Opalina Outpost

Chapter 17 /Part 2/

It may have been a fit of madness, or just desperation, but he pulled up the contacts on his holowatch and called the sibling line. The likelihood of either his brother or sister picking up was slim, but it was late enough that one of them might.

"Lio," Alonso's face suddenly burst above his wrist, and he let out a yelp of surprise. "Are you alright?"

He hadn't expected him to answer quite that quickly. "Hello! Yes, I'm—you startled me."

Alonso's brow wrinkled, but when he opened his mouth to say something, he was interrupted by a much louder voice.

"Lio, what's going on?" Alina's screen loomed beside Alonso's.

"Nothing!" He scrambled to sit up on his bed. "Goddess, what is wrong with both of you?"

Alina sighed. "Alior, you don't call unless it's an emergency."

"That's not true!"

"Alright, alright," Alonso, ever the peacekeeper, cut in. "What Alina and I are doing a poor job of saying, Lio, is that we're delighted to hear from you. Especially if everything is fine. How are you?"

"I'm wonderful." He prowled over to one of his crystals, picked it up, and set it back down again before looking back at their faces. He got silence, and two perfectly blank expressions. They knew how to get him to crack. "Fine," he groaned. "I'm...something's wrong with me. I don't know what it is."

"Do you want to talk about it, or would you rather be distracted from it?" Alonso asked.

"Talk, I suppose. It's...there's this...man."

"Who you met in a bar." Alina let out a noisy sigh.

He huffed back at her. "Yes, I did meet him in a bar, and so what?"

"That's not safe for you, Lio—"

"Alina," Alonso's deep, reassuring voice cajoled her into pausing. "This is why he never calls us."

"Excuse me, I'm trying to help!" she squawked. "And that was mean! For someone whose entire profession is handling people, you're supposed to have more tact, Lonso!"

"Firstly, I feel compelled to point out that you are a shipping titan with the emotional hide of a rhino, so you can take a little bluntness, and secondly, I spend my entire day being tactful to the All-Territories Council. I'm fresh out of tact. You, my dear siblings, are stuck with me no matter what." Alonso lifted a wine glass at them through the screen.

"Oh shut it, Alonso, I want to hear more about the man. Go on, Lio."

He raised his eyebrows. "Thanks. Um. So yes, I did meet him in a perfectly safe bar, and he at no point tried to kidnap me"—Alina rolled her eyes at him, but he continued—"and it was all lovely. And then I saw him again, and, ah, slept with him again. But just...rather recently, when I thought we might...I don't know. He sort of put me off."

"Well, he's an idiot!" Alina said staunchly.

"No," Lio sputtered, but she earned a smile. "He's not. He was...he was at his work, and I was the one being an idiot. That's not the problem. The problem is that I left and somewhat lost my mind. Slightly. I don't know. It's not the first time it hasn't worked out with someone, and he was really just asking me not to proposition him at work, but it felt worse than that, and I don't know why." He raked a hand through his hair. "I suppose I thought we'd be spending more time together. But we're not. I want to so much. And maybe he...doesn't."