Page 32 of Love Galaxy

I clench my hands into fists, my claws digging into the palms of my hands, in an attempt to hide my feelings from the cameras. But there is nothing I can do to disguise what I’m sure is the expression of desperate loneliness my face wears.

I must reek of it. Of loneliness and fear. And longing.

Briar

“I… I have work to do.” Turning his back on me, Sorin climbs another ladder, taking the rungs two at a time, and disappearsthrough a trapdoor in the ceiling. No staircases in this house, apparently.

I follow him up, hating that I’m in his home when it wasn’t Sorin’s idea I be invited.

Upstairs consists of a single room with no furniture. Instead of four walls, it’s circular, with a curved ceiling, a couple of windows facing different directions and a single door through which Sorin has already left.

My hand’s on the door, but I don’t open it. Through a window, I can see Sorin with his head bowed against the gale-force wind, but he’s too far ahead; I’d never catch up.

I mean Jesus fucking Christ! What work does Sorin have to do that’s outside in that hellscape? He’d said his algae farm is all underground.

I try hard not to stare at his perfect naked ass, but where’s a girl (even a confused, messed up girl) to look when Sorin’s got his back to her? It must be so useful having scales and not needing to wear clothes for protection or privacy. Even now, in all the dust, his scales glisten softly, so neat and clean and self-contained.

Self-contained: that word describes Sorin perfectly. He only speaks when he’s got something he considers worth saying. While the way he moves with precision and focus proves how comfortable he is with his own body. And I’m not saying that because he’s naked all the time.

He glances over his shoulder, back toward the house. I swear my heart skips a beat. Has he changed his mind? Is he coming back? But his glance backwards only seems to spur him on until he’s all but sprinting away from his own home.

Chapter Eighteen

Briar

Iwatch Sorin until he’s out of view, then I climb back down the ladder to his kitchen to find he’s left his tablet on the table, and it’s beeping. As if he set an alarm and forgot about it.

Hesitantly, I poke the screen with an index finger. Could I make an outgoing call with this? But the idea that its reception could reach all the way to Earth is laughable. Besides, I can’t exactly ring my parents and say, ‘Oh, by the way I’ve been abducted by aliens. Please send an uber to pick me up.’ They’d hang up on me before I’d have a proper chance to speak.

At my touch, the beeping stops as the screen illuminates, displaying a message. It’s two brief paragraphs long, and my eyes are skimming the English half before I’ve fully registered that this is something I can read.

Sorin and Briar,

Things have been heating up between you.

Now it is time to heat up the kitchen.

Your first task is to have a romantic meal together.

#DateNight #LoveGalaxy

Hashtags? They use hashtags in space? I examine the other paragraph, the one written in the language I can’t read, but there aren’t any hashtags among those letters. So maybe the hashtag is the Human equivalent to whatever it is that aliens use as social media tags on… ‘Spacebook’ or ‘Galactictok’. MySpace!

“I’m not doing this,” I tell the closest camera.

“Yes, you are,” comes Mr. Smith’s voice.

I jump, my heart practically leaping into my mouth. Evidently the cameras work as a two-way radio, or else there’s a speaker somewhere around here I haven’t spotted yet.

“Or did you want Chloe to pay you a visit?” he asks.

“Are you threatening me with more rubbish commentary or another whack over the back of my head? One of those is arguably worse than the other, and it’s definitely Chloe’s crap commentary.”

I want to argue that Sorin isn’t even here, that there isn’t any food in the kitchen, that I don’t know how to use a cast-iron stove that looks like it should be part of the film set for a period drama, but I’m pretty sure Mr. Smith would accept none of those excuses.

“Fine!”

“And don’t forget to speak out loud to the camera when you’re on your own.”

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