Page 36 of Eat My Moon Dust
Perfect.
I met him part way and leaned my bag towards him inconspicuously. If I trusted anyone to be classy about getting a wiff ofeau de la culotte de Tinsley,it was him. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Oh, just marking some stuff delivered before taking lunch. How about you?”
I pressed my lips together, then slowly unlatched my bag and cocked my hip towards him. Piro waited with a golden retriever smile, but nothing else changed. “Looking for Hunar. Is he here?”
“Sure! Should be at his workbench, but he’s been going back and forth to the printing bay, so if he’s not, just stick around for a few minutes.”
“Cool, thanks!”
I latched my bag back up with a snap and bounced across the hangar. My heart was still pitter pattering like a jackalope, but at least I could be certain that no one could sniff me out. My pep restored, I sang along toRudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeerby DMX, lowering my voice and bobbing my head with each reindeer name like a middle-schooler that just “learned how to rap” over the winter vacation.“PrancerandVixen, CometandCupidand–Hunar, I’m here!”
I breezed into the engineering lounge and came up short. Hunar had turned my way, a small piece of something spiky in his upper hands. His coveralls were tied low on his hips rather than covering the muscular landscape of his arms and chest. Shilpakaari didn’t have body fat–something to do with being cephalopods instead of mammals–and Hunar was apparently no exception, with shoulders so much wider than the trim waist his uniform hid beneath its baggy shape. He pushed his tendrils back, which caught the light in a golden green shimmer that perfectly complimented his bronze eyes and tapped the spiky thing in his hands with his thumbs.
“I started printing your twinkle lights. Two thousand to start but tell me if you need more than that.”
“Sure,” I set my bag on one of the break chairs and gave him a smile. “You look really nice today.” I took a deep breath. “And it smellsamazingin here! Like…”Sniff, sniff.“Cardamom. And maybe beer. Toasted barley? Something earthy like that.”
He cleared his throat and brought the spiky thing to the table, setting it down in front of me. “It’ssachemoil. I bought some to try. If you… If you like it, you should compliment it in front of Zufi,” he added with a grimace.
Ohh…
Before I could say anything, he sat down next to me and dragged the spiky thing back into his hands. “Not gonna lie, you’re spontaneous and it’s gotten us into deep shit, Tinsley. But I’m willing to play the part,” he admitted quietly. “Looking like we’re feeling things out is more serious than me asking Imani to set me up on a couple of blind dates, so–” He motioned down to himself. “This is the best I can do to make myself look like we’re…”
“Starting to coil?” I filled in.
Hunar groaned, pressing his forehead into his knuckles. “This is so fucking awkward.”
I swallowed, looking at my bag. Was this the moment? I fussed with the latch, holding it on my lap, and nodded to Bajora’s food bay instead. Hunar didn’t need me to make things more awkward. He needed some friendly normalcy.
“Hey.” I nudged his bare arm with mine. “Let’s just eat lunch like normal people. I’m feeling a panini with cheddar, tomatoes, and turkey. And a root beer!”
“A what?”
“Don’t worry, I got it.” I hopped to my feet and flicked the food bay on. It hummed, warming up its printer heads as I typed in one of my favorite quick lunches. It bothered me less than other options because it was the kind of food you could get at a lunch joint for cheap rather than slave away at home for. “What do you want?”
“Gheelewith black roe and twoamilpockets.”
I typed it all in and sat down on Bajora’s table, waiting for the printer to spit out whatever it finished first. Hunar disinfected his hands with a spritz of a glowing blue gel, then pulled my jar of cider and two bidents out of a canister on the windowsill.
“How are your kids doing?”
The first pocket of steamy bread and fish dropped onto a plate.
“They started school this morning.”
“Were they excited?”
Hunar snorted, a grin quirking one side of his mouth.“Iwas excited. I wasn’t prepared for all this father stuff. It’s great, and I love them,” he assured me. “But it’s exhausting. I feel like a fish outta water these days unless I’m working.”
Another pocket fell to the plate, and I shuffled it out of the way to make room for a bowl. “I’m like that too, a fish out of water.” Hunar took the plate and picked up the glorified turnover with his upper hand.
“You seem well-adjusted to me.”
“I was a pastry chef back home.” When he blinked, I pointed at the food bay. “That. I wasthat.I made food by hand every day. It took hours. My hands hurt and my shoulders hurt and my feet hurt… It was sweaty, hard work and I loved it. I loved seeing someone’s face when they walked intoThe Three Sistersand saw how special it was. When they bit into a pastry I’d made before dawn and their stresses just melted away. There wasn’t a single day I didn’t feel like I was enriching people’s lives with my baking, you know?”
Hunar chewed slowly, pulling his first pocket apart piece by piece, leaning one hip against the workbench. He pushed thegheeleout of the way and held out a bowl and plate with his lower hands. “Bowl or plate for yourpuhnini?”
