Page 31 of Eat My Moon Dust
Besides, after what he’d been through? No freaking way.
A big hand wrapped around the ball of my shoulder and pulled the chair back. Hunar pressed his weight into one upper palm against the table and leaned me back with the other, staring furious daggers into my calm stare. If I wasn’t going to freak out about it, he wasn’t going to either.
“You’re unbelievable,” he rumbled, slitted nostrils flaring. The striped pupils in his big eyes turned to angry slits. “You realize you told Zufi that you’re planning to encoil me, right?Do you even know what a coilisss?”
I crossed my arms, unimpressed by his looming shadow and threatening tone of voice. “Yes, actually I do. Omi is my best friend, remember? Siatesh’spriya?She tells me…” I leaned forward.“Everything.”
Hunar snarled and whipped away, taking up Bajora’s pacing rhythm. The culinary engineer stopped, all four pleading palms raised.
“Tinsley, I don’t think you get it.Syaliis, ah, not ashealthyas most men at the end of the coil, and it’s really…” He sighed, cursing under his breath.“Reallynoticeable.”
I rolled my eyes. “You mean the wasting?” Both of them paused, manes curling up with surprise. I threw my hands into the air and got to my feet, patience running thin. “I heard it all, okay?! I came back here to ask Bajora for help whenyourefused.” I slashed a hand towards Hunar. “You need a new coil to stay in Renata with your kids, and even if I didn’t think you deserve to stay–which Ido–I happen to owe you a favor for all of the Christmas printing.”
Both men stared at me like deer caught in headlights as I took a deep breath and righted my antlers.
“You really don’t get it.” Hunar’s mane keened as he leaned back against his workbench, despondent. “What am I gonna do?”
Every once in a while, men would assume that just because I was snack sized, I didn’t have the brain of an adult, competent woman. It boiled the blood in my veins every time I was carded or someduderuffled my hair. Now it wasn’t just human men, but aliens too? I squared up to Hunar and grabbed the front of his coveralls.
“Thatcreepwants evidence that you’re sleeping with a human,” I spelled out as plain as snickerdoodles. “So I’m gonna bring you cute little jars of cider at lunch, walk you home at night, hug your sleeve, and call youhoneyuntil he leaves. Done and done. Zufi and whatever stupid clauses are in your contract can suck an egg. Got it?”
A muscle in my jaw ticked as I put on my absolute best bad cop persona. IneededHunar to make my holiday dreams come true, and he needed someone in his corner. So what if he was pricklier than a dried out evergreen and didn’t socialize? Didn’t Zufi understand how hard he worked? How much of an asset he was? When I really thought about it, which I didn’t ever want to, Hunar had probably saved us from a lot more threats than the rest of the security team combined. His perimeter drones were amazing.
But the way he looked at me when he leaned in, calm despite the riptide roiling beneath the surface, made me nervous. I held my breath, heart in my throat as he growled.
“Except you’re forgetting… We don’t taste the air with our tendrils the way you humans do when you smell something.”
“Okay…”
Uh oh.
“We’re pheromonal creatures, remember? We scentchemicals.Like when a man has recently frenzied over a new coil? And maybeyoudon’t change much when you date someone, but a shil does. I’m not grey around the gills because I was fucking born this way, Tinsley.”
My hard expression cracked. “Oh… right.”
“Oh shit is more like it,” Hunar said with a hoarse hiss.
“Watstakats.”
The three of us went still, the ramifications of my improv acting finally catching up to me. I stared at the little jar of cider, cursing myself for how hard I’d messed up. I should have offered to play pretend after Zufi left, but the jerk just pushed all my buttons sohard…
Hunar sat heavily in the chair next to me and pulled a vial from his pocket with shaking fingers. His mane tumbled over itself to expose his neck as he leaned his head to the side and slipped an aero-syringe from its case. As he injected it into the back of his neck, he took a deep breath and addressed me.
“I appreciate that you want to help me,” it pained him to say. The shudder in his fingers eased as he tossed the empty vial into a hazards bin. “But Zufi will expect my health to improve fast with a new coil. Within days, not weeks. We can fake date like humans, but there’s no way for me to fakethat.”
“Right.” I swallowed hard, clutching the corners of my seat, lost in thought. The answer came more easily than I should have been comfortable with, and the implications were serious… I glanced at Bajora, resting against his workbench and straightened my shoulders as my cheeks reddened. “I’ll figure something out.”
“Figure what–”
My eyes snapped to Hunar’s and I gave him a timid smile, much less confident than my usual bravado. “Just trust me, okay? I’ll figure it out. Now, can we talk about printing, please? It’s important.”
“...Fine.”
Utterly drained, Hunar sat, and I spread out my first little stack of plans.
??
As soon as the door opened to my festive little troll cave, I breathed in the smell of universal cider and the knot of nerves in my chest unraveled just enough for me to loosen my shoulders and stretch my neck. I rubbed my cheeks, so flush and hot that they tingled and had been for hours.
