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“So, am I mixing again?” Talle smirked.
“Hell no,” Nico said. “You can’t be trusted. Sit down and let me pour us something.”
Talle rolled her eyes. “You’re still not over the umbrella.”
“Never gonna be over it,” Nico said. He was filling a couple tumblers full of ice, and he’d found a bottle of something brown under the bar. It was covered in dust; the label was so yellowed and worn that it could no longer be read. Nico filled both glasses to the brim, sniffed judiciously—recoiled, as if he’d stuck his face in a vat of speeder fuel—and then rummaged around on the shelves with an expression of intent concentration.
It was only the two of them in the cantina. They’d pulled a number of high-risk jobs on Corellia, and their internal clocks hadn’t had time to re-sync before they hit Odessan again. Spacer’s lag had made hay of their sleep schedules, and it wasn’t even worth trying to get back on local time: they were shipping out to Balmorra in the morning.
Nico finally emerged with a small bottle of brandied cherries and a palpable air of self-satisfaction. He very delicately added one to each tumbler, then pushed the rightmost drink over to Talle. She knocked back a slug and made an appreciative face at the resulting deep burn. “Nice,” she said hoarsely.
“See,” Nico said. “It’s the little things.” He walked around the bar to take the stool next to Talle.
“You’ve gotta let it go, Nico.”
She liked Nico. Well, she liked everyone under her command, in a determined kind of way—people needed to be liked. They’d never give you their best work if they suspected you didn’t care about them. Even Sith Lords, Talle had discovered, needed to be liked.
So she liked them all. But some of them she enjoyed more than others. SCORPIO, for instance, didn’t exactly make for restful company. Koth was genuinely charming but his naivety scared her; he thought Valkorian, eater of worlds, might be a great guy to put back into power. Senya was carrying so much pain that Talle always felt she had to handle her like a live grenade. Plus, Talle’s decisions in matters of the heart might not’ve always been the greatest and maybe she shouldn’t judge but, seriously, who sleeps with the epitome of absolute evil in the galaxy?! No, on second thought, Talle decided, she was pretty sure she still had some room to judge.
And Lana—nicest Sith Lord ever, to be sure. Talle would always be grateful to Lana for saving her from the carbonite. But it also hadn’t escaped her notice that Lana always took the quickest, surest route to her goals, and sacrificed anything that stood in the way: if that something turned out to be Talle one day, she didn’t think Lana would slow her blade in the slightest.
Nico, though. Talle knew exactly where she stood with Nico Okarr. Nico liked drinking, fighting, flying and getting paid: Talle liked all of those things too. And he’d stay loyal as long as the credits kept flowing. She’d even told him point-blank that if he ever got an offer to betray her, he should come to her and she’d beat the terms. It was an easy and restful partnership.
“So,” Nico said, after taking the time to savor his own…whatever-it-was they were drinking. “You seem like the lover-in-every-port type to me.”
“I’ll have you know I’m a married lady,” Talle said, lightly enough. Just thinking about Corso made her gut clench, but her sabacc face was good enough that nothing would show.
“Really?” Nico said. “So where’s the old ball-and-chain?”
“I kinda lost track of him after I…overslept.”
Nico grunted and took another swig. Despite herself, Talle found her hand straying towards the datacard in her pocket. “He wrote me a letter,” she said. “I got it after I was thawed.” She slid the datacard across the bar.
After a second Nico picked it up, plugged it into his datapad, and read in silence. “Well, he obviously loved you,” he said at last. “Tough situation, though.” He handed the datacard back, and Talle pocketed it.
“It surely is,” she said.
“For you, I mean. Not just him.” Nico took another swig. “Five years is a long time. You don’t know if he’s alive?”
“He’s alive,” Talle said. She heard the edge in her own voice and forced herself to soften it. “Corso’s unkillable.”
“So. No fuckbuddies then?”
She smiled, small but genuine. “No. Thanks though.” She rolled some of the brown liquor over her tongue, then decided it wasn’t a sipping whiskey. Or a sipping anything. It was for gulping or nothing at all. “If I was looking, though,” she said after the burn subsided, “I’d definitely turn to y– Hylo Visz.”
Nico snorted. “Asked her already. She turned me down too.”
Talle grinned. “If I was single, you’d have a shot with me. I would’ve made you work a little harder for it, though.”
“Oh, no, no, no. I never put effort into these things. Effort gives everybody the wrong idea.” Nico lifted a finger. “My assurance is that sex changes nothing. My friends are still my friends. Nobody’s gonna get all weird in the morning.”
“I like a little romance,” Talle said. “Even if it’s just for one night.”
Nico snorted. “Your vices are worse than mine, Commander. Romance will kill you faster than booze.”
Talle lifted her glass. “To vices,” she said.
Nico clinked his tumbler against hers, and together they drained every last drop.