golden!
It was rare for Rhett to wish he was fit enough to work in the gold mines. He’d lived on the mining planet for his entire life, but his attention was always on the stars above. He dreamed of earning enough to book passage to one of the inner planets, to a place full of life and excitement where he could sing and play music for more than a few credits. He’d seen the videos and pictures on the web. The inner planets were crowded and vibrantly neon. Much different from the quiet, steady pace of his mining town. Such a trip was exorbitant for someone like him, who could barely afford food and rent, but he worked double shifts at the general store as a handyman, repairing and selling whatever was needed. It wasn’t much, but he squirreled away every spare credit he earned.
Then one Monday morning, as he was bent over the counter at the shop, re-calibrating the servos of yet another mining droid, a soft beep alerted him that a customer had just walked in.
“You got gold here?”
The accent was lazy. Unfamiliar. Rhett glanced up. A tall man, thin and broad-shouldered and wearing black-rimmed glasses, stood before the counter, fidgeting with his palmscreen. Rhett’s eyes were drawn to the thing. The palmscreens he was familiar with were heavy duty ones with reinforced glass to withstand hard labor. This one was slim with no protective casing. He also noticed that the man’s hands weren’t heavily callused. This was someone unfamiliar with manual labor.
Different from the type of men that Rhett usually kissed.
“Gold?” he repeated.
“Yeah.” The man squinted at the knickknacks on the counter, poking at the collection of paperweights there. A lock of dark hair fell over his forehead. Rhett wondered how it might feel to run his hands through it.
“Um.” He straightened, tapping his screwdriver on the counter. “We don’t sell gold here. It gets shipped off-world once we mine it.”
The man sighed. “Sorry to hear.” He grinned, his eyes meeting Rhett’s for the first time. “Hey.” He leaned on the counter, large hands hanging over the edge. “You seem quite golden yourself.”
In spite of himself, Rhett felt his ears burn. He’d flirted with plenty of men before, but never one as brash as this. “Um. What do you need gold for? Are you new here…?”
The man shrugged. “Souvenir. I’m heading to the inner planets tomorrow. Thought the friends might like to see the gold standard their credits are based on.”
“What brings you here?” It had been so long since Rhett had spoken to anyone from off-world; he wanted to prolong this conversation as long as he could.
“Work.” The man glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry, I actually have a meeting soon. But nice to meet you.” He grinned at Rhett.
“Nice to meet you,” Rhett fumbled out.
“You too.” The man…did he wink at Rhett as he turned to leave? “Hey, if you’re not busy tonight, come down to the Dust Mill. Celebrate the end of the fiscal year with some music and drinks, yeah?”
Rhett stammered that he would. It had been ages since he’d done anything for fun. He knew he could barely afford to go, but this man intrigued him.
It wasn’t until the store was empty once again that he noticed the scrap of paper folded on the counter. Opening it, he found a phone number scrawled there, and beneath it a name. Link.
