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“Was. It. Hard.” There was a noise that bordered on snarky...annoyance...she couldn’t really place it. “This is what I do.”
She maneuvered to hitch one hip onto his workbench. “I know this is what you do.”
His eyes flicked to where she sat quickly, then he resumed his work. “Then why did you ask?”
She threw her hands up in the arm. “I don’t know? Maybe because I’m trying to be supportive of my alien boyfriend as he tries to fix his alien techy thing, so his alien boss doesn’t die from some alien disease?”
Kien froze. She froze. She didn’t mean to say that word. That one word that meant nothing but everything.
“I’m not your boyfriend,” he said slowly.
Nisha’s stomach dropped. Her airway constricted. Her mind raced. She hadn’t meant to call him her boyfriend. If she told him her mistake it would only appear as though she was trying to cover for him not feeling the same way she had. And she surely couldn’t go along with it now.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she whispered, heart stuck in her throat.
“Good. Because we aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. Those are human constructs. And as you’ve pointed out, I’m an alien.”
“I also didn’t mean alien in a derogatory term either.”
“It doesn’t matter. I am an alien. I’m here on a mission, doesn’t matter if it got derailed and that mission changed. A mission is a mission.”
A mission.
Her mind went to the note taking for the scientists on his home planet. The dating humans to see if Thellians were compatible. The logging of the...
“This is going into your logbook, isn’t it?” She didn’t have to elaborate about the “this”. They both understood exactly what she referred to.
“Everythinggoes into the logbook.”
That’s when her heart tightened. She was stupid. She’d known and she’d forgotten. She’d witnessed firsthand Phate telling Tasha the exact same thing. He had seemed apologetic, upset, remorseful. Kien, on the other hand, seemed indifferent. Mad.
“I guess you have to do what you have to do.”
“I do and I will.”
She straightened and steeled her back. He still didn’t look at her. No matter. She didn’t need him to look at her. He wouldn’t find tears or sniveling. She gathered her hurt and balled it up. Then stuffed it deep within the pit of her heart.
“Make sure to add in the part where I faked the orgasms.” She made her way toward the door.
The tinkering behind her stopped but she didn’t.
