The Champion (22 page)

Ju’s chest shook with laughter.

Becca stood. The corner of her mouth twisted up in that small smile Quentin loved so much.

“Clean bill of health, Q?”

He shrugged. “Nothing that will stop me from playing football. Does anything else really matter?”

She sighed. “Lots of things, Q. Lots of things.”

He took in her dark eyes, her darker hair, the shape of her face. They’d faced danger in the Cloud, but that was over. They were safe. Six days remained before they reached Ionath. Plenty of time to tell her how he felt, and with only three other sentients aboard, he could finally get her alone.

“After we talk to Bumberpuff, I need to talk to you,” he said. “Privately.”

Her smile faded. “About football?”

He shook his head. “About one of the other things that really matters.”

Her eyes widened a little. She started to say something, but stopped when Fred entered the parlor.

“Q, you look fine,” Fred said. “Doc patch you all up?”

Quentin nodded.

“Excellent. I know you want to get to Ionath fast and check on Messal, so I plotted the fastest course. I doubt we’ll be stopped, but if we are, you, Becca, Ju and Doc hide in the storage area. That way no one recognizes your famous faces. We’ll have you back at Ionath, then you can make up whatever story you want for Gredok.”

Quentin would figure out that story on the way. It wouldn’t take much, just an excuse why he bailed from the goodwill mission to Prawatt space. The important thing was to get back to Messal before Gredok discovered the Worker’s lies.

“Thank you, Fred.”

Fred smiled, bowed with a flourish. “No, thank
you
. It’s the least I can do for my rescuing heroes. And speaking of heroes, the rest of them want to say goodbye — Rosalind just hailed us.”

Fred activated the room’s holotank. The image flared to life, showing Bumberpuff, Kimberlin, George, John and Jeanine standing on Rosalind’s bridge. Everyone looked bright-eyed and ready to depart. Even John, who wore a nanocyte patch on the side of his face, held there by a blood-spotted white bandage wrapped around his forehead.

Jeanine waved excitedly.

“Hey, brother!”

“Hey,” Quentin said, so happy to hear her say that word, so sad she wasn’t with him on the
Hypatia
. “Ready for your big adventure?”

“Totally. Look at us — two dirt-poor kids from Micovi, and we’ll both have seen the Portath Cloud and Prawatt space. Are you
sure
you don’t want to come?”

Quentin nodded, wondered if he looked as tired as he felt.

“I’m sure. You’ll see amazing things. Hey, Rosalind, are you listening?”

“I am,” the ship said. As always, there was nothing specific to look at, but the sound of her voice was now familiar and comforting.

“I don’t know if I’ll see you again,” Quentin said. “I want to say thank you and goodbye.”

“Oh, such a nice young man,” Rosalind said. “Maybe someday we’ll have that chat about religion. I don’t mind if you have more important things to do than talk to me.”

Quentin smiled. Her passive-aggressive complaints didn’t bother him anymore. Maybe that was because she’d helped him so much, or maybe it was because he wouldn’t be spending the next few months with her.

“You know, Rosalind, George has some
very
interesting religious beliefs. If you were to make sure he takes his medicine every day, I bet the two of you could have a nice, long kibitz.”

George’s face lit up. He always wanted to talk about his “old ones,” and no one ever wanted to listen.

“How interesting,” Rosalind said. “I’ll definitely take care of George for you.”

“Take care of all of them,” Quentin said. He looked at Kimberlin. “They’re my family.”

Kimberlin smiled, gave Quentin a single, knowing nod.

“And all of you, keep my sister safe,” Quentin said. “She seems to have a knack for finding trouble.”

Jeanine blew him a kiss. “Don’t worry, baby brother. If trouble does come up, I’ve got my
champion
—” she gave John a playful elbow in the ribs “—here to take care of me.”

Something scrolled across John’s forehead, but Quentin couldn’t read it due to the bandage wrapped around his head.

“I got it covered, Q,” John said. He put his hand on Jeanine’s shoulder. “I’m pretty sure everything is going to work fine.
Juuuuuust
fine.”

Jeanine reached up and squeezed John’s hand.

John smiled wide. There was something off about that smile ...

“Time to go,” Fred said. “We’re punching out in sixty seconds. John, take care of my girl Jeanine. Jeanine, take care of my boy John. And Rosalind, safe travels.”

“Same to you,” Rosalind said, and the image blinked out. Quentin stared at the holotank for a second.

Juuuuuust
fine? What did John mean by that? Nothing, probably, just John being John.

“Quentin, we punch in thirty seconds,” Fred said. “Might want to get somewhere with a bucket. Just in case.”

“Oh, right. Thanks.”

Quentin stood and quickly walked to his cabin. He almost never threw up on punch-in, but the
Hypatia’s
carpet was expensive and he didn’t want it smelling like vomit.

26

Courage

QUENTIN BARNES HAD KILLED ROUNDBUGS
with his bare hands. He’d spent days below ground in heat so intense it sometimes killed people. He’d cracked rocks and survived cave-ins. He’d fought older men to keep what was his.

He had also faced down the meanest, deadliest defenders the game of football had ever seen, met them head-on, taken the worst they had to offer and come back for more.

He had stood his ground against gangsters that killed sentients on a whim.

He had argued with a living god.

He had stopped
wars
, for High One’s sake.

If he had done all that, why was it so hard, so stomach-punching
impossible
to tell a girl that he loved her?

“Quentin, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just the ... uh ... it’s my belly is all.”

Becca gave a sympathetic smile. “Poor thing.” She reached across the small table and patted his hand. “Is it from the punch-in?”

He nodded quickly. “Yeah, must be that.”

They sat alone at the galley’s small wooden table. The
Hypatia
had a fancy dining room with a table that sat eight, but Quentin had yet to use it — he just didn’t feel comfortable there. The galley felt more like home, like sitting at the small table in Mister Sam’s kitchen back on Micovi.

Becca’s long black hair hung free. Her eyes looked bright and alive, and that little smile haunted the corners of her mouth.

“You usually don’t get queasy on punch-in, don’t ya know,” she said. “Only punch-out. Maybe you ate something bad. You look like you accidentally snorted a goldfish.”

Quentin’s mind seized on that comment, grabbed it as a welcome distraction from what he’d asked her here to say.

“Is that something people do on Earth? Snort goldfish?”

Becca laughed. “No, they don’t, which is why it’s funny.”

“Oh,” Quentin said. “Okay. I didn’t snort a goldfish.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s good. If you had, I was thinking we might have to have a serious talk about your substance abuse issues.”

“I don’t have any substance ...”

She’d made another joke, but he was too stressed to see it. He let out a big puff of air. He’d wanted to speak to her one-on-one. Now it was just the two of them, and he didn’t know how to move forward. What if he told her how he felt, and she didn’t feel the same way?

If you don’t do it now, you’ll never do it... stand in the pocket and get this done
.

“I love you,” he said in a rush. It came out so fast it sounded like one word,
iloveyou
, like something Denver or Milford would say.

He’d done it, he’d said the words. He didn’t feel any better. She would shoot him down, tell him they were just having fun. He knew that’s what she would say.

But Becca didn’t say anything. She stared at the floor, her eyes wide, her mouth so tight she might never have smiled in her entire life.

Quentin felt like he would die. She was supposed to say something,
anything
. Why was she just sitting there?

She started to speak, then stopped. She licked her lips and tried again.

“I thought that’s why you wanted to talk alone. At least I hoped that was why. And I ... I was so excited to hear you say it, I thought I
wanted
to hear you say it, and ...”

He waited for her to finish, to say more, but she kept her eyes low. A lock of black hair swung down to half cover her face.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to work. In the movies, person X declared love for person Y, and person Y declared it right back. Quentin’s anxiety grew, as did his confusion.

“You
thought
you wanted to hear it? What does that mean?”

Finally, Becca looked him in the eyes.

“Quentin, are you
sure
you love me? And you don’t mean
as a friend
?”

His face burned — she was playing some kind of a game with him and he didn’t understand the rules or the objective.

Last chance to bail out, Quentin old boy, last chance to say, “Oh, yes, as friends, that’s all I wanted to tell you
.”

No. He wasn’t going to back down now, even if that meant getting humiliated.

“I’m sure, Becca. I’m absolutely sure.”

She brushed the hair out of her face, took a ragged breath.

“Okay,” she said. “How long have you felt like this?”

Was she just going to keep asking questions?

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I know how I feel now. Ever since you arrived from the
Combine
, you’ve been there for me. I didn’t see it at first, I know that. I only saw you as competition. I’m a different person now. You’re everything I could want in a partner, Becca.”

Her face didn’t change, save for eyelids that blinked away sudden tears.

“You were with
Somalia
,” she said, spitting out the last word. “Somalia Midori. She’s a rock star. She’s beautiful. She’s a movie star now. She bought you that bike, and she’s beautiful.”

“You already said she’s beautiful.”

Becca slapped the table. “So what if I did? It’s true. She’s one of the most beautiful Human women in the galaxy. When I was there for you, blocking and bleeding for you, when I was fighting to protect you, you were with
her
. Why did you do that to me?”

Becca was acting like Quentin had done that on purpose. What was she talking about?

“I... I don’t know.” He shrugged, felt ridiculous even as he did it. “We just kind of ... started going out, I guess.”

Becca’s eyes narrowed.

“She
used
you, Quentin. You knew that, and you didn’t care because you got to be with the girl that everyone wanted.”

“Used me? What are you talking about? We went out a few times, that’s all.”

Becca wiped away tears. She crossed her arms, leaned back in her chair.

“Are you kidding me, Quentin? She was in the news because of
you
, because she was the arm candy of the hottest young quarterback in the GFL. Why do you think she got that movie deal?”

He started to answer, then stopped. He remembered going to dinner with Somalia, remembered stepping out of grav-cabs to an assault of camera lights. Somalia, looking amazing in one outfit after another, always smiling for reporters, always taking a few moments here and there to answer questions — and always clinging to Quentin’s arm as she did. Her band was big across much of the galaxy, sure, but compared to the media’s desperate hunger for the GFL, Trench Warfare might as well have not even existed. And when the Krakens were building, becoming a winning team, a playoff contender, that’s when the media coverage on Quentin had grown to insane levels.

Which was exactly the time he and Somalia were dating.

Becca was right.

Quentin felt like an idiot. How could he not have seen it? Somalia Midori had used him. Granted, there were
far
worse ways to be used, something Quentin knew all too well. Somalia had been nice, she’d been fun, but she had used him all the same.

“I didn’t know,” he said.

Becca pointed her finger at Quentin’s face.

“Don’t lie to me! How could you
not
know?”

He shrugged again, felt even dumber the second time he did it.

“I don’t know how I didn’t know, okay? Maybe I’m just dumb. And why are you yelling at me? I went out on a few dates with her, it’s no big deal.”

“Why am I yelling? Because you were with
her
when I was the one who had your back! You were with her when
I
am the one that really loves you, the
real
you, not the pretty image on the highlights and the sports sites.”

Her chest heaved like she had just run a dozen sprints. Her fists were clenched. Quentin couldn’t tell if her heart was broken or if she was about to punch him in the mouth. Knowing Becca, it might be both.

Then it hit him, his brain registered her words:
I am the one that really loves you
.

“So, wait ... you’re saying you love me, too?”

Becca glared at him. “Don’t treat me like I’m stupid.”

Stupid
? What the hell was happening? Was she hearing something completely different from what he was saying?

“I’m lost here, Becca. How am I treating you like you’re stupid?”

She leaned on the table. Her wet eyes narrowed. Her expression hardened.

“You think I’m stupid enough to believe you didn’t
know
that I loved you? You’ve known for years.”

Quentin’s head felt empty, like he was supposed to have the right words but the right words refused to show up. But now he understood her anger — she thought he’d played with her heart, maybe even used her in a way not so different from how Somalia had used him.