As Jovie and I sit and eat lunch in a booth across from one another, I notice the screen behind her, showing the moment she caught her foot and swung around under the rope bridge.

I couldn’t see it from where I stood behind the railing, but watching it now makes me cringe. “How did you manage that save?”

She glances over her shoulder at the race feed. “Oh, lucky instinct, I guess.”

“Instinct?”

She takes a long drink of her soda and pushes it aside.

“Yours helped you find me. Mine helps me not die when life is full of bitches and dishonest deadbeats. I grew up playing in trees on the farm. Now, I’m used to hanging from ships with a tether.

Talros usually wants me to climb since I’m smaller and can fit inside the engine housing better than he can. But it caught me by surprise, too.”

I muster a laugh. I can’t believe how close I’ve come to losing her already. But she is proving I have underestimated human females.

Jovie gets up and reaches for my hand. “Creatures tour looks like it’s starting. I’d love to hear what you know about them.”

I’m still watching the replay as she leads me out of my seat. I should’ve been there for her.

I’ve always been stronger than most my age.

But lately it feels like I’m failing at every step.

I couldn’t grow when I followed the rules.

I can’t win in civil matters when I don’t follow them.

Battles, yes. And maybe with Jovie. But I know I need to steel my Storm and accept that I can’t control everything.

Trying to would just make me like the Royals I despise.

And sometimes, that means letting others take risks I don’t like.

Jovie’s eagerness to see the creatures and ask me questions about them proves she has a curious mind. I think she will adapt well to living in space, but I don’t want to drag her around it forever. She deserves a home. A real one: safe, stable, and filled with food.

We follow other couples and singles along the roped-off path lined on both sides with many tanks and glass cages.

“What about this one?” Jovie asks. “It looks like a liquid metal lizard.”

“Eralloy. Six-legged chrome shifter. Never touch them. That’s how they get you.” I motion to a finger. “The metal coats your finger. Then it latches on, bites the end off and…” I make a slurping sound. “Drink you dry.”

Jovie nibbles a fingernail in horror. “Oh.”

A familiar blue-eyed male punches me lightly in the arm. “Don’t listen to him. He’s teasing you. They’re from my homeworld and are more like pets with useful armor plating we put on our ships.”

“Thank you, Sa’Tai.” Jovie pokes me in the chest in mock offense. “Trying to scare me?”

I shrug and chuckle.

“There are some nasty ones,” Sa’Tai adds.

“Firespine,” I offer.

A red-haired male hisses at me in passing.

I point at him. “Thanks for proving my point.”

“My experience was with a gatleris.” Sa’Tai directs our attention toward a posturing critter releasing a rattling, high-pitched growl.

“Ooh, yeah, quills are like jagged little daggers.” I rub an arm where a ghost pain flares.

“For real?” Jovie looks to him, not me.

He nods. “All up my side. Poison took weeks to process.” A female with dark skin and blue tracework around her eyes returns to his side and smiles at us.

“See you two later.” Sa’Tai draws her close, and they walk off to look into another cage.

“Later,” I say.

Jovie giggles when she sees the next. “That looks like a sloth.”

I tilt my head and look at the lump of gray fur clinging to a branch. “Sign says Tiiorl. It’s a calm creature, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. Got rows of teeth that would scare a werewolf.”

Jovie squints at me. “How do you know what a werewolf is?”

“Watch all kinds of shows on the holovid when I’m bored. What I’d like to see is a pack of Mindor versus a pack of Earthen weres.”

“You know werewolves aren’t real, right?”

I grin. “If pixies are out there...”

Jovie turns as a lecerid spreads its gooey feet over its cage wall. “Ah!”

Her body slams back into mine. I claw up my fingers and tickle her hard, sending static zaps into her sides.

Jovie arches, freaks, spins away from me, and shivers. “Oh, come on!”

I purse my lips, trying to hide my amusement, but fail miserably. “I won’t let anything or anyone hurt you. You should know that by now.”

“We’ve known each other for two days!” Jovie crosses her arms like she’s mad, but there’s a faint glimmer of amusement hiding in them.

It’s enough to make me break the emotional barrier she’s erected and scoop her up. “You’re not that mad, are you?”

Jovie’s jaw cocks to one side as she looks away. “No. Just need time to get used to your sense of humor. ”

I kiss her lips and set her down. “If you had known me when I was younger, you probably would’ve run.”

“Why’s that?”

“You think my little lovezaps are annoying?” I focus a shred of electricity through a finger into her ass. Jovie yelps, covers her mouth as others turn to look, and blushes. “I was a big prankster as a kid. Mostly of people I didn’t like.”

“What kinds of pranks?”

We continue walking the maze of featured creatures as I tell her about my rowdy days. “I made mine embarrassing. Only ever did pranks on Royals.”

Jovie loops an arm around mine when she sees an upcoming glass terrarium with an acid-spitting chameleon.

I pause until she looks up at me. Then I smile and keep going.

“There’s a Queen of a mothership that’s particularly uptight, like she has a perpetual stick up her ass.

So when she put on a Royals-only dance on her ship, I may have slipped a static disc under her throne that made her hair stand on end when she sat down.

I wish you could’ve seen it. She screamed like someone had died. ”

Jovie giggles. “Did they ever figure it out?”

“No. Far too many guests. Then, there was the Royal delegates’ transport.

Elders have officials they select to represent them because many are too old to travel.

A few are younger. But anyway, there’s this textile manufacturing chemical and one used in metal refining that I mixed to make a stink bomb. ”

Jovie gasps. “Aura!”

“I may have made it a bit too strong. A couple of them got sick.” I hold up a finger.

“But a wastewater system had malfunctioned on one of our ships. Instead of trying to solve the problem, where people were dealing with the smell, the delegates were escaping to a planet for an impromptu conference.”

“How convenient,” she mumbles.

“Yeah. I had a problem with that.”

“So you came up with a putrid protest,” Jovie says. “I like it.”

I chuckle and hang my head. “That one I did get in trouble for.”

Jovie admires a small woolly creature curled up in a leaf. “What’s your favorite prank?”

“That’s a spinatiss caterpillar. Never touch that. The little hairs are coated in poison.”

Jovie straightens and wrinkles her nose. “Darn. Why does everything cute want to kill me?”

“I don’t.”

She smirks. “You think you’re cute?”

I shrug. “I thought you did.”

Jovie wraps herself around my arm again and takes my hand. The little zaps between our fingers as she laces hers between mine fill me with relief and make me hope we can find a way through this week and into forever together.

“So?” she probes. “Your favorite?”

“King Hilthor of Saorow has a tendency to arrest his people publicly for every little thing. His colony is orderly and obedient to the point that I hated going to his ship. He has lines everywhere for where he wants people to stand while they wait for food and transports. Everything is spotless.

“This is just after I met Blaize, who you now know. He’s a bit of a goofball and occasionally a very dark soul.

He’s from Saorow . So after a very uncomfortable month of guard duty on Hilthor’s ship, we teamed up with a few other Rogue crews, and threw Hilthor an automated party.

Glitter cannons, confetti ribbons, and letunicas that would sing harmonious notes when the life support fans were running.

Covered the Royal quarters. Watched videos of it going off on the fleet newsfeed.

“We set it up to puff every hour for a whole day. Guess how long it took them to find all the letunicas.”

Jovie chews a lip. “A month?”

“Two.”

She covers her mouth. “Those poor people.”

“We only did it in the Royal quarters. So the servants might have heard it during the day. But they got to sleep at night. It got so bad, I guess, that the king stayed in his private Luxcruiser.”

Jovie hangs on to me as we leave the place she calls a zoo and head to the formal dining area.

“So you don’t really just prank people. You get them back for being asses,” she says.

I keep her close as we enter the room. “The only Amphiran I’d never prank is my father.”

“Think he’ll figure you out?”

“I just know he’s vengeful enough to make life worse for everyone if someone messes with him.

He ruins people’s lives until someone talks.

” Tension grips my back just thinking about him.

I roll my shoulders and push his memory away.

“I don’t prank him because that’s better for the people of Tiatith .

“You sound like a kind prince. They would be lucky to have you instead of your father.” Her face lights up when she sees the large tank filled with colorful fish. “Wow, I’ve only seen them on a screen.”

“You haven’t seen creatures of your own world?” I ask, motioning to an open table next to the tank.

Jovie glances at me. “When and with what money?”

Watching her gawk at the fish and follow them, like she’s trying to say hi to each one, makes me want to give her all of the experiences she could ever dream of. “Anything you want, just name it. I’ll figure out how to make it happen.”

I may need to consider Elix’s line of work in private security. I’m certified with the feds, just not actively searching for work. But I might need to start now that I have no Rogue pay.

Jovie takes my hand, causing a soft flash of light that makes me smile. I found her after years of doubting myself while rejecting my father’s matches.

The validation is empowering. It would’ve been easy to just say yes and go with whoever he wanted me to bond with. But none of them wanted me either. And that was always the determining factor.

“Have you seen everything?” Jovie slumps in her seat. “Is any of this exciting to you?”

“Has anyone? The universe is infinite. So no. But I know who is in the Sol federation. And I’ve visited close to ninety percent of the solar systems. A few have dangerous space around them, like volatile nebulae, that we’re still learning to navigate. But yes, this is fun because it’s with you.”