Page 27 of Lorran
“Fine, then you have to answer a question.” She knew nothing about him other than what he shared about his family. She wanted to ask something as uncomfortable as why her only long-term relationship failed. “What nicknames do your brothers call you?”
“I must answer truthfully?”
“The game is called Truth or Dare, not Lies and Chickening Out of Dares.”
Now shereallywanted to know what names his brothers teased him with. Her own family was a big, chaotic mess, but a happy mess. Still, Wyn got into some heated shouting matches with her brothers. They pulled no punches and pulled out some vile names for each other.
He huffed, tossing his horns back. “I do not know why you bring poultry into this, but you may sit in the navigator’s chair. Do not touch anything.”
This pleased her beyond measure.
“Oh, this chair. It’s so comfy. Is this leather?” She ran a hand over the clearly vinyl covering, which had an industrial feel, as if it were designed to be hosed down to rinse away gore. She wiggled, trying to get comfortable. The chair was remarkably unfriendly.
Lorran watched her with a stern expression on his face, like he wanted to eat her or scold her. That expression felt real and so much better than when he was trying to be charming.
She hovered her hand over the control panel. “So many buttons. What happens if I push…this one?”
“Do. Not.”
Wyn pulled back and sighed dramatically. “So serious. I’m sure it has a biometric lock.”
“Correct, but the console will smudge. Now it is your turn for the truth or dare,” he said.
“Dare,” she said, waiting to avoid more questions about Oscar. She did not want to be that person who went on and on about their ex. She hadn’t even thought much about him since he left, just the situation he left her in.
“Show me what you drew in your notebook,” Lorran said.
Wyn instinctively pulled the sketchbook to her chest. “I’m not great at sketching.”
“Then you may tell me who that person you last licked was.”
“What? I don’t randomly go around licking people.”
He ran a hand through his hair again and hit her with that dazzling smile. “How am I to know? You are a random female I found as a stowaway. Perhaps you are a serial licker. That sounds like an unhygienic habit.”
“I don’t,” she sputtered, then shoved the sketchbook at him. “Fine. Here. Don’t laugh. I concentrated on painting, not drawing, and yes, a brush is different from a pencil.”
He flipped through the pages, taking his time as if he considered the merit of each scribble.
“They’re mostly doodles,” she said. She drew random shapes when she needed to think, mostly swirls and repeating angles. Stick figures also crowded the pages. She blocked out poses for her polymer clay figurines.
“I like the expression on this one,” Lorran said, pointing to a stick figure with an oval head and a terrible underbite.
“Yeah, that one turned out cute.” The stick figure morphed into a three-inch-tall orange goblin with an underbite and bulging eyes, giving it a look of perpetual surprise.
“What is this pattern? It is here and here and—” He flipped back several pages and pointed to a spiraling pattern filled with tiny triangles between the loops. “Here again.”
“Nothing. Just a doodle.” She’d been making that pattern for years.
Lorran handed the sketchbook back to her. “Thank you. Would you like to see my tattoos?”
“Um…” Her mouth dried up. Black ink poked out from the cuffs of his long sleeves and at the collar of his shirt. She heard a rumor that the tattoos glowed, and she imagined all that glowing ink covering hard muscles and…
Yes. Obviously, she wanted to see the gorgeous alien without his shirt on. She wasn’t blind or dead.
Lorran wiggled his eyebrows.
And that killed the moment.
