He chuckles.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s not, but you’re a little entertaining when you’re high.”
All I can do is pout. My lips feel like they’re four times the size they began, but at least I’m pain-free. I can’t enjoy it though. I’m being pulled under fast.
“Go to sleep, Starfleet.”
“Nooooo. I don’t want to be by myself.” Distantly, my mind thinks about all the things it will regret about this interaction, but right now, nothing bothers me.
“I’m not going anywhere.” His voice is a rumble. “Sleep. I brought you something. When you wake up you can have it.”
“Presents are definitely the way to my dark heart. You haven’t heard my husbandly decrees yet. That’s one—unlimited presents.”
If he responds, I don’t hear it. I’m dragged into the abyss. I do feel lips press against my forehead, but I’m high, and I have to be imagining that.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
Atlanta
Ialmost lost my left eye for Gem once, and like the rest of my scars, I didn’t have that one healed away, either. I was driven to keep them. The eyebrow doesn’t grow in right, leaving a space down the middle of it and there’s marred skin up my browbone as well as over the crest of my cheekbone. One straight diagonal line from above my eyebrow to just over my cheekbone if you piece it together.
All this time, I’ve collected a map of scars I’ve earned for him. If anyone wants to know how much I love Gem, they can read the tale of my love for him on my body. I wish I’d read my skin map sooner, even though that wouldn’t have changed anything. There was no reason to change anything unless we were gonna marry, and we knew the king would never say yes to a war grunt like me.
I loved defending Gem across the galaxy, and he loved it when I rescued him. Then I fell with my brother, and Gem followed me to Earth.
* * *
A spirited glow pries my eyes open, but it’s the only light nearby. The rest of the world is bathed in midnight darkness.
“Gemini?” my voice rasps, still burnt to shit from drinking whatever makes you a star again.
“Don’t you get up, Atlanta Orion.”
“Stop bossing me a?—”
“Shh.”
I peer across the darkness to where he sits at my feet, cross-legged. I’m in a bed, a cozy one under a mountain of quilts. Don’t wanna move anyway. My body feels like it was burned to cinders and then patched together again. My eyes are dry as fuck.
He was mad at me—is he still mad at me? He kinda sounds mad at me.
His strawberry hair is tied in a high ponytail, and he’s wrapped in loose robes I can’t make out the color of with him glowing like that.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
“Helping you heal. Can’t you feel it?”
The predominant thing I feel is exhaustion. “No. I think it’ll work better with you over here, baby.”
“I’m mad at you.”
Knew he was mad. “Sorry.”
“For what?”
I huff. “Whatever pissed you off. Jeez, Gem. Could you just tell me why I’m in the doghouse so I can work on getting out of it?”
