Chapter Fifteen
Shins on Shoulder Blades
Josh did not come over to Jenna’s to unveil his creation. Sardius did not come either. Jenna was left to look at the photos alone in her bedroom with only Ixy in her ear. Truthfully, no one really wanted to be around Jenna since her forcefield was a constant threat to everyone around her.
Owly, she sat in the middle of her bed and told Ixy, “Get Sardius on the line. I can’t live like this! He doesn’t want to be here, fine, but he has to spare a couple of minutes on the phone with me so I can share my reaction with him.”
“I’ll see what I can do. He and his boys on the space station are flipping out. They’re saying there’s an abnormality in their readings,” Ixy explained.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that there is something on Octavia Prime that shouldn’t be here.”
“Harlee brought it?” Jenna asked, rolling her eyes and wondering if she would ever be able to have a single person who was tied to the AAMC visit without a kerfuffle.
“They can’t confirm that she did,” Ixy said slowly, like she was thinking hard for the first time in her life. “Harlee was more like the excuse for someone to drop their abnormality. The security team is not sure what it does. They don’t think it interferes with transmissions. It’s not collecting information. It’s not a bomb. Sardius is working on it and he’s mad as hell. It sounds like this all interrupted something he was working on apart from all his business and security goals.”
“What’s he doing?” Jenna asked.
“I can’t monitor him the way I monitor you,” Ixy explained, “but if I were to give my opinion, I would say that he’s trying to break your forcefield.”
Jenna looked at the ceiling. “Well, then he’s a very good fiance. Even if he’s busy, tell him that I need him for a minute. I want to go through the pictures together.”
“Kay.”
Ixy signed off and the next person in her ear was Sardius. “Hey, Babe,” he drawled.
“Hey. Have you looked at these photos yet?” she asked.
“No. I’ve been a bit consumed with some things up here, but I was hoping we’d get to look at them together, even if I’m in space. I’ll come down to the surface soon,” he promised.
“When?”
“When I’m ready to lose a hand,” he said roughly. “Or at least play fast and loose with the idea of losing a hand.”
Jenna groaned. “Surely, we can meet once in a while whether you can touch me or not.”
“No. We can’t,” he said shortly. “I am going to break apart if I can’t be with you. I have an idea on how to deal with your forcefield. I just want to do a little more research before I put my theory into practice.”
Jenna didn’t believe him. She didn’t believe he had any ideas. She didn’t believe him that he was willing to risk yet another major injury after he’d already endured so many.
“Ready to look at the pictures?” she asked, setting his claims aside.
“Let me get back to my room. I’m in the hallway talking to you through an earpiece.” She heard him making his way through the station and finally heard him open a door. “I want to see this on my big screen.” She heard him close the door. “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s open the pack together. Ready? One, two, three.”
Jenna clicked the picture pack open and she was stunned at the first picture that was there.
It was her in that white linen dress that didn’t look like anything. She had Sardius pinned to a blue plaster wall. She had her hand on the wall and she looked over her shoulder at the camera, showing her nose in profile. Sardius was against the wall. He was dressed similarly, in light linen clothes. His arms were around Jenna like she was the most precious thing in the universe. He was kissing her head with his nose dangerously close to her crown. His eyes were closed and he looked completely at peace with where he was. The most important part was that in the wall next to them was a square window with grilles crossing it with the ocean on the other side of it. Fish swam by and there was the shadow of an Octavian in the distance.
“I love it,” Jenna declared, “but I’m not sure I understand what it’s meant to communicate.”
Sardius took a deep breath in as he prepared to say what he thought of the picture. “My knuckles are uncovered. My elbow spikes are uncovered. If you wall-slammed me in that way in reality, you might have hurt yourself on me.”
“That’s funny,” Jenna chortled. “I was thinking the same thing about how close your nose is to my crown. Do you like it?”
“I do. I like it because it makes you look like a savage. It’s at my expense, but I don’t mind. I want you to look like you’re at odds with your simple linen dress. You look capable of anything.”
They flicked to the next photo.
It was a picture of them in a boat. She was wearing the aqua dress, while he wore a charcoal shirt and pants combo. The view was from above. He was leaning back in the boat with his hands on the almost discarded ores while Jenna was between his legs using his upper thigh as a pillow. The water below them was filled with Octavian shadows but both Jenna and Sardius looked unconcerned.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“Isn’t this a bit too sexy for an engagement photo?” Jenna wondered.
“It’s Josh getting back at me for the unhappy remarks I made about you and Favel in your engagement photos to him. He’s giving me a photo with you between my legs to shut me up,” Sardius said with no humor.
“Is it working?” Jenna asked, not allowing herself to sound amused.
“Yes. It’s working, though it is also burning me a little bit. I wish we could have taken these photos together.”
They moved onto the third picture. It was a picture of Octavia Prime taken from space spliced with a photo of a white moon. Half of Jenna’s face was on the blue side and half of Sardius’ face was on the white side. The background was black. It was like a movie poster, the looks on Sardius’ and Jenna’s faces speaking of a story that everyone would want to see.
“What do you think of this?” Jenna asked.
“It suits my purposes so exactly I could cry,” Sardius said, finally starting to show real approval.
Jenna was glad. She would have hated to go back to Josh and have to tell him that they didn’t like his work. Jenna liked his work just fine. She was just worried that Sardius did not share her feelings. It was hard to tell what he felt when he wasn’t there to show her his face. Instead, she had to figure him out entirely by the sound of his voice, which was something she was quite tired of doing.
“Do you think there are going to be eight photos like there were for me and Favel?” she asked.
“Yes. Josh wants to measure up to the other session by giving it no more or less attention.”
The fourth photo was of Jenna in the white ball gown. She was in the ocean surf with the stars as her background and Sardius was on one knee before her. The look on her face was grave, not like she was receiving bad news, but grave like she was standing on the edge of fate itself. Sardius’ shirt was open and instead of showing perfect, unbroken skin, a scar was visible.
“Why put that on display?” Sardius wondered under his breath.
“Women like scars,” Jenna explained breezily. She loved it. It was like the cover of a romance novel.
“If you like it, I guess I can let it slide,” Sardius said, moving onto the next picture.
It was a shot that appeared to be taken in the space station. Jenna was programming something into a console on the wall and Sardius was leaning against the wall taping his knuckles. Octavia Prime could be seen from a window and Jenna looked between the planet and Sardius with concern in her eyes.
“This whole series makes you look like less of a carnival ride than your photos with Favel. I greatly approve,” Sardius said in her ear.
“I’m glad. Josh worked hard and fast, just like he said he would. Should we thank him immediately?”
“Nah. He’s probably sleeping it off. Let the man sleep. An opportunity to thank him will present itself. Besides, he probably wants to be paid in footage he and Celestina can use on TV.”
Jenna agreed with that. The sixth picture was of them wrapped up in each other’s arms. Jenna had his boney finger in her mouth and she was gently biting on it.
“How the freak did Josh get this picture?” Jenna asked, staring at the screen.
“I remember doing a pose like that. Obviously, you weren’t there for it, but I did the work. Don’t you remember doing the work?”
Jenna stuttered, “Uh… yeah… I guess I remember holding my mouth open. Josh put a green cork in my mouth, but I thought you’d be putting a cherry in my mouth or something when I saw the finished picture.”
“When you put it that way, this photo is terrifying,” he agreed. “He could have made it look like you had anything in your mouth.”
Jenna swallowed and formed an opinion. “I think the outcome is strong. We should keep it, but Josh is completely fear-inducing. What horrible propaganda could he create if he was motivated enough? How do we stay on his good side?”
“Should be easy,” Sardius said. “This was the first time the dude has ever asked anyone for anything.”
The seventh picture was of Jenna in the black dress with the blue underlay and Sardius in his militaryesque uniform. They both faced the camera and Sardius was behind her, leading her in a dance. It was classy and formal. It was absolutely nothing to get in a tizzy about.
“Were you always that good-looking?” Jenna asked, quite floored by how handsome he looked.
“You like a man in uniform?”
“I like you.”
“Look, I’ve got some other things to do, so can we move this along? There’s only one picture left.”
When the last picture came on, Sardius sucked in his breath hard.
“What is it?” Jenna asked in concern.
“This picture is just so… indecent,” Sardius said.
Those were words Jenna never expected to hear out of Sardius’ mouth, especially not in connection to the photo that was on the screen in Jenna’s bedroom. Did they not get the same picture? Josh had said something that indicated they might not get exactly the same packet.
“Are you looking at the picture with me on your back?” Jenna asked in a hurry.
“Mm-hmm,” Sardius hummed, apparently at a loss for words.
“I can see that you’re showing more skin than you have in any of the other photos, but it’s just you in cutoffs and boots carrying me on your back. Or are you concerned that I’m also wearing cutoffs and a bikini top? I wore more revealing things for my photoshoot with Favel. Josh was obviously trying to make things fair, even if he couldn’t do as many beach photos.”
“It’s not what you’re wearing,” Sardius fumed. “It’s the pose.”
The pose was her on his back. She wasn’t being carried the way a man on Earth would carry a woman on his back, which Jenna would find more indecent if she really thought about it. In those photos, a woman had her legs wrapped around her man’s torso. The last photo was less indecent in Jenna’s opinion. It was of her grinding her shins into Sardius’ shoulder blades. He held onto her feet, like was trying to help her up on his shoulders while he was still walking.
Jenna was at a loss. “I don’t see what the problem is. I’m on your back. We did this exact thing when you helped me out of that shipping container when Fallcet kidnapped me.”
“Yes, and it was indecent then too,” Sardius said. “You just didn’t say anything about it and neither did I. I thought that was how we were going to manage that because there wasn’t really another way to get you out of that container except grinding our…” he took a breath before he was able to finish his sentence, “bones.”
“Is that unbearably sexy for Bonemen?” Jenna asked, on the verge of a giggle, but holding it back well.
The line was quiet for a moment. “I’m ready to lose a hand. I’ll be down to the surface in a minute. Put on something nice, Jenna. I’m coming to become your third husband.”
“My third?” Jenna wailed, shocked. “I thought that was unacceptable to you for a hundred reasons.”
“After having seen this, I can’t wait to become your first husband. Find the marriage certificate the prison sent you. I’m ready to sign it with my blood.”
The line went dead, but Jenna was too stunned to move.