Page 4 of Hercules

“Her name is Biki,” she said, her huge gray eyes sparkling in the center of her artful kohl makeup and turquoise-tinged lashes.

Uh-oh.

The full blink-blinks of those eyes now came with a giggle that had become trademark for the pop-dance singer and was now used whenever she wanted to turn up the wattage for someone.

“And this cutie-patootie is Kietsu.”

Definitely the wattage. Ohhh, so much of it.

This was not good.

A fact bringing on such a stabby stomach ache, Lois removed her foot from the underside of Biki’s fluffy belly without a shred of guilt. The only rodents she wanted to dream about were the ones in a certain Hollywood studio’s logo, when she and Sam Ashcroft went to pitch their next big blockbuster streaming show. Or movie. She wouldn’t be opposed if the guy wanted to go giant screen with any of the ideas. Her dreams were just as panoramic, her commitment as steady. She was ready to work hard. Her whole life had been defined by that ethic. She had damn good material and damn awesome vision. The only thing she didn’t have was a toe in the door.

The journey she was so close to starting now…

“Their names mean beautiful girl and joy in Japanese,” Natasha supplied. “Aren’t they five thousand kinds of adorbs? Reks sent them because he misses me so much.”

For a long moment, Lois didn’t respond. Not in a movement, not in a word.

Reks.

Of course.

She should’ve known from the second she spewed the poor security shack guy with her reaction. That writing had been on the wall for three weeks now, since Natasha and the rising British rock star had hooked up—crashing like a pair of stars on their way to oblivion, in Nat’s sighing words—during his tour stop and press obligations in LA. Yet as others were fond of saying, the tour must go on, so Lo had picked up Nat as a sobbing mess one Sunday night but come back the next day to find the singer ready to “drown myself in the haven of creation”.

It was the very first time Natasha Korra had asked Lois about her ideas. The scripts over which she was always slaving during breaks. The dreams she had about making it in this crazy town, as a writer and showrunner.

And…the woman hadn’t just asked. She’d listened. Pitch after pitch after pitch.

In the week that followed, she’d taken those ideas and turned them into songs. As Lois listened, she’d gotten dangerously close to tears. The waterworks she’d shut down five years ago, with the promise they’d never flow again. But she was sure Nat got the impression anyway—before presenting Lois with the best present of all.

The gift that was supposed to be manifesting today.

A promise Lo refused to forget. No matter how many signs, in neon-bright blue, were pointing toward a much different concept.

“So…that’s why you got extra sparkly?” she finally screwed up the strength to reply—in a shockingly civil tone, considering the increasing chaos in her gut. “For Reks?”

Nat’s blush was visible even through her half-inch of base and contour. “Hmmm. How could you tell?” she said with a demure hip swivel.

“Well, you look nice. When have you two scheduled your video chat?”

The woman’s new blanch was not helping Lois’s belly.

“Ermmm. What, now?”

And neither was the overt innocence with which she blinked her eyes.

Lo swallowed. Hard. “That’s why you got the whole glam on, right? You’re video calling to thank him for the new additions to the menagerie?” She gave back as good as she got, deliberate and slow with her own blink-blinks. “While you’re on the line with him, I can make sure things are moved out of the way for the housekeepers.” Like any good personal-assistant-who-really-wasn’t-being-paid-for-it would do. “Then you don’t have to worry when we’re on our way to see Sam Ashcroft’s team.”

Out of all the expressions she was praying—damn nearly literally—not to field from Natasha, it was the one that next assaulted the woman’s whole face. The eyes that popped wide. The cheekbones that pushed out, almost skeletal, from the skin as peach-pale as her own. But most prominently, the mouth that formed a near-perfect O…already communicating words before the woman could form them.

The confession that Lois had no patience to wait out.

“You’re not vid calling with Reks…are you? Those bags are packed because you’re going to get on a plane to see him.”

“Lois,” Nat all but rasped. “Lo—”

“Don’t.” She backed away but accidentally stepped on Biki’s tail, so her repetition of the demand was drowned by the chinch’s peeved scream.