Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22109 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 111(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 74(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22109 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 111(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 74(@300wpm)
“I…see.” Even though I don’t see at all. But I have heard that some humans have lived through terrible things prior to their freedom. It’s strange to think of smiling, lively Chelsea in such a situation. She seems so very full of joy. “It is a strange way of looking at things.”
She pulls out a glass and pours it full of cold tea. “Is it? I guess it can be. I’m just tired of wasting energy on fear. I want to be happy right up until the end.” She holds the glass out to me. “It’s sweetened already. I hope that’s all right. You just can’t add the sweetener when it’s cold or it settles at the bottom and doesn’t do its job.”
I take the drink from her, gazing at her. “Shouldn’t you have a bit of fear? To keep you safe? What if I was someone intent on harming you?”
“Then I’d already be dead. If you were intent on harming me, four flimsy walls with windows in them aren’t going to protect me.” She gestures at her small house. “Someone that’s determined can break down doors. They can get me when I leave the house. They can sabotage my sled. There’s a million ways someone could attack if they wanted to, and I’m not going to waste energy thinking about any of them.”
She pours herself a drink to match mine.
“I don’t know if I admire your thinking or find you insane.”
Chelsea picks up her drink, eyeing me. “Then leave.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
Her smile returns and she clinks her glass to mine. “Good, because I don’t want you to leave, either.”
I take a sip of the drink—and choke on it. Beyond the strangeness of drinking cold tea, it’s laced with so much sweetener that it makes my teeth ache. My whiskers twitch and my tail flicks. “That’s awful.”
Chelsea giggles at my response, and the sound of it makes me ache with yearning. “Sweet tea is definitely an acquired taste for a lot of people. Very common where I’m from back on Earth, though. I could make you a hot tea if you’d rather.”
I stare down at the heinous amber drink in my hand. “I would love to stay for tea but I need to get to work soon. The foreman will be looking for me. Can I meet you later? Perhaps at the cantina?”
“Or you could come over for dinner.” She leans against the counter, her smile inviting. “We don’t have to go out.”
“I would love to come over for dinner,” I admit.
“And then she invited me to dinner,” I tell Jrrru over the comm channel. Directing my mech suit, I turn the welding arm to the appropriate angle and run the torch down another seam, sealing it. “What do you think?”
“Let me get this straight. This hot-as-kef human female caught you jerking your cock on her doorstep and instead of screaming at you, invited you in? You sure she isn’t praxiian?” My brother sounds amused. “Because that’s a praxiian response.”
Huh. So it is. A praxiian woman would either be flattered or offended (if she wasn’t a fan of me). “I guess I just expected a human to be more reluctant when it comes to aliens. They told us all kinds of stories when we got here about how to approach them and Chelsea doesn’t seem to match any of them.” I shake my head, focusing in on the welding. “It’s keffing baffling.”
“You’re overthinking it,” Jrrru tells me. His mech suit maneuvers another long, thin piece of metal and holds it into place as I glide forward and weld the piece in place.
“Am I? Maybe I am. Maybe they filled our heads with so many warnings when we got here that I don’t know what to think.” Chelsea certainly isn’t the fearful little thing I’ve been brought to expect. Her gaze is bold and fearless, and her smile enticing. I’ve been thinking about her all day. Maybe I’m just so worried that I’m going to do something wrong that this seems too good to be true.
But then I think of the humans that we pass on the street here in Port. How they cringe and back away, or cross the street. How they avoid eye contact with us, because praxiians are a large race and known to be brutal at times. They react how I expect a human to react. No, it’s definitely Chelsea that is throwing me off.
“There’s another possibility,” Jrrru says, releasing the metal as I turn my welding arm to get the other side. He turns his mech toward the pile of metal sheets we have to have placed before the end of the day.
“What’s that?”
“Perhaps she’s not reckless at all. You ever think that maybe she knows you’re only here on a contract and she just wants some attention for a short time? Get her needs met? Her itches scratched?”