Fighting the Stars

by Jessica Killabrew

  *****

  Rena laid her head down on her forearm and groaned. Why did it have to be him?

  Perhaps part of her wanted it to be him. Was that why she had gone out of her way to flirt with each one of his friends? Hoping her behavior would incite some reaction from him? Probably.

  How was she supposed to get any work done knowing he was on board? He was going to be a few floors down from her. She would see him every day, smell his incredible scent wherever she went, and constantly have to fight her body’s reaction to him. Then, to add to the mix, she would have to deal with seeing him and her sister together once more.

  She sighed. This will be just fucking great.

  Chapter 2

  Rena worked in her office for most of the day. She tried contacting Turk twice to see if he had found anything. He said he hadn’t, but would give her an update as soon as he found something. Sitting back and doing nothing wasn’t her style . She had to work to keep herself distracted.

  She snorted at the thought of Turk as a temporary GPO. Turk used to be a troublemaker. It was part of what had attracted her to him. Growing up, she had always been the good one, the one who, as the oldest of two girls, was always responsible.

  Then she met Turk in a space bar while she was celebrating a birthday with some friends. He asked to buy her a drink, and she initially refused because he was a stranger and she didn’t accept drinks from strangers. He was persistent, and asked her to dance repeatedly until finally she agreed. That’s all it had taken — one dance — and she had fallen for him hard.

  She did something she had never done before. She went home with him, and they spent the night making love. After that, not a day went by that they didn’t see each other. Two years into their relationship, they moved in together, into a small apartment on a galactic complex.

  They both had wanted to earn a galactic pilot’s license. It seemed like they were a perfect match. She really thought they had a future together. Even Turk would frequently hint at it.

  “Rena, I can’t see my life without you in it.”

  He had told her that more than once. Then slowly things started to fall apart. Although he worked as an intern on a ship, he used his spare time to go out with his friends and drink instead of studying for his pilot’s license exam. She tried to warn him about his lack of focus, but he would laugh it all off and say it was an easy test to pass.

  Unfortunately, when he finally took the exam, he failed it. He couldn’t retake the exam for six weeks. He lost his job as an intern, because he wouldn’t be able to advance further without a pilot’s license.

  She quickly became the only one bringing in money to support them. She worked during the day and took night classes while Turk began drinking more and more. They fought all the time. Then that fateful night came, the one that changed everything.

  *****

  Rena had just gotten the results back from her galactic pilot’s exam. She had passed! She tried to call her mom to tell her the news, but neither her mom nor her sister Tena were home. Not that her sister would have cared. Lately, all they seemed to do was fight. For some reason she never understood, her younger sister went out of her way to piss Rena off. She pushed her thoughts of her sister aside, not wanting to ruin her day.

  She couldn’t wait to get home and tell Turk. She hoped that her good news would wake him up and get him to concentrate on his dreams again. He was such a good man and deserved to have the best. She hated seeing him deteriorate the way he had lately.

  She called in an order for takeout at their favorite local restaurant, even though it meant she had to go a little out of her way on the drive home. She wanted to celebrate, and to encourage Turk to get serious about studying for the exam again. She had asked him get help, but he had refused, saying that nothing was wrong with him.

  When Rena finally entered their apartment, she expected to see Turk sitting on the couch. “Honey, I have some news!”

  She heard a muffled sound coming from the bedroom. She set their food on the table and headed to the bedroom. The door was slightly ajar. Just as she reached out to open it, she felt a sense of unease.

  “Baby?”

  She pushed the door open and froze in the entranceway. Her sister was in bed next to Turk. A sheet covered them up to their waists. Her sister’s eyes were cloudy with whatever latest drug she was using and Turk was trying to sit up, looking a little dizzy.

  She watched as Turk looked at her across the room then at the woman lying next to him. He jumped out of the bed, looking shocked. That only made the situation worse, because he was completely naked.

  Rena was stunned to an extreme. She felt like an emotionless robot. She turned and walked out of the bedroom.

  “Rena! Please baby, this is a mistake. I don’t remember anything.” He rushed out after her and grabbed her arm. Finally, her emotions rushed back all at once and the one most prevalent was fury. She yanked free of him.

  “Don’t touch me! You won’t ever touch me again!”

  “Please, I can’t lose you. You’re my everything.”

  Tena came stumbling out of the bedroom with the sheet wrapped around her. “That’s what you told me, Turk, when you were fucking my brains out.”

  It was another slap in her face. Her own sister! “Why? Why would you do this, Tena?”

  “You think you’re so perfect. You were born from mom’s only true love and I came from a traveling one-night stand. You held that up over me for years. Then you paraded your goody-goody relationship with your devoted boyfriend in my face and laughed at my failed relationships. Well, sis, who’s laughing now?”

  She stared at her sister. She remembered when her sister had been a little girl in pigtails and glasses who would follow her around, trying to get her attention. She had finally gotten that attention.

  “Get out of my home!”

  Tena stuck her chin up in the air. “This is Turk’s home too!”

  “Get the hell out, Tena!” Turk yelled in anger.

  Tena glared at both of them. She went back into the bedroom and then reappeared a few seconds later, dressed. She paused at the door. “Are you going to tattle to mom?”

  “No, it would only hurt her and she would try to get us to reconcile. That will never happen. I don’t have a sister any longer.”

  A painful look flashed across Tena’s face for a moment before she stomped out of the apartment. Rena didn’t know which source of betrayal hurt more, her own sister or the love of her life.

  “Baby, let’s talk this out.” Turk came to her and reached out but she moved away from him.

  “There’s nothing to talk about. You have been drinking yourself into the gutter. I’ve supported you and encouraged you, but no longer. I want you out of here!”

  Turk ran a hand through his hair. “This is so fucked up.”

  She snorted. “You’re telling me.” The silence between them stretched. He didn’t make any move to leave. She couldn’t be in the apartment a minute longer with him.

  “If you’re not going to leave, I will. I’ll send someone to get my things.” She straightened her shoulders and walked out. She paused in the hallway and jumped when something smashed against the door. She heard glass shatter to the ground. She felt just like that glass, all in pieces and forever broken.

  *****

  “Put on your big girl panties, Rena,” she told herself. She got up and finally left her office. She checked on updates from her crew. Everything seemed be okay, except for a water leak on level three. It was taken care of quickly enough, but some of the clients had to be relocated.

  She reviewed the surveillance cameras, moving them around until she caught sight of Turk in the engine room and Jaken ordering him around. She couldn’t help but giggle a little when Turk glared at something Jaken ordered him to do. Turk really wasn’t a follower. He liked to be in charge, especially in the bedroom. He had been the best lover she had ever had.

  She left for her quarters. Thoughts of just how attenti
ve a lover he used to be plagued her. She never could shake him. She had flirted with a lot of men over the years since their split, but had only slept with two men. They were nice men but neither of them could hold a candle to Turk.

  Maybe it had something to do with her keeping an emotional distance. She didn’t trust anyone anymore and had built up walls to protect her heart. It’s possible that sex with the other two men wasn’t spectacular because she didn’t give all of herself, keeping a piece of herself from them. She had dated them, but the moment they expressed feeling more for her, she would tell them she needed her space. After that, she never saw either one of them again.

  The second guy, Leo, had actually asked her to marry him. She had ended it as quickly as possible and left the star system. The guilt of having hurt Leo was overwhelming. She flirted with Turk’s friends over the years just to get a rise out of him. She didn’t want them, and she worried that she would never let anyone in her heart again. Having Turk so close to her made her remember what it had been like to come home every night to someone who loved her. She didn’t need this heartache.

  *****

  Turk hadn’t seen Rena since he left to train with Jaken and Nade. Those two twin brothers were real assholes. They had him doing every little mundane task, anything that was dirty, heavy or just plain ridiculous. As a captain of his own ship, he knew for a fact this was not the kind of training required for a lieutenant captain. Turk sucked it up and did it all without complaining. Drako was going to owe him big time for this.

  Honestly, if he had to do this every day just to get a chance to finally pin Rena down and have it out with her once and for all, then he would do it. Working the grunt work was also a great way to see and hear things he otherwise would not have access to. He moved a little closer to where the twins were sitting while he finished cleaning the console so that he could hear what they were saying.

  “That bitch isn’t taking away what I worked hard for,” Jaken growled out angrily.

  Nade growled too. “What we both worked hard for. Don’t forget that we are in this together.”

  “Who is this guy? We need to check his background. He’s built like he’s done a lot of manual labor but his knowledge of ships is too detailed. He’s got some experience.”

  “I’ll do some research on it and call his references. I agree, he knows a lot about ships. Did Rena say why she was pulling this guy in?”

  “No, just said she thought getting fresh blood would be a good idea. That bitch. The only fresh blood on this ship will be hers.”

  “Shhh...this guy could be her spy to see what her crew is doing. She’s known for being a cold-hearted suspicious bitch.”

  “Please, she’s dumb just like all the women we’ve ever known. She won’t know what hit her until it’s too late.”

  Turk fought the growl of anger. He wanted to tear these men apart for how they talked about his Rena. Damn it! She’s not mine. He turned to go back to the task he was supposed to be doing.

  Drako was right to suspect these two men. They were up to something, but why? They didn’t seem very intelligent and were unlikely to have been the masterminds behind this. Was someone else involved? That was what he needed to find out. He’d make amends to Rena and this time, he’d be the one to walk away with his pride intact.

  Chapter 3

  Except for a call here and there to check on the investigation, Rena kept her distance from Turk, unable to control the mixed emotions she had about his presence on her ship. She kept herself busy working in the control room, and tried to take her mind off of Turk, but to no avail. He was all she thought about, no matter what she did. She knew the love she had for him was still there but she tried to bury it like it had never existed. Those buried feelings were rising up and threatening to consume her, and the more she tried to keep her mind off of him, the worse it got.

  She kept herself as busy as possible, overseeing jobs she normally wouldn’t oversee. Her crew seemed to want to impress her since she was more visible than usual. She came to find through some of her interactions with her crew members that a few of them had the wrong opinion of her. Some of what they said led her to believe Jaken and Nade were behind their false impressions.

  The work didn’t last as long as she wanted it to and thoughts of Turk still persisted. Hopelessly, she continued to try to work herself to the point where she wasn’t thinking about him. She repeatedly gave herself stern warnings to pull it together, at times on an hourly basis.

  It was even worse when Turk was reporting to her. No matter what he was saying or how he was saying it, she couldn’t stop thinking of their past life together, and how much she missed it. She truly did love him, and part of her felt that he loved her too, but something somewhere had gone wrong.

  Rena often wondered if they would still be together if he hadn’t drank so much. Or if she had done anything to cause their breakup. She wondered if he might have been going through some sort of early mid-life crisis. Then she’d have to tell herself the past was in the past, and that she couldn’t forgive the fact he had slept with her sister. Sometimes, she’d bring herself to tears, and other times she’d be so angry she could easily have killed the first person to look at her wrong.

  She started watching the security cameras almost obsessively, not realizing that everything she was watching had Turk on the screen. Sometimes she would be in a haze, remembering all the good times they’d had together. At other times, watching him flirt with females, she would be infuriated. Honestly, she wasn’t even sure he was flirting, but every time he gave his cocky smile, she had a gut feeling he was flirting.

  Days of this behavior passed. Every time she had to look at those damn surveillance cameras, she found herself watching Turk, spying on him like they were in a relationship all over again. What had she come to? Was she really acting like a suspicious girlfriend? She knew Turk was just here for an investigation, nothing else. She despised feeling as though she was turning into a stalker.

  At the end of the week, once she realized that watching Turk on the surveillance cameras had become a habit, she decided to go have dinner by herself. The surveillance cameras were not for her to spy on her ex. She told herself to leave the cameras alone. Turk was the only one that needed to see them, in case he could find out anything about who might be undermining her. If there was anything of importance on there, Turk would show her.

  As she walked to the restaurant by herself, she tried to clear her mind of Turk, but it didn’t last long. She had to walk right by him to get to the dining area. She passed by him as if she didn’t even recognize him, and thanks to a call he was on, he couldn’t exactly stop her either. As she walked by, she felt proud of herself. She didn’t try to listen to his conversation, and she didn’t look back, even though she knew that he had turned to watch her walk away. She smiled to herself. Having more self-control than she thought she did made her a little bit less miserable.

  Out of everything she was having trouble with, acting like she was all right without him, at least to his face, seemed to be one of her strong points. She decided she was going to treat herself tonight.

  She confidently continued on to the restaurant and waited to be seated. Rena usually didn’t drink much, especially since her relationship with Turk, but as the waitress asked her what she wanted to drink, she smiled. “I’ll take a bottle of your finest red wine,” she answered, feeling like she deserved a drink since she had been working so hard all week. Maybe it would help ease her mind also. Not long after the bottle and wine glass were dropped off, the extremely attractive liaison walked over to her table.

  “Captain Rena, why is such a beautiful woman sitting down to eat dinner all alone?” he asked, slyly flirting.

  “Just felt like coming to eat. Are you here for a special event, Jesse Collins?” She was unsure if she had his name right, but she hoped she did.

  “No, same as you, I just felt like coming to eat.” he answered, giving his charming smile.

  “Wel
l, you’re welcome to come sit with me, but not as my date.” She half-joked. She was lonely, but she wasn’t ready to even think of dating anyone, considering how messed up everything was with Turk on the ship.

  “I suppose we can do that.” Jesse returned sitting in the chair across from her. He seemed surprisingly intimidated by her.

  She signaled the waitress to come back over. “I need another wine glass. Also, I’m ready to order. I just want a pizza, with a garlic crust, and pepperoni and pineapple” she stated.

  “Is that all?” The waitress asked, seeming a little rushed as she glanced around the room.

  “Yes.” Rena answered, smiling. The waitress walked away, and she turned her attention back to Jesse. “So tell me, how did you end up becoming a liaison?”

  “That’s actually kind of complicated. I met the owner of the company on the last spaceship I was on. I used to do some modeling and this seemed like an easy job. I like spending time getting to know different people.”

  “So liaisons never sleep with their clients? Has anyone ever broken that rule?”

  He hesitated. “I’m new to this but I guess it could happen. My contract states that I have to notify my boss if I develop personal feelings for my clients. The clients are given a choice to pursue a relationship with the liaison or to change liaisons. However, when you work closely with someone, I can see feelings forming.”

  “Yeah, it’s happened on ships like that too. At first, I demanded no personal relationships, you know, sexual ones, among my crew. That got too hard to stop altogether. I changed it up to require that no one can date their boss or their direct report.”

  “How did you become a captain of a spaceship?”

  “Hard work,” she answered bluntly, trying to keep her answer short.

  “Maybe you should be paying for my services,” Jesse joked. “I want a better answer than that.”