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Taking a step toward her parents, he smiled widely, revealing the dimple on his left cheek. “You must be Ella and Dan. I’m very pleased to meet you. Mia has told me so much about her family.”
Mia noticed that he didn’t offer to shake their hand or make any other move to touch them. It was probably the right thing to do. Her parents were already tense enough at having a K in their house.
Her dad nodded curtly. “That’s funny, because we just heard about you today.”
“Dan!” her mom whispered fiercely, clearly afraid of their extraterrestrial guest’s reaction. She seemed unable to take her eyes off Korum, staring at him with a dazed look on her face. Mia knew exactly how she felt.
Korum’s didn’t seem offended at all, giving her dad a warm smile instead. “Of course,” he said softly. “I understand that this is all a huge shock for you. I know how much you love your daughter and worry about her, and I would like to set your mind at ease about our relationship.”
Mia’s mom finally remembered her manners as a hostess. “Can I offer you anything to eat or drink?” she asked uncertainly, still staring at Korum like she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to run away screaming or reach out and touch him.
“Sure,” he said easily. “Some tea and fruit would be great, especially if you join me.”
Mia blinked in surprise. She hadn’t known that Korum drank tea. And then she realized just how extensive his file on her family had to be: he had unerringly picked the one thing guaranteed to make her mom more comfortable – her parents’ daily ritual of making and drinking tea.
“Of course.” Her mom looked relieved to have something to do. “Please have a seat in the dining room, and I’ll bring some tea. We have some really nice local oranges . . . You do eat oranges, right?”
Korum grinned at her. “Definitely. I love oranges, especially the ones from Florida.”
Ella Stalis smiled at him tentatively. “That’s great. We have really good ones this week – juicy and sweet. I’ll bring them right out.” And blushing a little, she hurried away, looking unusually flustered.
Mia mentally rolled her eyes. Apparently, even older women were not immune to his charm.
“The dining room is this way,” her dad said, looking slightly uncomfortable at being left alone with Mia and her K.
Mia walked over to Korum and took his hand, determined to show her dad that there was nothing to worry about. Smiling, she led him toward the table.
The three of them sat down.
At that moment, Mocha appeared, her little tail wagging. To Mia’s huge surprise, she came directly to Korum and sniffed at his legs. He smiled and bent down to pet the dog, who seemed to revel in his attention. Mia watched the scene with disbelief; the Chihuahua was normally very reserved around strangers.
After a minute, Korum straightened and turned his attention back to the human inhabitants of the house.
“So Mia tells us she has an internship in your colony,” Dan Stalis said, looking at Korum as though studying a new and exotic species – which, actually, he was. “How exactly does that work? I assume she can’t really understand a lot of your science and doesn’t know your technology . . .”
“On the contrary,” Korum told him, “Mia is a very fast learner. She’s made tremendous progress in the last couple of weeks. Saret – her boss at the lab – tells me that she’s already making herself quite useful.”
Mia smiled, tickled pink by his praise. “Like I told you, dad, Saret is one of their top mind experts. He’s at the cutting edge of Krinar neuroscience and psychology. And I get to work with him. Can you imagine?”
Her dad rubbed his temples again, and Mia saw him wince slightly. “I can’t, to be honest. The whole thing has been rather overwhelming. You’ll excuse us if we’re not exactly jumping for joy right now –”
“Of course,” Korum said gently. “I wouldn’t be either if it were my daughter.”
“Do you have children?” Dan asked bluntly.
“No, I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Dad!” Mia was mortified by this line of questions.
Korum shrugged, apparently not minding the prying. “Because I don’t have a mate, and I wouldn’t want to raise a child without one.”
Her dad’s eyes narrowed. “How old are you?”
“In your Earth years, I’m about two thousand years of age.”
The look on her dad’s face was priceless. “T-two thousand?”
