Page 107 of Every Almost

Charlie smiled. Wide and unguarded, her "secret smile" she only used when she felt happy with her whole heart. The woman returned the smile, and Charlie felt more ease wash over her.

During the next round of gestures, the woman seemed interested in Charlie and everything she had with her, including her shirt and the writing on it. At one point, the woman pointed at it.

Charlie looked down. Under the batter and the flannel and the aquamarine coat, her Rumours tour tee was just barely visible. The letters across the front.

"Fleetwood Mac World Tour," Charlie read aloud.

The woman heard the sounds but shrugged. Charlie gestured at the shirt and shrugged back. Shared frustration at the wall between them.

The woman pointed at the little device behind her ear again and made the talking motion. Then she turned her head and called out to someone behind her. A sharp, commanding set of syllables.

Another woman stepped forward. Where the first woman was steady, this one was a blade. She looked at Charlie like she was a specimen on a slide, pale green eyes already cataloguing. Green skin, like the first woman, but cooler somehow. Silver-white hair cropped close. Taller, leaner, precise in every line. Charlie's immediate assessment wasdon't mess with this one.

The blade-woman bent down so she and the first woman could speak while she eyed Charlie. Charlie smiled sheepishly and raised her hand to wave her fingers at the steel woman. Her expression didn’t change as she continued to watch Charlie.

Charlie figured they were communicating about her but gave up almost immediately at trying to catch a single word.Yep, it was definitely an alien language.

The blade-woman turned to look at the first with wide eyes. Surprise. Something significant had just been communicated.

And in that position, turned to the side, Charlie could see it. Behind the blade-woman's ear was the same device, that same little implant.

Charlie's engineering brain slammed into gear.

"The thing! The thing behind your ear!" she shouted, startling both women out of their conversation. She pointed at her own ear, just slightly behind it, and made the talking motion with her hand.

The first woman's smile bloomed across her face like a sunrise.

"It helps you talk to each other!"

The smile didn't dampen. The woman turned to the blade-woman and said something quick. The blade-woman stood and Charlie watched her walk out of the room. The first woman turned back to Charlie and held up both hands, both stock still. Ah, this Charlie could recognize. It was a universal gesture for a reason.

"I'm guessing that means 'stay,'" Charlie said as she clasped her hands together, laid them in her lap, and sat up straight. The woman smiled and...did she just wink at me?

The woman got up and walked over to the bodybuilding blue dude. While they spoke, Charlie used the moment to look around, this time less terrified than before.

Well,slightlyless.

She began to examine each of the beings in the room.

First, there was the short one. His amber eyes were already watching her with undisguised delight. Three feet tall, maybe four, with skin that shifted from bright copper across his face to deep crimson at his shoulders, like a sunset setting on his skin. Bold geometric markings in plum spread across his features, fixed and vivid, math literally written on his face. Short crimson locs covered his head, staging a minor rebellion against gravity. He was the smallest person in the room and, somehow, the loudest presence in it.

Behind him, near the doorway, stood another woman. Quiet, reserved, positioned the way someone stands when they're inanother person's space: close to the exit, weight balanced, ready to move. She had the same general look as the woman Charlie had been playing charades with and the razor lady who'd left, but her skin carried a faint lavender tint and an iridescence that caught the light when she shifted. Silver-touched dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. Large violet-gray eyes that were watchful but soft when they found Charlie's.

Charlie's gaze moved and found the tall one near the wall who hadn't yet moved. Not once, Charlie realized, since Charlie had opened her eyes. She stood the way old trees did, rooted and unhurried, radiating something Charlie could only describe as calm, except it was so much more than that. It felt permanent and structural, as though it was a part of this woman instead of a choice. She was almost as big as the bear in the corner, but everything about her was different. Deep bronze skin with a luminescent quality, like light lived just beneath the surface. Her amber eyes held a patience Charlie had never seen expressed so clearly. Every gesture she made was deliberate and intentional, as though rushing was a concept she'd considered and declined.

Standing slightly apart from the others was a man with warm bronze skin and amber eyes that held Charlie's gaze when her scan reached him. He wasn't watching her with fear or curiosity or the clinical assessment of the blade-woman. He was watching her withattention. As though she was worth his full focus simply because she was there.

And then, there was the bear.

Charlie's gaze found him last and she almost wished she hadn't looked. He wasstaringat her. Small eyes locked onto Charlie with an intensity that suggested she had personally wronged him in a way that could not be forgiven. Seven feet tall and hunched over, with thick brown fur and a face that was, without question, a bear's face, but with...differences.He had aset of tusks around his muzzle, six-fingered hands, and he wore that damn apron.

She looked down at herself at the batter covering her clothes, and then back at the bear's apron, both covered in the same stuff. Then she glanced at the enormous mixing bowl behind her.

Charlie closed her eyes as the pieces started to fall into place. She opened them again, looking over the cookware. Well, it looks like she'd landed in his cooking. Whatever he'd been making, she'd destroyed it.

Charlie went a little pale.

The first woman came back, sat cross-legged in front of Charlie again, while the blade-woman had slipped back into the room behind her, carrying something.