by Kate Rudolph
Peyton clenched her hands around her almost too hot coffee mug and tuned her sister out. If she hadn’t come home until two, that meant she was barely working on four hours of sleep, and yet she looked more rested than Peyton. Stress was a motherfucker.
“You’re not upset, are you?” Ella finally wound down her recounting of events and her lips curved into a hopeful smile.
Peyton’s anger fled. It had just been the two of them for so long that she never managed to stay angry long, especially not once she knew Ella was home safe. The girl had the defensive instincts of a leaf, but she was kind and young and just wanted to have fun. And it wasn’t like she’d ever gotten herself into any danger, at least not any that Peyton knew about. And Ella didn’t keep secrets.
Peyton opened her arms and Ella rushed her, enveloping her in a tight hug that smelled of the sweet shampoo she used. “I’m not angry,” she assured her. “I just wish you’d remember to contact me like I asked.”
Ella pulled back and her face took on an uncharacteristically mulish expression. “I did. Last night I texted you and told you I was coming back, but you didn’t respond.”
Peyton looked away and felt her cheeks heat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t check my communicator. I must have already been asleep.” She didn’t want her sister to know that she’d tried to hunt her down; that was guaranteed to lead to an argument and both of them had work to get to.
And just like always, Ella’s negative feelings evaporated. She wasn’t made to hold anger in. She kissed Peyton’s cheek and retreated to her room to get ready for the day, leaving Peyton with her thoughts and a cooling breakfast.
She felt naked without her communicator as she climbed aboard the bus to head in to work, and the entire morning she hoped that no one tried to contact her using her normal number, at least not with anything important.
She used her office communicator to call the bar around lunch time and almost promised her first born child to the person who answered when they confirmed that a communicator that looked like hers had been left with the bartender the night before. She ducked out of the office to get a sandwich and sprang for a taxi to get to the bar before she had to be back to continue with her duties. Things had been speeding up on a variety of projects over the last month and they were finally coming to a head. Peyton couldn’t afford to miss out.
It was a simple matter of getting the device back when she showed up to the bar and then she was on her way back to work, clutching the communicator to her chest and seriously considering one of the implanted models. She couldn’t loser her comm if it was attached to her.
But those had a bad habit of shorting out and burning their users, and she’d never been a fan of pain.
Half a dozen messages were waiting for her when she started to scroll through, but nothing too important. And just like Ella had said, she’d contacted Peyton and told her she was coming home.
Right under that message was one from a contact she didn’t recognize. She scrunched her brows together as she racked her brain to think of who DF could be, but she couldn’t figure it out. When she read the message, she realized it was whoever had recovered her phone. Apparently he’d added himself to her contacts and left her a text. She almost deleted it on principle; she wasn’t about to flirt with some guy who went to that kind of bar on a Wednesday night, but on the other hand, he’d been kind enough to turn in her comm and she’d be helpless without it. The least she could do was respond.
Once.
DF: Sorry I couldn’t return this in person. I saw you across the room and it shined.
Peyton rolled her eyes. Did lines like that actually work on people?
Peyton: Thanks for turning it in. You’re a life saver. :)
There. Simple, thankful, done. She put thoughts of DF and Ella out of her mind as her bus pulled up in front of her office. Rumors of a big assignment going out had been running rampant, and she needed to have her head in the game if she was going to be the one chosen. Her comm beeped again with an incoming message, but Peyton ignored it. She had work to do.
The incoming alien fleet wasn’t going to defeat itself.
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