips, looking deep in thought. “You can’t be full 8. I know what the rats out there sound like.”
So he’d been around the galaxy. So had I.
I took a deep breath and uncrossed my arms. “You Ganavan?” I asked.
“Might be. Who’s asking?”
I had the strongest impulse to say Quintessa Novalight and blow his fucking world to bits because he was ticking me off, but I wasn’t stupid enough for that. “Tess Bailey,” I answered, resurrecting her from the dead.
“And what are you looking for in my shop, Tess Bailey?”
His gaze dipped as he said my name, as though he were stamping the letters onto my body, or somehow imprinting them right into both of us. I got the feeling this guy never forgot a thing, and I suddenly wished I’d made up something else. Why didn’t I ever just blurt out Jane Smith?
“Do you have more of a name than just Ganavan?” I asked, ignoring the heat tingling up my spine. Part of it was habitual nervousness, but there was also something else. Something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
“Shade Ganavan,” he answered, looking dead serious for the first time since we’d met. The rascal was gone for just a moment, and in his place, there was a man whose deep voice and assessing eyes caused a slight tremor to go through me.
I couldn’t tell if I wanted to step closer to him, or get the hell out of his shop. Usually, I wasn’t conflicted about that type of thing.
I opted for staying where I was. “Well, Shade Ganavan, I need someone to repair my ship. Do you know of anyone who has at least eight standard tiles of reinforced, space-worthy metal, welding equipment, and a way to get it all up to the three-hundred-and-fourteenth level of the Squirrel Tree?”
His head reared back. “You’re in the fucking Squirrel Tree? Shit, princess, I guarantee they’re ripping you off.”
I bristled. “It was the only place to land.”
“Says the guy who controls the tower, who’s paid off by the guy who owns the Squirrel Tree.”
He looked genuinely annoyed on my behalf. It was nice. I couldn’t remember the last time a stranger had stuck up for me simply on principle. This guy was such a contradiction. Shade Ganavan had oodles of arrogance, oodles of charm, and oodles of something that made me want to kick him in the nuts.
“So?” I prompted.
“I can take care of your ship for you.”
“You? Yourself?” I asked.
He spread his hands. “I’m a man of many talents.”
“There’s no shortage of cockiness, in any case.”
“Oh, there’s nothing short about my—”
I held up my hand. “Women from Sector 12 don’t like hearing that kind of talk.”
He grinned, a slow, sex-on-a-stick smile that made heat spark low in my abdomen. “Then what kind of talk do they like?” he asked.
“Squeaky clean,” I answered, amazed that I kept a straight face while telling an enormous falsehood—in my case, anyway.
He smirked. “You mean boring as hell?”
My lips twitched. The scoundrel was back, and my pulse accelerated in response. I didn’t mind dirty talk, and I would have bet good money that Shade Ganavan did it really well.
“And I thought you were from 8,” he added abruptly.
My smile died. Shit. He had me there.
“How do you know so much about accents?” I asked, suddenly curious to know more about him. And also anxious to change the subject. It never hurt to shift the focus to the other guy, especially when he probably loved talking about himself.
“I travel, working, picking up stuff.” His eyes cruised over the crowded shelves on either side of us.
Mine did, too. But while he looked satisfied with his jumbled collection, the brief glance around us just raised questions in my mind. There was too much stuff here, and a lot of it looked like it hadn’t been touched—and by that, I meant cleaned—in months. It didn’t appear his business was doing very well.
“Picking up things for your shop?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Goods. Odds and ends. Some jobs. You know how it goes.”
My eyes narrowed. That was vague. And the quality of his clothing didn’t match the neglected feel of his shop. He wore rather technical-looking dark cargo pants and a snug-fitting black T-shirt, neither of which looked cheap or worn. His boots were solid and in good condition as well, with soles that looked thick enough to help him kick down the Endeavor’s current starboard door.
Thinking about the thin safety hatch that was left, I was shocked all over again that we’d made it out of today’s terrifying events alive. All things considered, maybe Jaxon was on to something with his Sky Mother beliefs.
In any case, Shade Ganavan was making money somewhere—even if it wasn’t here.
Uh-oh. “Don’t tell me you’re a pirate. Is all this stuff stolen?” I asked, thinking about Flyhole and all its corrupt bandits only a short jump away.
His mouth turned down. “Not a pirate, sugar. More like a space rogue.”
“A space rogue?”
He nodded. “A phenomenal one, at that.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Space Rogue Phenom? Really? Maybe I should call you SRP.”
His dark eyes glittered as though I’d just thrown down a gauntlet, and he was more than ready to pick it up. “Only if you want me to call you RLCA.”
Don’t ask. Don’t ask. “And what’s that?”
“Rosy Lips, Cute Ass.”
I stared at him, my heart going berserk in my chest. He stared back.
His brow suddenly furrowed. “Holy shit, you’re turning bright red.” He looked pissed off again. “Doesn’t anyone ever flirt with you? You married or something?”
He sounded aggravated on all counts, as though he thought it was horrifying that no one ever flirted with me, and even more horrifying that I might be married.
He also seemed concerned that I was so obviously flustered, while at the same time, he was the one who had been completely provoking in the first place. The whole thing just flushed me hotter—and I’m sure turned me redder.
Despite having declined a few offers here and there, I hadn’t felt this aware of male appreciation in more than seven years. Well, there had been Dagger Bently, but scrubbing off his lewd looks and comments with industrial-strength prison soap sure didn’t count.
“No. And no,” I finally answered, my voice sounding as though it grated across sandpaper in my throat.
He watched me for a moment from under lowered brows, and then, thankfully, Shade Ganavan, Space Rogue, let the subject drop.
“So what happened to your ship?” he asked, nodding vaguely toward where I thought the Squirrel Tree must have been from here. “The Dark Watch blow it full of holes?”