Chapter 10: Playing House

Miller stepped through the door to Kofe’s apartment, the panel sliding closed behind him with a whoosh. His yellow overalls were stained with green liquid, as were the gloves that he was wearing, the goop matting his hair into clumps. Fortunately, he had managed to clean most of it off before leaving work, but he couldn’t do much about what had seeped into his clothes.

“What smells like ethanol?” Kofe was standing at the kitchen counter with her back to him, her hourglass figure packed into a pair of woefully inadequate bike shorts that seemed to be stretched to their limits. The fabric was so close to breaking point that he could make out her white fur beneath it. She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him, laughing at the sight that she was presented with. “What the hell happened to you, Jeff?”

“Coolant leak,” he grumbled, taking a step forward.

“Oh no no,” she warned, waving a hand at him as she set down a kitchen knife and turned to face him. “Stay right there, we need to get you out of those clothes. No way am I letting you track coolant through the apartment.”

He waited by the door as she vanished into the bedroom, emerging with a plastic bag in her hands.

“Come on,” she said, standing in front of him and waving the bag. “Get ‘em off.”

Miller sighed, kicking off his boots and placing them in the bag. He shuffled out of his overalls and then pulled his shirt over his head, Kofe smirking at him as he stripped down to his underwear, dropping the sullied garments into the container.

“Dinner and a show,” she chimed, “you sure know how to spoil a lady.”

“You made dinner?” Miller asked, hopping on one leg as he struggled to remove a stubborn sock.

“Sandwiches, yeah. I made a meatball sub with cheese and sauces. It’s real beef from Franklin, and I added some Borealan oils for flavor. I might be dipping into my own supply a little, but now that we have two incomes, I can take the hit.”

“Awesome, I worked up an appetite today. I can probably eat like ... a quarter of it.”

“Are you going to tell me why you’re covered from head to toe in what looks like green paint?”

“It’s engine coolant from the motors that power the landing bay doors,” Miller explained, finally succeeding in freeing himself from his sock. “We’re supposed to test them every few months to make sure that they still work.”

“I didn’t see any doors when I flew in,” Kofe said, “aren’t those bays all open to space so that the ships can fly in and out?”

“In a way, yeah. There are force fields that keep the atmosphere in, but which let solid objects pass through. In an emergency, such as in an attack or if the power to the force field is knocked out, there are massive shutters that close to seal the bays. Wouldn’t you know it, one of the engines was fucked, and it decided to expel about a gallon of coolant. Guess who was standing directly underneath it at the time?”