“So, finished ‘Vastness’ yet?”

He holds up the book while raising a brow in her direction. “Still haven’t finished yet”, he replies, “Pretty good so far, though not enough lasers for my liking.”

“It’s not really about the lasers. That comes after the Second Intrastellar War, and that’s around...” She nibbles on her finger, brows furrowed as she takes a seat. “... Book three? Yeah, that’s around book three. Haven’t bought it yet though.”

She blinks, then lets out a hum, turning towards him with a smile. “You got one of those in here, by the way? I’m planning on reading it if there is.”

With a sigh, he scoots over towards the computer, quickly browsing through the database for a few seconds. “Don’t got one here, sorry about that. And I don’t think I’ve got those series in the shelves upstairs, last time I checked.”

“Course you don’t”, she drawls with a smile, “It’s just filled with love stories instead, isn’t it.”

“Not saying anything.” He hums, zipping his mouth shut while sending a glare in her direction. Not that it deterred her much, in any case. “Though if you're interested in reading some...”

She blinks. Before immediately cringing in his direction. “Yeah, no.”

“Hey, fair’s fair.” He scowls, bringing a book on the countertop and sliding it over towards her. “I get to read some of your books, you get to read some of mine. This particular one’s about as tame as it gets.”

She looks at the cover with narrowed eyes, then immediately flips it around to read a blurb. It doesn’t take her long to read through the text, before she flicks her gaze up towards him.

“I don’t think ‘tame’ is putting this correctly.”

“Well, it’s vanilla as far as anything goes, so my point still stands.”

“The blurb literally says that it’s got chains on it.”

“Well, you could skip all those parts if you aren’t that interested.” He dryly replies, “Still recommending it to you. Besides, the chains there are more of a metaphor kind of thing. Crowns of responsibility, power, aristocracy, all that kind of jazz.”

Her brows furrow. “... What is this, a love story or a political thriller?”

His eyes twinkle, drumming his fingers on the book's cover. “Why don’t you read it for yourself and find out, hm?”

A few moments pass before she huffs, swiping the book from the counter and stuffing it into her bag. “Fine, you win.” She grumbles, “But I’ve still got lots of books that I’ll be going through, so don’t expect anything about this thing for a while. Got that?”

“Wouldn’t really expect anything less.”