Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

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PEYDRAN

I arrived at J's Ale House fifteen minutes early, and Project First Date was underway. Sliding my porter into the underground garage, I made my way up the lift to street level. Clean-shaven and a with new haircut, I was in a dusty blue above-the-knee tank paired with pale grey leggings that hit mid-calf. The tank said "business." The leggings said "date."

Stepping into J's, I found I wasn't the only one who was early. Ren got up from a booth in the back corner and stood waiting for me. He was older now— softer, and far more polished than he'd been in Uni. His short, dark brown hair was styled with precision, and his beard and mustache were tidily trimmed. He'd paired a cream tank— embroidered with flowers— with green leggings. The tank said "business." The leggings said, "date."

But it was that familiar, soft, innocent look in his eyes that drew me across the restaurant and into his orbit. His eyes that weren't looking away and avoiding me. His eyes that were looking right into mine with confidence. Eyes peering out of skin a few shades darker brown than mine. Brown eyes lidded with long, full, dark lashes. His face opened in a soft smile.

Prepared for Project First Date, I was about to bow to his right hand when he pulled me into a hug! A full frontal— chest to chest, hip to hip! What?! I was HUGGING Ren Crieve? It was practically a cuddle. I held on. He'd have to let go first. He spoke before I did: "It's good to see you, Peydran."

I sat down in the booth. "It's good to be seen."

Then those innocent eyes focused on mine and slowly, slowly moved down to my nose, down my lips, down my chin, down my neck—Yes, I swallowed while he was looking— down my chest, then slowly back up my chest, back up my neck, back up my chin, back up my nose, and back to my eyes.

I realized he was humming, and I recognized the tune. It was rhythmic, and it was the song I'd danced to in my Black Bead celebratory video! He'd watched it and was humming it and seducing me with just his eyes! He had a small smirk on his face, and the look in his eyes was no longer innocent; it was a taunt!

I was on fire, and Project First Date was in ashes around me.

I remembered not to gape, and sat back in the booth, schooling my features into a speculative look. "You've changed, Ren Crieve."

His face returned to normal, and he shrugged, "Had to, didn't I? Couldn't live my life sneaking glances across the dining commons. Garren was good for me in many ways." He paused, and I nodded to let him know I'd seen about the divorce.

"Confidence and refinement came as a result of him." Then he looked away and said, "I'm still not great with people. I can mostly pretend, but I wind up so tired—"

I interrupted him, "Ren, I'm not here to play pretend." I pointedly put my left hand— the metal one— on the table. "We're not teenagers in Uni anymore. We're grown men who have been through a lot. I have no interest in anything other than truthfulness and honesty. So, please, be yourself with me, and I'll be myself with you."

He looked at my cybernetic hand when he responded, "I'm sorry about everything you've been through, Peydran. I saw your videos with Dr. Nova. Everything you talk about is so— well, it's… actually, I'm pretty jealous."

Before I could respond to that, the server came for our orders. Once she left, I returned to the topic of the videos, "Jealous? Ren you know—"

He cut me off and nodded, "I know, Peydran." Then he rolled his eyes, "I watched your 'Are we sleeping together?' video." He rolled his eyes again. "I meant that I'm jealous because of what you have with Dr. Nova, even if you aren't romantically involved. Does that make sense?"

Our salads arrived, and we dug in. I nodded to him, "You mean, our friendship?"

"I mean everything you were talking about in that video. It's still a struggle for me to be with people. I got to the point that I could do so much more— I could go out, and be confident, go to events, and all the public things that successful composers need to do. Business connections, and everything that the public needs to see. It's still exhausting, but Garren was right there helping me, encouraging me, giving me someone to rely on."

"But eventually, I realized that the only thing we had was publicity. In the end, I was married, but lonely. And I don't know how to be really close to someone the way you are with Dr. Nova."

Alright, I wondered what this night was. Was he just a lonely man needing a friend? But that smoldering look…

"Ren, sometimes there are questions that can't be answered until we live them. I know it seems like I've got social connectivity all figured out, but you have to remember that I haven't even been on a date since my cybernetic surgery. So, I'm definitely going to need help learning how to be really close to someone too. I think what we have to be honest about is whether or not that's something that both of us want to figure out together. The best thing I know to do is to be honest about our intentions— just be upfront with each other. It would help me if I understood your intentions for tonight?"

He smiled at me genuinely and gave a bouncy nod of his head. "Yeah, I wanted to see you. I wish I hadn't been so— well, so the way I was in Uni. I wish…" he broke off, looking at my metal hand again.

"Yeah, I can tell you with certainty that I'm not the person you knew in Uni, Ren—"

He cut me off this time, "I don't care, Peydran." My augment was still resting on the table, and he took it in both hands. "I don't care. It doesn't bother me."

"And that means a lot to me," I replied. "But Ren, there's a lot to take into account with someone who is augmented. There's a lot you need to understand about me. And I want to tell you, but, first, can you tell me a bit more about why you are really here tonight? What is it you want, Ren? I take it this isn't about Produced by Peydran? It isn't business? It's a date? It's better for me if I am clear on what we are doing."

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He nodded sharply, "Definitely a date. I wanted to see you. I watched so many of your videos with Dr. Nova, and I thought that— well, I missed out on a lot by being so stand-offish in college. And I wanted to see if there was a chance that you'd be interested in me still."

Interested? I was having a hard time sitting on my side of the booth, but all that desire had to take second stage for a bit. I smiled at him with slighly bedroom eyes and looked at his lips, lingering, and pulled my bottom lip against my teeth. He wasn't the only one who could smolder. "Oh, I'm interested, Ren. But before we go any further with that, I need to tell you about me."

"I'm listening, Peydran," he said, holding my augment in both hands.

I nodded to it with my chin and told him, "My eyes see that you're holding my left hand. But it's a machine. It doesn't have senses. I can't feel you touching the metal." He dropped the metal hand, and I started strumming my metal fingers against the table. Then he moved his left hand to my right, and started strumming my real fingers in the exact manner that I was thrumming my metal fingers. The exact rhythm.

I noticed things like that now— I had to. I wondered if he even knew that he was mimicking the exact rhythm I was using. That was just Ren— everything was music. I might have been strumming metal fingers on a table, but he probably heard a song in it. That was much, much better, him touching my real fingers with his. I was aware of everything sensual now, and everything about his touch made me want to end this conversation and leave this table with him. But no— that would have to wait.

"Strumming my fingers like this was many weeks of work when I first got the augment. It's a machine, and I had to learn how to operate it." He looked pensively at the augment, studying it. I kept talking, "It doesn't sense anything. So things like typing were very difficult. How much pressure do you use? Where are your fingers on the keypad?"

This was something Ren understood intuitively, and he looked up and around, and then back at me. All ten of his fingers started dancing, and the rhythm changed. I wondered what instrument he was playing. Was it a sitar? A guitar? A piano? A sax? All four and an entire orchestra more?

His fingers still moving, he asked, "Did you learn to type, Peydran?"

I nodded, "That skill was difficult. But what I'm trying to say is that I've accomplished so much— far more than many augments can achieve, and a lot more than that too. But there are limitations to the augment. It's not like stream shows— they add so much drama, and it's nothing like that." He grinned at me, and I wondered if he thought I was talking about augment porn.

Not wanting to get derailed, I clarified, "I can't grab a moving train and hang onto it; it would rip my arm off! And I can't crush this table with my metal hand. It can only do what my human hand can do. It functions as close to a human hand as is mechanically possible. It would be really stupid to augment people with bone-crushing metal hands. So, there's built-in safety mechanisms."

"But, think about how easy it is to damage a person with a human hand. You squeeze too hard, and you bruise someone. You're careless and knock into someone, you hurt them. You can stop these things if your skin tells you to stop, but if you don't have skin, you have to be aware of what you are doing with your metal hand at all times. And I haven't dated. I have no idea what this will be like with a man in my arms."

He nodded. Instinctively, Ren understood about sensory input. His awareness of what his hands and fingers needed to do to play instruments and compose music gave him an intimate understanding of what I meant by the feedback required. How hard do you press a piano key? How do you move your fingers on violin strings if you can't feel them? Looking at him, I suddenly realized that I'd had it extraordinarily easy— typing on a keypad was probably cake compared to learning to play an instrument with an augment.

Ren nodded at me confidently, "I can help you with that Peydran. I don't know exactly what is you need help with, but I know that I can help." And his tone and his nod said that he had spoken final truth. I realized that I believed him.

Something in me caved a little. This was the only time I had tried to talk about how I truly felt about sex, and boyfriends, and metal on skin. I took a deep breath, and let my face fall the way it wanted to.

"Ren, I want you like I have never wanted anything else in my life. You set me on fire, and the fire wants to be quenched. But I can't do this—" I waived my left hand between us— "if it's just a night or a weekend. I don't have it in me to pretend that I can. I can't go home with someone for just a night— especially considering all that I have to think about with my metal hand. It's far too complicated an experience for me to go through."

His eyes narrowed at me in an unpleasant near glare. "This is fast, and quick, and it's only our first date, but you need to know up front who you're on a date with. I'm fun. I'm funny. I'm outgoing. I can be anyone's friend. But I can't do casual."

"Peydran," he said defiantly, "I'm not here for a hook up. I've had enough of that life. I'll quench your fire, and I'll quench it good. But you have to do something for me in return: let's find out if we can be more than passionate lovers. Let's find out if we can be deeply connected like you and Dr. Nova and be great in bed together."

Everything tight and wounded within me relaxed, and I was ready to be done with all the old burdens. Ren didn't think he was good with people. But he was good with me. So I was going to keep him.

I raised one eyebrow, "So, you think you're good in bed, Ro?"

He smirked and looked at me with eyes that said, "I know exactly what I'm going to do to quench every longing you have ever had, Peydran Madrano."

All he did was look, and it was every fantasy I'd ever had about him— no, it was ten million times better than every fantasy I'd ever had about him all those lonely years, because instead of me trying to find a way to coax him into my bed in Uni, he was looking at me like I was everything he wanted. And I was on fire.

"How long are you in Media?" I asked him.

"As long as it takes."

My eyebrows shot up, and I pinched my lips, holding back a smile.

"So, how did you want this first date to end?" I asked.

"Do you have something in mind? My hotel room isn't exactly romantic. Surely you can production design something better," he said with a wry smile.

I nodded. It was time to show off a little. My pad hovered over to him and started opening up stream sites of cabin rentals in Centre. "Centre has a lot of nice rentals, out and away, quiet. Very romantic. Wait— it sounds like I'm trying to lure you into my evil cabin lair in the woods far away from civilization."

Ren gave me a suggestive lift of his dark brows. "Lure away, Pey'o," he smirked. Then his eyes looked at the pad which was slowly scrolling through cabin rentals. He didn't miss a beat. His eyes looked at the pad, at my head, and at the augment. They narrowed.

He looked for a few seconds and asked in a soft voice, "Just how does that augment work? What tells your metal hand to move when you want it to?"

I grinned my biggest smile. "The relay in my brain. Which I hacked."

His face broke open, his jaw dropping. "You ARE Cybernon!" he exclaimed in a whisper.

"Cybernon?" I questioned.

"You know, the Graphic? Cybernon: Beyond Detection? Wait, what can you do?" he leaned towards me across the table, still whispering.

I glanced around the ale house, but no one was looking our way, so I sent a command to the mini-drone in my shirt pocket to fly out and do little circles around the pad. Ren gave out a little delighted, gleeful giggle and looked around the restaurant.

"No one knows?" he whispered.

I shook my head, "Only Ryst and you."

He nodded, "No way, Pey'o, no way!"

"I don't know who Cybernon is though. Is that like an augment covert agent or something?" I asked him.

He scoffed. "Or something. He's an augment, yeah. Left Inspection to go out on his own and live a ridiculous life fighting crime and causing more havoc than he solves. It's really stupid, and really funny."

I couldn't help laughing, "Please tell me you have the latest volume in your suitcase."

He barked out a laugh, "Actually, it's only on stream. No print runs. But we can totally binge it in your evil love nest. We'll start from the beginning. Are all these cabins in Centre? Is there one you like?"

And plans were made, luggage was retrieved, and Ren and I decided how to end our first date. We were in agreement that it wasn't our last.

Ren and Peydran.

Image taken from Pinterest— no idea who to credit.