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But I shouldn’t do that, no matter how much it would teach him a lesson about underestimating me.
I pick up speed until I’m running at a steady clip, my breath even and light. Malix doesn’t take long to match my pace, jogging alongside me in his stupid little outfit. His silver scales look more turquoise out here, almost blending in with the grass. White flowers tip the blades, puffing up around us and making me sneeze in the process.
No matter how pretty they are, I’m still allergic. Hate that for me.
We don’t speak. The song changes once, then twice. I keep trying to get ahead of him, but he stays level with me, his shoulders barely heaving.
Okay…maybe he’s tall enough and alien enough to win this race.
I wish I could stay stoic, but I start to feel awkward once I’m about six songs in. He’s been locked up in his room the whole time—and I get that, given that his home was just destroyed—but I have about a million questions for him. I think I’m too used to Taraven’s company, to his openness, to the way we dance around getting involved sexually. Maybe it’s just the pent up horniness from six months on ship without getting laid, or maybe it’s just that I can always hear the Skoropi getting it on in their bunks, but I have this irresistible urge to flirt.
I don’t slow down as I take out my earbuds and put them in the pack slung around my waist, replacing it with my translator.
Malix eyes me, his full lips parted as he breathes. Now that my earbuds are out, I can tell that he is in fact strugglingjusta little bit. It isn’t a lot, but it’s enough to give me a surge of satisfaction. I wipe the smug smile off my face and look straight ahead.
“Is your room comfortable?” I ask.
Wow. Great start, Frankie.
“Comfortable enough,” he says. “I have never been on a Skoropi ship before; is this average?”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “All their ships are alive, as far as I know.”
“The beds,” he says. “I’m used to sleeping in a recessed bunk in complete darkness. The ship…it always seems to be bright with that fern that grows under the vines. I have no way of knowing if it’s night…or…day.”
His words get labored at the end of his sentence. Another wave of satisfaction hits me. I shouldn’t be so pleased with beating him, should I?
Am I mad that Taraven likes him, or that he seems to like Taraven?
Or that neither of them seem all that interested in me?
“You get used to the bed,” I say. “At first it really felt like sleeping on the floor, but the key is to just…fill your room with stuff. Plants. Make it comfy.”
“What iscomfy?” he asks with a frown.
I sigh, catching my breath in the process. Our pace has slowed, as my comm very rudely tells me.Shut up, little robot, I’m trying to have a conversation with a cute alien. “Like, surround yourself with stuff you like,” I say. “Stuff that makes you happy.”
“Like theibisflowers in my room,” he says.
I smile over at him. “You like those? We picked them out for you.”
“‘We’…” he repeats, like he’s mulling over the word. “Are you and Taraven—”
I pause, raising my hand.
My comm has started to buzz frantically, and I look down to see that something is showing up on my map, heading toward us at a rapid speed. We’ve stopped here before and I’ve never encountered anything on any of my runs…but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen.
This is an alien, unpopulated world, after all.
“Hold that thought,” I say. “We should probably get back.”
“I hear it too,” Malix says. “I didn’t bring a weapon.”
“Which is why we should run,” I say. “It’s probably just an animal, in which case Jaya will scare it off the closer we get. And if it’s not…”
He glances at me. “What do you think it could be?”
I shrug. “I don’t want to find out.”
