Page 80 of Alien Jeopardy
“What do you think?” he asks, sitting across from me. Under the table, his tail wraps around my ankle, and I’m surprised by how sweet that bizarre contact feels.
“It reminds me of pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, but it’s not quite that? It’s weird because it’s familiar but not like anything I’ve had all at the same time.” I chew thoughtfully. Even the noodle-like sheet isn’t quite the texture of lasagna. It’s not bad.
I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know what it’s made of.
I’m hungry enough that I really don’t care, either.
“I’m glad you’re eating it. You need the calories.”
I think that’s the first time in my life a dude has told me I need calories, and while he’s not wrong, it makes me mad at all the other men I’ve ever dated.
Mad at them, and mad at myself for tolerating men who told me to eat less, talk less, make myself less.
Ka-Rexsh is nothing like that.
“You’re a good one,” I tell him suddenly, surprising both of us with the force of the words.
“You are a good one too,” he replies, his tail tightening around my calf, his fangs showing as he smiles at me.
It’s quiet, save for the sounds of us eating, and even the noise he makes chewing isn’t offensive.
The bar, apparently, is in hell.
“I would consider this a third date, you know.” It comes out of nowhere, and he pauses with his spork halfway to his mouth. I don’t know what he picked to eat, but it’s not the lasagna I’m eating.
“I do not know that we use the same calendar,” Rex finally replies.
That makes me laugh, and I take another bite before continuing. “No, a date. It’s what humans call, uh, the courtship period before you settle down with someone.”
“Settle down?” His lip curls in disgust, showing fang, and it’s so cute on him that I smile more broadly. “That is what humans call finding a partner? Settling down?”
“Sometimes,” I answer cautiously. I don’t want to shit all over the human race, and there’s a pretty large amount of disdain in that question.
“Shouldn’t it be settling up? Down seems so negative. I would think that you would not want to settle down.”
I blink in surprise. He’s not wrong—there is something… derogatory about that, but… “That’s not what settle means. It means to like… calm down. Be calm.”
“Nothing about starting a life with someone should change who you are, calm or not. Draegon are not perfect, but many of us, especially the Draegon of the village I was raised in, considered their partners, their mates, to be the ultimate achievement in life.”
“I don’t know.” I poke at the remaining food. “I don’t think people are achievements.”
He frowns. “The word is not translating correctly. The mating partnership, maintaining it—it is not the result of some long pursuit, some ah, checking off a list of desirable traits found on a certain number of… interviews together.” The word interview is pronounced very carefully, like he knows I might be offended by this and is trying to discuss it as delicately as he can.
I squirm, because I’m guilty of exactly that.
I have mentally cataloged all the things I like about him. All the things that I don’t like, too—and I’m not sure that I know enough to know what I don’t like about him.
“A true mating partnership…” He takes my hand in his, and I make myself look up at his earnest expression. “It is not about the individual qualities, bad or good. It is about supporting the whole of the partner, and lifting each other up. It is aboutmaking the world a better place, about being that person’s home, their life support pod when their ship might fail.”
“While the life support pod is a metaphor I’m not used to?—”
He barks a laugh, and I grin at him.
“That sounds ideal,” I finish.
“What were your parents like?” he asks.
Oh. He’s told me what his are like, what he perceived his parents’ and neighbors’ relationships to be like.
