shirt to disconnect the blood tubes from his body. “Let’s go eat. We can talk about whatever it is you’ve found and decide whether or not it’s worth risking your life over.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Denver hoisted Laramie to his feet, then stilled as his brother wrapped his arms around his neck. It wasn’t that they never touched, but Laramie hated being held any longer than he had to; it made him feel weak. For him to initiate something so intimate? Denver really must have scared the shit out of him. “Guess you decided on the hug, huh?”
“You almost died,” Laramie muttered against his shoulder.
“Hey.” Denver was terrible at comfort, but for Laramie he’d try. “I’m okay. I’m fine.”
“You better stay that way, you son of a bitch.”
“You know I hate it when you insult our mama.”
Not that they’d ever known their mother, but how much she did or didn’t deserve their abuse was a constant source of amusement for them.
Laramie finally pulled back, then immediately punched Denver in the shoulder, hard. Apparently he’d decided on a hug and a punch. “Try to take this seriously.”
“When don’t I take things seriously?”
“Boys.” They both turned to look at Marit, standing at the end of the Jiminy’s narrow hall. “Be teenagers later. Come and discuss this like adults now, while the food’s still hot.”
Laramie rolled his eyes. “Not the boss of me,” he muttered under his breath, but he went anyway. Denver followed him, surreptitiously watching the way he moved and checking for signs of pain. Sometimes he wished he could judge Laramie’s condition via their mental connection, the way Laramie seemed to be able to do with him, but he couldn’t. And he couldn’t rely on Laramie to tell him the truth, either. Not when it came to his health. He’d always try to sugarcoat it, so Denver was forced to rely on what he could see. This time, there was nothing blatant, and he relaxed a bit.
“Did you put up the sun sail for the suit batteries?” he asked Marit as he entered the mess. It was a tiny room, with nothing but a sink, a hot plate, an autoclave, and storage for nutrition powder. A table that barely accommodated them all at once took up the entire room. It allowed them to eat together, but it made for close quarters.
“Half of it,” Marit said, serving “rice” out of a pot on the hot plate and into three bowls. Nutrition powder could be made to mimic all sorts of things if you had the right equipment and spices, but they didn’t have that sort of disposable income. Instead they ate it one of two ways: “mush” or “rice,” which was really just overstirred mush.
Laramie frowned as he took his portion. “Why just half?”
“Too much debris.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to waste fuel getting to a safe distance from the wreckage to put up the whole thing, but we don’t want to risk getting it punctured, either. Poppy charges too much to fix that shit.”
“Poppy would do anything to make working for her look like the better deal,” Denver grumbled as he spooned up some rice. He took a bite, then paused. He swallowed slowly and looked at Marit, who smiled. It wasn’t an expression she made often.
“I added some cayenne,” she said. “Just a little. I figured you deserved a treat after your brush with death.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Laramie said, but he looked appreciative as he dug in. “OPAL, turn on the broadcast from Station T.”
“You got it.” A moment later, twangy guitars and an enthusiastic singer filled the room. Marit groaned.
“Not country western again! Does Titan ever play anything else?”
Denver nudged his boot against hers. “Poor little Martian girl, forced to listen to recycled station tunes. We outer galaxy types ain’t got no culture.”
“Ain’t got no class,” Laramie added with a straight face.
“Nothing but derivative bullshit as far as the ear can hear.”
“What is a horse?” OPAL asked before Marit could do more than open her mouth to reply. “And why would riding a cowboy save one?”
“A question for the ages,” Laramie replied. “OPAL, go ahead and upload your dictionary file again.”
“Where is my dictionary file?”
“It’s like living with a toddler,” Marit said with a sigh. “This is what you get when you cheap out on an AI system.”
Denver shrugged. “OPAL came with the ship. And she’s got personality. Better than those stiff, mass-produced AIs any day.”
“Thank you, Denver.”
“Anytime.” He took another bite and hummed appreciatively.