Page 81 of I'm Not Your Pet

Liked me enough he’d made it clear he was keeping me.

Ushuu pocketed his phone when Mala made an impatient but indulgent grunt to his left. He didn’t speak much when Roark wasn’t around, and for some reason that made me like him even more. They’d been regular ole chatty-Kathys whenever I saw them together on the ship, and it was funny—now that I realized both men were the silent stoic type when they weren’t ribbing each other.

Mala was more cheerful than Roark was, though. He had this air about him like he wanted to laugh at everything he saw. Whereas Roark viewed the world like it could burst into flames at any moment, so he needed to be prepared with a fire extinguisher.

“Why are we here?” I asked Ushuu, grateful to be spending time with someone I could have a full conversation with. Not that I didn’t appreciate Roark and all his grunts, growls, and garbled English. Because I did. And I wassograteful for the effort he’d put into communicating with me that it made me breathless sometimes.

But…it had been lonely not having anyone to talk to.

Things were better now that I was apprenticing under Ushuu—and I could only thank Roark for that too.

“I bet you can guess,” Ushuu’s eyes gleamed, and I giggled, glancing around and squinting in an attempt to read his mind.

“Shopping?” I offered, arching a brow.

“Very good.” Ushuu sounded way too amused about all of this. The more he worked with Roark and I, the better his English became. Which was something I found incredibly impressive.

“But for what?” I blinked. “Does Roark need something?” That would make sense. I was delighted he’d trust me to run his errands for him. “Oh! Toothpaste. He was saying something about toothpaste I think…yesterday?”

The dispenser had broken and I’d been fiddling with it only to discover it’d gotten jammed with the last dregs of what was left. We needed more to fix it.

“Oh. Or his glasses!” I added. He’d stepped on them when he’d returned to our rooms after his most recent late-night session with Ushuu. The distressed sound he’d made when he realized he’d snapped them in half with his big elephant feet had made me scurry to fix them for him.

I’d used one of the soldering irons in Ushuu’s lab to mend them, and when I’d returned them to him later that night, Roark had placed them on his nose and rubbed his snout against my cheek with a huff of hot breath in thanks.

I bet he was still wearing them right now—even though they looked janky as hell.

Why did that make me happy?

“Wrong,” Ushuu’s grin gentled as he observed me. There was a weird look in his eyes, like he wasseeingme for the first time. “We’re not here for the captain.”

“Then what are we here for?”

“You, Huu-goh.” He grinned. When I stared at him in disbelief he pulled his communicator out and snapped another picture of me. I waved him off, blinking away the spots.

“Why?” I was dumbfounded. “I have everything I need.”

Roark took care of all my stuff. I had my own toothbrush. My own clothes—even if they were all the same outfit.

I mean…shoes would be nice. Real shoes. Not the weird bootie things that I’d been given on F’ukYuu, but still.

“Little one, you’re wearing baby clothes.” Ushuu kept his voice gentle. But the shame that coursed through my body must’ve been apparent, because he swore softly in his native tongue and reached out with one massive hand to settle me. “It is not abadthing. You are small, and it was the only thing we had on board that would fit.”

I shrank in on myself and Mala made an alarmed sound, glancing between the two of us. They had a whispered conversation—one that sounded reprimanding on Mala’s end as Ushuu’s spots turned a dark indigo blue.

“Huu-goh,” he said gently, hands still hovering like he wasn’t sure it was okay to touch. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your heart.” It was a weird translation, but I made sense of it.

“I’m not hurt,” I said, “just surprised.”

“There is no shame in your clothing, Huu-goh,” Ushuu made an alarmed sound, ignoring Mala’s answering growl. “That isn’t why Roark wanted us to take you here.” He closed the last few inches between us and rubbed his palm up and down my back. It was nice. Soothing. It wasn’t as nice as when Roark did it, but I appreciated the touch all the same.

I hadn’t had much of that, even when I was living on Earth.

“The captain…” Ushuu kept rubbing as he frowned, spots still indigo with what I assumed was remorse. He was quiet for a moment as he came up with what I assumed were the right words in a tongue that wasn’t his. “The captain wants to…”Ushuu frowned, struggling. “Give you many gifts,” he finally settled on.

Give me gifts?

Why?

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