“What if I’m moving too fast?” The words come out rushed. “What if I’m only seeing what I want to see? I barely know him. We’ve spent what, a few hours together? And I’m already—” I gesture vaguely. “I’m already feeling things. Making decisions. What if?—”
“What if you’re being stupid?” Zoe finishes bluntly.
“Zoe!” Elana smacks her arm.
“What? I’m being helpful!”
“You’re being tactless.”
“Same thing.”
I laugh despite myself, but the knot in my stomach doesn’t loosen. “What if there’s something he’s not telling me?”
Like he’s planning on abducting me. Like he doesn’t care about me as a person, just as a means to an end.
The kitchen goes quiet except for the bubbling of Laura’s forgotten pot on the stove.
“Okay, look.” Laura turns off the burner and comes to sit across from me. “I get it. I do. After my ex, I was terrified of missing red flags. Of thinking I knew someone when I didn’t. Of letting someone in who’d just...” She trails off, fingers twisting together.
“Hurt you,” I finish softly.
“Yeah.” Laura meets my eyes. “But here’s what I learned. There’s a difference between someone who respects your boundaries and someone who manipulates them. Does Khatak push you? Or does he let you lead?”
I think about the apple bobbing. About how he’d just stood there, dripping wet, looking at me like I’d hung the moon. How I’d been the one to close the distance. Until the moment he kissed me back, I wasn’t even sure he liked me. He’s one of the first aliens I’ve met who haven’t outright hit on me constantly.
“I kissed him,” I say quietly. “It was almost like he was scared to kiss me back.”
“And does he hide what he’s feeling?” Charlotte asks.
“He shows me everything.” The words come out with more certainty than I expect. “That’s what I was saying before. At the apple bobbing, he was making these faces. Like, the most obvious frustrated, embarrassed, hopeful faces. And when he carved his pumpkin earlier, everyone laughed at it because it was happy instead of scary, and you could see him—“ I press a hand to my chest. “You could see him breaking. Right there. No masks. Just hurt. There’s no?—“
“No games.” Elana finishes quietly.
“No games,” I echo.
Charlotte pushes her glasses up, eyes sharp with interest. “So he wears his heart on his sleeve.”
“Completely.”
“Then let me ask you something.” Charlotte leans back, crossing her arms. “In every mystery novel I’ve read—and I’ve read a lot—manipulators hide their intentions. They’re careful. Calculated. They show you what they want you to see.” She pauses. “Does that sound like Khatak?”
I open my mouth. Close it.
“Because from what you’re describing,” Charlotte continues, “he’s doing the opposite. He’s showing you everything, including the embarrassing parts. Including his failures. He’s being utterly honest with you.”
“He knocked over an entire bucket of someone else’s apples with his tail,” I say faintly, a hand over my mouth to hide my little grin at the memory. “And looked so mortified about it.”
“Exactly.” Charlotte nods like she’s just solved a case. “That’s not manipulation. That’s just... him. An honest guy that’s super clumsy. It seems that he doesn’t hide anything. When he’s embarrassed, you know it. When he’s happy, you know it. That’s honesty. Like, painfully honest.”
“Right. Yes. Exactly.” I pick up my coffee mug again, cradling it between my palms.
“If he hurts you, I’ll feed him to Tumeric,” Elana says suddenly, her voice taking on that protective edge she gets whenever an alien guy bothers any of us girls. She’s always quick to violence… at least threatening it. She walks around with a bunch of guns and weapons strapped to her at all times, but I haven’t ever actually seen her use any of them. To be honest, she probably doesn’t need to with her mate hovering behind her most of the time; no one in their right mind messes with him.
“Eww.” Zoe wrinkles her nose. She picks up the puffball of fur and gives it a tight squeeze, so much so that I can practically imagine its eyes bulging out of its head. “That would give Tumeric a stomach ache. He’s got a sensitive system. You do not want to be helping me clean his litter box out after.”
“Don’t you make Taruk do that?” Elana retorts.
“What’s your point?”
