Page 80 of Culture and Curiosities
It only took a few seconds for what I said to really hit our new agent friend and he groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face. “For fuck’s sake.”
I managed not to laugh or even smile, so I was an amazing ambassador for my species but it was exhausting. “Yeah, I agree. I can only suggest you try to glare less and if anyone asks you about who you’re dating it might be helpful to at least lie about that and make someone up?”
It’d been the only option we’d come up with, but even Kenzie wasn’t sure it would work. Our agent was remarkably honest and yep…he was already shaking his head. “That’s not appropriate and it won’t be helpful in the long run.”
Because he couldn’t lie?
Did he think we could read him and could tell if he was lying?
Was it about him representing the government?
“Then my only suggestion is to look less…”
“Daddy, help.”
I was going to offend the cranky man again and I was fully clothed and being incredibly boring.
“You need to look less like a human Dominant.” Daddy finally took the awkward conversation out of my hands.
Thank the ancestors.
“Their society has been isolated long enough because of their differences that they don’t have the same human hesitation about diverse relationships.” Daddy shrugged when Agent Murphy sighed in defeat. “From what I’ve seen, they’re even more curious than the typical human and have less self-control.”
“Please tell me your people aren’t the same way.” Agent Murphy had been quick to figure out that we weren’t going to be the same, which also made everyone stupidly curious. “An entire planet of them is going to cause chaos and I’m tired of walking in on inappropriate things.”
“No.” Daddy actually smiled at the agent’s relief. “Unfortunately we are an entire society of what you would see as emotionally closed-off, repressed individuals. It creates other problems.”
Whatever he saw in Daddy actually made the agent smile and shake his head. “You guys just like keeping me on my toes.”
I wasn’t sure the smile would last, or if we wanted it to based on the number of people who sighed around us, but he’d proven he wasn’t stuck in grumpy mode.
It was just his happy place.
“At least through the portal there will be a lot less likelihood of someone asking you overly personal questions.” I was betting Dom but I hadn’t figured out what kind yet. “Most of the nosy ones are staying behind.”
Because no one trusted them to be the representatives from our side of the portal.
So we were impulsive but not terminally stupid.
And I was smart enough not to promise to keep my clothes on while we were camping on another planet.
“Thank you for the…the cultural information. I’ll do my best to keep that in mind.” His version of that seemed to be trying to tone down his default dickhead mode into something more neutral. “I want to make sure this trip goes well so that we can keep the lines of communication open.”
We were so close to having a normal conversation with Agent Cranky Pants, as Merritt was calling him, that I knew something was going to happen.
Yep.
As the extra people left and we were down to just the people who were supposed to be there, the crazy became easier to hear.
“I really don’t understand why we can’t just bring back a couple of small ones. We can just say it’s one of those genetic experiments.” Our resident Florida man just couldn’t help himself and I could see Agent Murphy getting more frustrated by the second. “I’m pretty sure there were documentaries made about it.”
Wait.
Was he taking about a real documentary or theJurassic Parkmovies?
“I really think we need to bring them toys. They don’t have teddy bears or anything like that. They haven’t even turned their dinosaurs into Barney.” Kenzie accidentally made Agent Murphy’s eye twitch without meaning to that time.
The last time it’d been very deliberate.
