Duo knew he was in trouble. In two short days he was already falling head over heels for the sexy redhead. Yesterday they'd literally spent all day in bed. Laughing, eating, watching the old movie vids, and making love. He had to grimace at how sappy he sounded, but there was no better thing to call it.
As promised, today he'd taken her around the colony. There were only two major green parks and they walked around both of them. The second one had a holo vendor. After taking a holographic picture of them the vendor then tried to sell them their image programmed into a wide array of tacky trinkets. Duo settled for a paperweight that projected the image of them when you pushed on it. Shelby seemed to be having difficulty deciding.
"How about the locket?" he asked her.
"Hmm?" she didn't really hear him. Her mind was far away in old memories.
"The locket. It's actually one of the nicer items here." He turned to the vendor "How much for the gold locket?"
The vendor quoted him a price. He hoped his wince wasn't too obvious. He turned back to Shelby and noticed her eyes still had that far away look.
"Hey if you don't like it we could get something else."
"What? No. The locket is fine. I was just remembering something." Seeing the concern in his face she decided she could confide in him a little.
"My family died when I was six. My mother used to wear a locket with a picture of all of us in it. I didn't take their deaths very well. I became a social caseworker's nightmare. For my eleventh birthday I decided to steal myself a locket as a present and got caught. The experience turned out to be life altering for me."
Her voice had taken on a flat tone as if she was no longer hurt by her memories. Duo wasn't fooled. If there was one thing he knew, it was that childhood tragedies hurt for decades.
"I'm sorry." He said gently. "I didn't mean to upset you. Let's just forget about the locket and go do something else."
"No." she gave herself a little shake to get rid of her mood. "You know what? It's time I had some good locket memories. And with a picture of you in there I'll definitely have good memories with this one." Shelby turned to the vendor who had kept his expression carefully bland during to whole discussion. "I'll take a locket."
Duo was shocked. He didn't know another time in his life that anyone had said anything so flattering about him. That she would see him as a joy that could soothe such a deep emotional wound made him want to cry, or laugh, or sing, or do something to express the feeling that was threatening to burst from his chest. Oh crap. He was in big trouble. He wasn't falling. He'd already landed with a huge impact crater.
He was in love, and he hadn't a clue what to do about it.
Shelby was busy paying for and collecting her newly programmed locket. Unaware of Duo's private musings she put it on and spun to face him. "So whaddaya think?"
His response was to grab her roughly and kiss her brainless.
"Come on. Let's go out tonight. I've the urge to show you off." Duo started dragging her back towards the park entrance.
"Uh, okay. I think like to change first." Shelby was startled by the riot of emotions she was picking up from Duo's mind. Joy, fear, excitement, nervousness, and several others seemed to be at war inside of him. Since the overall feeling was positive, she decided not to worry.
"What's wrong with what you're wearing now?" He inquired. "You look great." Duo was eying the old faded jeans and tank top that were clinging to every curve on Shelby's body. If she looked any better to him he'd be sporting a permanent erection. "C'mon gorgeous, the people you'll be meeting will be dressed way scruffier than you."
************
Duo was in hell. When he first entered the nightclub he winced at how dark and dingy it must have seemed to Shelby. It never bothered him when he was out with his buddies from work, but now it didn't seem clean enough for the likes of her. The second problem arrived just as Duo was getting their drinks. With their shift over, his buddies from work arrived. They took one look at Shelby and decided Duo was excess baggage she needed to be rid of. They did everything to draw her attention away from him by joking, flirting, and dancing with her. Okay so maybe he got more dances with her than any of the other guys, but that wasn't the point. And just to make matters REALLY awkward some of the girls he'd dated showed up. Seeing his discomfort, they flirted with and teased him in front of Shelby. Christ, he didn't treat them that badly did he? The only blessing was that Hilde didn't show up with stories of their failed romance.
"So what made you decide to become a colony engineer?" Shelby asked in an attempt to get him back into the conversation.
"I've always been mechanically inclined. I had a pair of friends of mine who were going to resume the schooling that was interrupted by the war. One of them has a lot of money so I took shameless advantage of his generosity to help pay for my tuition. Now I spend my life keeping this floating piece of junk livable." Duo was horrified to realize how moody he sounded.
"You're lucky you had a friend to help you. I had to work in a place like this as an 'incinerate girl' to pay for my tuition." Judging from Shelby's expression, she expected that to mean something to him. She failed. Everyone was gaping at her with no clue as to what she was talking about.
"Oh come on!? An incinerate girl! Surely you've heard of Incinerate?"
Indeed they had all heard of incinerate. It was a highly potent alcohol served in vials smaller than his little finger. It tasted like battery acid, and was only good for getting really drunk, really quick. Four vials put a man flat on his ass; five vials meant he was shopping for a new liver.
An unholy gleam came into Shelby's eyes, and Duo couldn't suppress the feeling of impending doom. With a smile that had way too many teeth she said "Oh this is going to be fun, REALLY FUN." He just knew it would be her fun at his expense.
