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SHORT STORIES
CHAPTER1
HIROKI’S DYE JOB
Aldor had crinkled his nose against the sharp, stringent scent of bleach. He had washed it from my hair so carefully, his enormous fingers combing through the once-black strands. And when he had rinsed it all out, his scowl was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen.
Aldor himself had to be eight feet tall. Maybe he was taller. His hands were huge, but somehow he was so gentle, so thorough, as he helped me dye my hair.
I could’ve asked a human, but Aldor had been curious about human customs. He hadn’t missed a single one of Lucas’s classes, so I’d started going too, just to watch him sit eagerly at the front of the room, nodding, even tapping out notes on his data pad.
While dyeing wasn’ttraditionor anything, I wanted him to be a part of it. I wanted him to be a part of everything.
“It is not pink,” he grumbled.
His low voice rumbled in his barrel chest as he frowned at me. The Thorzi were all like this—serious and demanding. Uncompromising, even.
The ones with human parents seemed to have a better grasp of humor, but even then, it’d been stifled.
He was drying his hands with a cloth, and I leaned up on my toes, squeezing his hands through the damp fabric. “We’re only half done.”
“Only half?” His scowl deepened, but Aldor didn’t offer a single complaint as he painted my hair with the dye lock by lock.
“This isverypink,” he mumbled. “Pinker than pink.”
I laughed. “It won’t be as intense as it looks right now when we’re finished.”
He painted more and more at my direction, until my head was cold and wet, and I could slide my hands up my long hair to make a point at the top like some kind of bubble-gum gremlin.
The smile that curved his deep blue lips at that was so worth the scent of bleach.
Once it was set, I went to shower. By the time I’d gotten out, Aldor was clearly impatient.
“Did it work? Are you pink?”
“You’ll see in a minute.” I wanted to give him the full effect, pink and fluffy and soft, so I took the time to dry out my hair completely, and was rewarded with his caught breath the second I came out with the towel wrapped around my waist. “You like it?”
Aldor’s black brow furrowed and he leaned in, sniffing my dry hair. “It smells sweet.”
“That’s just the conditioner,” I muttered, but he shook his head and a warm blush swept through me.
With tender, questing fingers, he touched my hair and combed it back from my face. I turned up toward him, beaming.
“I like it very much, my Hiroki,” he said softly.
I loved the way his voice got so low and gentle when he wanted to be sweet. It made me want to press in closer to him.
“Maybe we could do yours too.” I reached out for a strand of his hair.
What I’d expected was a scowl and an assurance that it was unnecessary and he would “go pink” for me whenever I liked.
Instead, his breath caught. The blue high in his cheeks darkened. His enormous, sapphire eyes fluttered.
“Do you... like that?”
He stared at me, his mouth moving without sound for a moment.
“I mean,” I tried again, “does it feel good?”
