The first meeting of Bacoj and Vax
Dramok Bacoj sat at
the bar. He stared into his drink, unmindful of what was going on around him.
Not that much happened at a place like Solet Tavern. It was a lowkey
neighborhood spot where the locals came in after their shifts to either unwind
or get quietly drunk. Bacoj fit neither description, but since he wasn’t in the
mood for a rowdy club, Solet fit his needs perfectly.
He contemplated his
glass of amber kloq, vaguely aware of the background clink of glasses, hum of
conversation, and low occasional laughter. The bar itself was an old wooden slab,
showing the scars of glass rings from decades—maybe centuries—of service.
His com sat next to
his sweating glass, probably too close, despite its moisture-protective casing.
No one was on the line. The holographic vid screen was off, and it would remain
so as long as he could stand it. He’d made the dumb move of switching the com
off with the text message program enabled. The instant he turned it on again,
he’d see the two messages queued up, the messages that had come in within
minutes of each other. He’d read the first over and over, memorizing it. Though
he’d not done the same with the second, it was burned in his mind as well.
My life is shit.
His pity party was
abruptly interrupted by a tray of small finger foods, carefully shoved between
his com and glass. Startled, Bacoj jerked his head up. His eyes met those of a
young man with a gentle smile.
“You’ve been here
long enough to have missed your evening meal. Put something besides kloq in
your stomach,” the bartender said.
“I haven’t drunk that much.” Bacoj sized him up. He
looked to be in his mid-twenties, close to Bacoj’s age. That soft,
compassionate expression could only belong to a member of the nurturing Imdiko
breed. Ancestors, what a sweet face. Handsome too.
“I noticed you’ve been nursing that glass for the last
hour. Impressive since your expression tells me you’d love to drink yourself
into oblivion.”
“The trouble with kloq-induced oblivion is that you have
to return from it at some point.” Despite his depression, Bacoj couldn’t help
but smile at the other man. Definitely a face to turn heads. Maybe his jaw was
a tad too chiseled and his lips too thin to claim perfection, but he’d missed
it by just an inch. Were his waves of black hair as soft as they appeared?
The urge to find out was close to irresistible.
“Are things really that bad?” Cutie Imdiko tilted his
head, regarding Bacoj as if no one else in the world mattered.
"Bad enough."
Releasing this summer.
Yay!
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