Page 32 of Alien's Luck
No. He wouldn’t. They had a bargain.
Yeah, but he was putting considerably more time, effort, and cash into the deal. Maybe he decided she wasn’t worth the hassle. Doubt was a vicious thing.
Ari returned as a delivery of her and Poppy’s stuff arrived. All of it, the expensive human-sized shoes, the clothes, cosmetics, toiletries, her toothbrush, and the dust bunnies from under the bed filled two trunks. It wasn’t much to show for a life, but she and Poppy had been living out of rented rooms for two years, so it wasn’t like they had a house to furnish.
“This is amazing,” Carla said as she inspected the contents of the trunk, scattering items across the hotel room’s floor.
“Your landlord would not hold your rooms even after I offered to pay for the month. It seemed prudent to retrieve your possessions,” Ari explained. “I hired a service to pack and ship your possessions.”
“Wow, that’s thoughtful and generous.” And pricey.
“It is nothing.”
Carla continued to empty out the trunk, separating her items from Poppy’s. It wasn’t nothing. She didn’t really know what it was, but it was more than nothing.
The contents of the trunk were more than just her possessions. It represented all her material wealth. Literally. She shook out a jacket and felt along the seams. The credits she’d sewn into the lining were still there. The same went for the credit chips hidden in the hem of a skirt. Excellent. She picked at the lining in the jacket and removed a credit chip.
Ari frowned the entire time.
“Before you get all judgy, I don’t have the ID to open an off-world bank account,” she said, slipping the credit chip into a pocket. Regulated banking just didn’t exist on the planet. Hiding money in her clothes was barely a step up from stuffing money into a mattress, but it was the best option she had.
“I made no remarks.”
“But your face did that thing. You know, the judgy thing.” She wiggled her fingers in his direction.
Ari’s frown intensified.
“That’s the thing. You know, I’m surprised the landlord didn’t sell our stuff the first night we were gone,” she said. It was that kind of place but safe enough. Carla never worried about the landlord selling copies of her room key or someone busting down the door. Anything valuable, however, that wasn’t nailed down was stolen in a heartbeat.
With a delighted gasp, Carla grabbed the faded purple-and-cream-colored quilt from the bottom of the trunk and immediately wrapped it around her shoulders.
“That is an atrocity,” Ari said. “I will provide you with a proper blanket.”
Carla pulled the fabric tighter around her. “My grandmother made this. It’s vintage.”
“It has holes.”
“That’s character.” Carla poked a finger at a burned spot in the fabric. The quilt had been in rough shape when the aliens stole her—quilt and all—from her car. The lumpy batting was just plain gone in spots and the frayed binding was in desperate need of being replaced. The holes happened when her pod crashed into Poppy’s ship. Despite all this, she had a soft spot for the old quilt. “It’s the only thing I have from Earth. I thought I lost it. Thank you.”
“Yes, well—” He looked away, his wings doing that shivery-fluttery thing. He cleared his throat before repeating, “It is nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” When you had so little, every piece, no matter how battered and humble, mattered. She doubted Ari understood that and seriously suspected that he never had to count pennies waiting for a paycheck to hit his bank account. “How can I repay you?”
“Do not trouble yourself. It is what a friend does,” he said.
“How can we be friends? I shot you,” she said.
“A misunderstanding,” he said in a breezy tone.
“I kissed you.”
“Yes, and I sincerely hope that was not a misunderstanding,” he said in the same breezy tone as if this was a joke.
Somehow, that made it all worse.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you without permission—it wasn’t cool, and I hope you can forgive me,” she blurted out, the words running together. She sucked in a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry.”
Ari crouched down in front of her, muscles and wings moving fluidly like this was his preferred pose. He seemed very alien just then, like a gargoyle perched on a building ledge, silently watching from above. Except this gargoyle stared directly into her eyes with some serious, prolonged eye contact.
