Page 88 of I'm Not Your Pet

Would he like what I was wearing?

I hoped he would.

“Captain,” Ushuu stressed, catching my attention. His eyes were soft as he sighed. “I may be old, but I am still a capable warrior. Trust that I know what I’m doing.”

I knew he was right, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous.

“You’ll take him to the hotel? You won’t let him out of?—”

“I won’t let him out of my sight,” Ushuu promised. “Please, Roark. Let me do this for you.”

Anxiety flickered at my fingertips and I flexed my hands into fists to stave it off.

“How long?” I asked, gritting my teeth.

“It’ll take half an hour to get him to the hotel, and he’ll need at least an hour to get ready,” Ushuu explained.

“And I’ll?—”

“And you will arrive to pick him up—” Ushuu stressed, “withflowers.”

“With flowers.” I agreed. I would have brought him a lot more than a single bouquet if it was up to me, but Ushuu had made it clear that flowers were a customary gift for a first date on Earth, and I wanted to do this by the book.

I only had one chance to woo him for the first time.

If all went well, this was the story we’d tell our children.

“Understood,” I straightened my collar again, glancing at my dearest friend, before I steeled my nerves and turned away. When I was halfway down the hallway, Ushuu called out to me one last time.

“Captain?”

“Yes?” I twisted to look at him, annoyed but amused when I saw the shit-eating grin on his weathered face.

“Don’t wrinkle your tux.”

Nighttime on planet Sha’hPihn was magical.

I hadn’t been out after the suns had set before, and as Ushuu and I climbed the staircase that took us toward the stars my head stayed tipped toward them. I did my best to memorize the beauty all around me because I wasn’t sure I’d ever see anything like it again.

Despite how busy he’d been, Roark had come back earlier that week with a new journal for me. A journal that I had used to sketch the city, expanding across the pages with every passing day.

This was the longest we’d stayed on a planet because it was the last stop before the trip home. Home. To a world I’d never seen, but loved already. Simply because it was the place that Roark came from.

Sha’hPihn was a sparkly blur of neon colors as we crested the top of the stairs. The same people that had populated the shops during the day had morphed into couples dressed in finery. The chitter of laughter rang like bells as shimmery fabric caught the lights above. We kept up with the procession of people moving toward the center of the city, lost in the crowd.

The hotel that held what Ushuu had described as a “ball” was massive. Located smack dab in the middle of the vast sprawl of buildings, it was easily the tallest that lined the sky. As we walked toward it, my hands grew sweaty.

What if I don’t fit in?

I’ve never been somewhere this nice before.

Maybe I should’ve picked a different outfit.

My skin itched.

“When is Roark coming?” I asked Ushuu for the fourth time. He yipped in amusement, sticking close to my left, careful to walk between me and the bulk of the strangers. He was here to guide as well as guard me.

Sometimes Roark treated me like I was the goddamn president.

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