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It kicked up a vicious wind and I wrapped my arms around Layla to protect her from it.
I had one question burning on my lips, one question that, until now, I couldn’t bring myself to ask but had been thinking ever since she began explaining to me what was happening:
“Wasn’t any of it real?” I whispered in her ear.
She turned to look up at me, the wind whipping up her hair into a wild frenzy.
Her eyes were still moist with her tears but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything.
And that was all the confirmation I needed.
No, that silence said. It hadallbeen an act.
She had never loved me, not the way I had loved her.
And that, more than anything that had happened between us, broke my heart.
The guys’ship hissed as its landing gear locked into place.
The back hatch should have whirred open but instead there was a loud banging noise.
After another two thuds, the hatch door snapped open and, carried forward by his own weight as he had smashedhis shoulder against the stuck door, Klem fell and landed face-first in the field’s soft soil.
He shoved himself up onto his feet… and then cried out in pain as he clasped a hand over his back and hobbled toward us.
“Icor?” he said. “Do you mind?”
I rolled my eyes as Klem turned around for me to wrap my arms around his waist.
I held on tight before yanking him toward me.
There was a loudsnapas his spine fell back into place.
Klem sighed with relief as he turned toward me. “No one ever knew how to fix a bad back better than Icor!”
I drew him to me and we embraced, thumping each other hard on the back — although I was careful not to repeat the damage he’d sustained earlier.
“It’s been too long, my friend,” Klem said, beaming up at me.
He was short for a Chi but stouter than a Ureb tree trunk.
I’d seen him take on a dozen pla’at at once, roaring at the top of his voice as he barreled into them, entering a wild berserker rage.
His one good eye came to Layla and he perked up immediately.
His back must have still hurt but he wasn’t about to look weak in front of a female!
“Well, hello there,” he said, wetting his thumb and using it to taper down his bushy eyebrows. “Well, Icor, aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“Do I have to?” I said with a groan.
Klem glared at me before he jabbed me in the ribs and beamed with his gold and silver teeth at Layla.
He leaned forward and performed a clumsy bow. “Niceto meet you, my dear. Don’t tell me you’re paired with this riff-raff?”
Layla couldn’t help but giggle. “I guess you… might call it that.”
“Might call it that?” Klem said with a grin. “That means there’s some space to maneuver. Perhaps I might be capable of worming my way into your heart?”
