An Excerpt From Butterfly Mask (Kitsune)

Here's an excerpt from Butterfly Mask. I'm still editing it, so this is from my most recent draft.

I like this scene because it's the first meeting between Kitsu and Natsuke after not seeing each other for 2 years, and the setting shows some of the conflict between them being together. There is some mild language.

* * *

I squeezed his hand one last time. “What the hell did you even come here for?” Because I knew it wasn’t for an intragalactic booty call.

“You.” He turned back to face me, his chocolate brown eyes embraced mine.

“What?”

“I want you to come to Elea with me.”

I stared at him.

“Aren’t you going to ask why? Or how I knew where to find you, Sombra Alara?” He quirked his sexy lips at me.

“Get out.”

“I’ve been working on something big,” he said. “Something so big, it’ll change our understanding of science. It’ll change our understanding of religion.”

There was nothing that could have that great of an impact on the galaxy.

“I’ve been working on a theory that proves humans came from a single Human Homeworld.”

Except that. “That’s heresy.”

“I know.” He looked down at me, hopeful. “Come with me.”

“I can’t.”

He looked around the trashy hotel room, with the faded pink wallpaper coming apart at the seams, the paint fractures on the wall behind the bed, the water stains on the ceiling, and the glass bowl full of condoms for all sizes, pleasures, flavors, and species.

“Why? Am I keeping you from some other affair?”

“You know it’s not like that.”

“What else would you be doing here?” He didn’t bother hiding the disgust from his eyes.

I got up, marched Natsuke to the door, and reached around him to enter the keycode. “Out.”

The door slid close between us.