"You awake?"

I almost said the name of Samantha, my ex, at the sound of a woman waking me up. Thank the good lord luck was on my side. I swallowed the name and opened my eyes. My breath caught in my throat. A blonde haired angle stood in front of me in tan capris and a low cut blue top. I wanted the image to last forever and almost told Bevisste to take a picture. No, that would be creepy.

"I’m awake and really hungry." The smells of food made my stomach rumble and reminded me I had not eaten at all today.

"Fantastic. I brought some stewed bos, two steaks—one for Lucky—and a giant salad. You look like you can eat a lot and by your injuries I know your body will need a lot of substance. Let me help you up."

She sat on the couch next to me, putting my arm around her shoulders once more. A guy could get used to this treatment.

"On three. One. Two. Three."

I stood up putting a bit more body weight on her than I needed. What can I say, she’s the one that put her hands on me first, it would be just plain dumb not to take advantage of the situation a little. I hobbled, the cast made it awkward to walk, over to the table with the help of Laetitia. A steaming bowl of bos sat in front of both chairs, next to a giant plate of salad, hers as a bit smaller, and a steak next to my bowl. Lucky was always halfway done with hers.

"Keep spoiling me like this and I may never let you leave." I winked at her to let her know I was kidding.

She laughed and sat across from me. I would like to say I ate nicely savoring every bite and kept pace with her eating so not to seem a barbarian. I did no such thing however. My appetite overcame me and before I knew it the steak was gone and quarter of the salad, when I realized how fast I was eating. I held the fork over the salad and looked her sheepishly.

"I take it that means you like it." She said giggling.

"Sorry." I said mildly embarrassed.

"Oh don’t be. I know how fast military men can eat and I have three brothers. They eat almost as fast as you; although now that you have some food in you, you should be able to talk. Why did that sonji beat the shit out of you yesterday and why did a tree attack you today?"

"It does look like that huh? Well it’s not really much of a story." I took a bite of the salad to think it over. If someone really was trying to kill Cleo or use as a pawn against the universe’s wealthiest person, it may have been hoove of me to not tell her everything.

"I think a little tact and bending of the truth is in order here, Tom." Bevisste said. I nodded in agreement then found myself telling Laetitia everything.

"Well I work for Oazan Planet Daily. It’s long form journalism, a pretty much extinct industry though we do have a large readership base with kleens. They have to be the one and only race that gravitated to reading more the more advanced they got, the opposite holding true for everyone else. I was sent on a story by my android boss, Pam, to investigate a dead cat."

"A cat? You actually saw one alive?" Laetitia said thoroughly impressed and a bit skeptical.

"Actually no. It had died a few hours before Pam sent me. The lady is Cleopatra, the daughter-heir to TimberAIR. Timber’s only daughter." Her mouth dropped. "Yeah, you should see the house his daughter has. It’s ridiculous. Anyway..."

I told her everything, from Cleo running away crying to Abe or One-eye trying to poison me, to waking up with my face full of bruises though she knew that part, to the 13R gunshots and scaling the wall. I left out how insanely beautiful Cleo was, no point in saying something like that. She may have taken it the wrong way. At the end of the explanation I was holding the scrap of orange and green cloth in my hand.

"So Cleopatra was most likely kidnapped by her father’s enemies when killing the cat didn’t work?" Laetitia asked.

I was impressed. She had quite the brain on her. Beauty, brains, compassion for drunken fools and could cook. I’m pretty sure she qualified for sainthood.

"That’s what I’m thinking."

"This is amazing. No offense but I would have never had thought you to be so interesting. This is all so exciting."

I beamed at the compliment and took a small drink from my wine glass, the bottle having been opened during the explanation. By her, by her, I could go a whole day without drinking when I wanted to. Proof is in the pudding, it was night time when the bottle of wine was open.

"Those look like Torpedo colors." She said.

"Once again we’re on the same page."

"You have any ideas on who it may belong to?" She asked.

"A few. No offense to you this time, but I want to keep the ideas to myself for the time being until I get something more substantial. I don’t want to jinx it." I said.

"Fair enough." She nodded and pointed a finger at me. "You better not hold out on me. I want to be privy to all the details as they become known, that way I can tell my brothers and friends back home I knew all about the story before you wrote it. I’ll wait till it’s published before saying anything of course."

"Thank you." I would tell you anything if you asked. I added in my head.

We lapsed into a comfortable silence. I could tell the night was winding down and she would be heading back to get apartment any minute now. As if to save the trouble of seguing into a potentially awkward goodnight, Lucky stood at the front door and whined.

"Looks like someone needs to go pee." Laetitia said. "You take her out and I’ll clean this up. We can say our goodbye when you take her out, it’s getting late and I need to be up early."

I held my hands out. "No, I’ll take care of the cleanup as well and I must insist on that. You have done too much already of which I am eternally grateful for but I can’t have you doing everything."

She smiled a sly smile that made her look even more gorgeous.

"If you insist. Well Tom." She stood up and finished the last little bit of wine. "You have a wonderful night and I will talk to you tomorrow. Try not to get in any more fights though."

I blushed with embarrassment. She gave me a hug goodnight, putting me on cloud nine, and then pecked me on the cheek with her lips, sending me to seventh heaven. I stared at the amazing ass as she walked to the door and waved at her as she turned around to close it.

"I like her Tom, so do not fuck it up." Bevisste announced.

"Same here." I looked at Lucky who was now licking herself next to the window I took as a quick exit earlier in the morning and shook my head dumbfounded. If I didn’t know better that dog was magical lucky charm. She isn’t though, that was all skill on my part. That’s why they called me ’lady’s man’ in the service. It was an honest nickname not at all tongue-in-cheek.

"Let’s go Lucky. You were complaining just a minute ago."

She scrambled to her feet, bounding to the door a look of pure joy on her face. There’s something to be said about dogs, all that needs to be said is one simple word and their world is suddenly infinitely better. I was smart this time as I walked towards her. I caught the bone crusher she was swinging back and forth with joy, breaking a few blood vessels in the process, and reached for the doorknob. She pushed the door open with her muzzle and slid to a stop in front of the door exiting to the outside world.

The dog was surprisingly cautious running down the steps. I fully expected her to leap down the ten or so steps. The way she daintily scampered down the steps was comical and made me laugh for a minute until my good mood crashed fatally into an asshole. I may have been possibly poisoned and definitely drunk twenty four hours ago; however I was not too drunk to remember the ugly fight-beaten scarred face of One-eye.

"Really One-eye? Do you pad your fight stats by only picking on people who are inebriated or crippled?"

"I told you Mr. Moore—he pronounced the e as an a—the cat died of natural causes."

"Yeah no shit." I moved my eyes around hoping the monster of a dog would be nearby. She may be incredibly sweet and a shitty guard dog but her sheer size would be enough to scare the shit out of anyone. As far as I knew the dog was halfway back to Port Richey. "It’s pronounced Moore One-eye, the E is silent or blends in with the R or something like that; I don’t know. I’m not a goddamn eel though. You should learn how to pronounce the name of a person you’re threatening; it really takes away something when you show yourself to be too stupid to learn a person’s name."

One of these days my mouth was going to get me killed.

One-eye walked up closer to me, putting two of his four feet onto the bottom step. He raised two of his arms at me clicking the large fingers on each hand together. I think he was propositioning me. I’m not entirely sure. I have been known to be wrong once or twice in my life.

"You have something that-." He froze and gave me a blank stare. Either his brain was trying to find the necessary neurons to connect to each other for further speech or someone on his EEs was talking to him. Honest to God I had a hard time deciding which it was, he seemed about as smart as the dirt under my foot.

"The cat died of natural causes." He said again.

"You are aware you have told me that at least four times now? Right? You’re aware of that?" I called out loudly to his retreating form. Lucky brushed lightly against my side, looked around then up at me as if wondering why I was yelling at a poorly lit street. "Don’t look at me like that someone was there and next time try showing up a bit earlier. I could use some muscle until my foot gets better."

She simply walked up to the closed door at the top of the steps and stared at it.

"You have to push it or pull it girl." I said to her. She wagged her tail from side to side once to show me she heard me but could not be bothered to care what I actually said. "Story of my life." I said to her as we headed inside.

Next Chapter: Ahh, fuck