The cover, like the book, was terrible. There was no artistry in the art and it was blatant and almost cartoon-like. Which was why Bucky liked it. It was the same reason he liked the book. It was so terrible it rounded the corner into being amazing, and it had made him laugh. Those had been hard to come by at first, and Bucky had clung to the few things that had. Including terrible, stolen alien porn.
He grinned at her, wide and real. "Yeah? Damn, I'd have her sign. It's art, Nat. Someday, when the world is wiped out and all that's left is a bunch of horny aliens surveying the remains, they'll fish out that book and mourn us because we were fucking funny and had weird ideas about what they did with their hands."
It was a stupid, pointless conversation ... but that was okay too. It was nice and Bucky didn't feel the push of pressure to say the right thing weighing him down. It didn't really matter when you were talking about smutty four-handed alien books. They had a lot of things between them, serious things that neither of them were happy about if they put too much thought into it. But right now, Bucky didn't fucking have to think about it. He'd take it.
The question earned a laugh, startled and louder than Bucky usually laughed anymore. He ducked his head afterward, automatically worried about drawing extra attention - but it was instinct, quickly forgotten. "You know, I'm thinking you're putting a lot more thought into it right now than the writer ever would. But it's smut, so they'd have to be stuck on there so you could use 'em effectively for porn. Probably a dick shelf? One under the other, balls just tucked down there under?" Bucky grinned. "Bet she'd get halfway through the fucking, forget where she had 'em, describe it badly and it'd end up sounding like the second dick's on someone's forehead. It'd be great."