Page 90 of Lorran
“Nope, but I’ll try it. I like spicy, just not melt-your-face spicy. And no faces. I’ll eat meat, but I don’t want it looking back at me,” she said. She had a short list of foods she did not like, which included oysters and…well, just oysters. The texture grossed her out. “Nothing slimy,” she added.
“Deleting that,” he said without glancing up from the screen, but she knew he teased her by his self-satisfied smirk.
“Funny. Do you think I can call my mother before the food gets here?”
“Yes. Certainly. The order is placed. I will clean up while you speak with your mother.”
“I’ll keep it short and audio.” An interstellar call had to be pricy. She didn’t want to think of the data bill.
“Absolutely not. Speak to your mother. Let her see your beautiful face.” He typed in something on his comm unit, and he disappeared into the cleansing room.
The far wall turned black. Large letters announced the line was connecting. A shiver went down her spine when she realized the letters were in another language, yet she understood them. The translator chips were something else.
A link was established, and the screen filled with the familiar images of home. An older version of Wyn walked into the frame. “Hello? Who is this?” Alana leaned forward to the camera, like she could peer across space and time and see for herself. It was the most mom way to answer the phone, and it hurt Wyn’s heart a little.
“Mom?” Wyn stumbled forward, bumping into the coffee table.
“Wyn! Oh, Winnie, look at you.” A smile broke across Alana’s face, one moment radiant and comforting. The smile vanished, replaced by a stern glare. “And what kind of time do you call this, young lady?”
“Mom, I—”
“No word! No, I made it, I’m alive. Out of our minds with worry, your father and I have been.”
“Mom—”
Alana did not give Wyn a moment to apologize or explain. “Bronwyn Shirley Davies, I am disappointed in you.”
Oh no, not the full name.
“I expected you to be busy with your honeymoon—”
Oh no, this was worse. Go back to reciting her name.
“But not a single call for weeks!”
“Two weeks,” Wyn said, like that would help.
“It doesn’t matter!” Alana peered at the screen, inspecting Wyn. “I expect he kept you tied to the bed, and that’s the only reason you couldn’t call your momma. Good for you, baby, but I’ll tan his hide. Well, where is he? Let me take a look at the sex machine who’s kept my baby girl so busy.”
“Oh my God, Mom!” Wyn’s cheeks burned hot. Her mother was mostly right, but Wyn would be damned before she confessed that to hermother. Gross. “Lorran’s in the shower because he’s not rude enough to eavesdrop—” Something clattered in the cleansing room, telling her that he was, in fact, rude enough to eavesdrop. “And we’ve been out of range of network connection. I couldn’t call because the phone didn’t work.”
Alana huffed, but that seemed to mollify her parental wrath. “I’ll allow it. Does he treat you right? Because, so help me, I will go there and give him a piece of my mind if he—”
“Mom! Mom, please,” Wyn said, finally getting a word in. “Lorran is great. Really great. I like him a lot.”
“Oh, Winnie, that’s wonderful,” she said, despite frowning. “You’re not telling me something.”
“What? No. He’s great. Everything’s great.”
“Winnie,” her mother said, invoking the nickname that only she used. “You know better than to lie.”
Wyn heaved a sigh. “It’s just…a lot, you know?”
“Being thrown together with a stranger is a lot,” she agreed.
“And it’s not like I thought.”
“Oh, Winnie. We talked about unrealistic expectations. When you’ve got pie-in-the-sky dreams, no one can live up to them.”
