by Cara Bristol
For me, it offered a second chance. After the embarrassment with Falla, catching a spaceship to Earth gave me a fresh start.
So, here I was. Millions of miles from home on an unbearably hot planet. I’d been hopeful when the IDA informed me testing had pulled a match, and I should meet her at a tavern. I’d entered the bar, heard my name mentioned, and realized the petite female with the two-toned hair and fierce expression was my intended. My horns had begun to twitch and throb. I’d been assured the match chosen by the IDA had been reserved for me, but a contender attempted to take possession.
Not again. I wouldn’t lose again.
For a moment, I’d seen red, and it had taken all of my self-control not to grab the Lorexan, wring him out, and mop the spilled beer with his sorry carcass. Only the realization that if I got warded on this alien planet, the usurper would gain unrestricted opportunity to claim what was mine held me back. I’d recognized immediately Moxie was my Fated mate. Her smile, the way she smelled like blossoms grown on her planet, her delicate stature, instilled in me a desire to protect, to possess. Falla and I had been friends; we’d been comfortable with one another. She’d aroused none of the hot emotions Moxie did.
“What about you?” I asked. “Why did you join the IDA? Earth seems to have plenty of men.”
“Not the right ones.”
“There are wrong ones?” I asked. “What makes a man wrong?” Maybe I could learn something. Dakonians bonded for life. If you were lucky enough to get a female, you did everything you could to please her. I’d failed at pleasing Falla. Would I fail at pleasing Moxie? I hoped not.
“Being a cheater and control freak to name a couple of traits, but this conversation is TMI for a first date, I think.”
“TMI?”
“Too much information.”
How could it be too much information? Already I’d gotten some very useful details. She didn’t like cheaters or control freaks. Since I was neithe then maybe I wasn’t the wrong sort of man.
“It’s never a good idea to talk about one’s ex on a first date,” she said.
“Do you have many exes?”
“You cut to the heart of the matter, don’t you?” She sipped her drink, drawing my gaze to her pink lips. I’d heard Terrans meshed mouths as a gesture of affection or desire. I very much wished to try that with her. Heat curled in my loins, and my horns throbbed. “I have a few.” She eyed me over the rim of her glass.
What did she think of me, I wondered? Did she find me agreeable? I found her appearance very pleasing even though she had no horns and was small in stature.
“Since we’re counting, how about you?” She lobbed my question back at me. “How many exes to do you have?”
I hesitated. “One.” While Falla and I never officially bonded, we’d engaged in relations and had produced a son. I’d thought the tie would bind us, but it hadn’t. She had chosen another.
“Only one?” Her voice rose with her eyebrows.
“Most Dakonians never mate.” I was unusual among my tribe, among the people of my planet. To have loved and lost didn’t make me special, it made me suspect. What was wrong with me that I’d been rejected after such a close association?
Dakon had so few females and, with the blemish against me, no other female would consider me. I’d tossed my chit into the basket to enter the lottery, but that hadn’t panned out, either. I might have feared I’d been cursed by the Fates, except the Intergalactic Dating Agency had accepted my application.
“The situation on your planet must be dire,” she said.
“It is,” I agreed. My people had come close to extinction, and if the men who left to find females never returned home to repopulate our planet, our situation wouldn’t improve.
“So, what kind of work did you do on Dakon?” She plucked a couple of the hard, round brown berries from the basket and popped them into her mouth.
From my assimilation classes, I’d learned Earth placed a high priority on employment for which one received remuneration. Dakon operated on a barter system. A skilled hunter would trade kel for pottery. Or a tanner would trade hides for bows and arrows. “I’m a carver,” I said. Even as a kit, I’d shown artistic ability.
“What do you carve?”
“For myself, I do some figurines, such as kel, phea, harebits, as well as people. For others, I work on bowls, jugs, platters, knife hilts, bows. I carve wood and chisel stone. I got a job here on Earth carving blocks of ice.”
“Oh, you mean ice sculptures.” She munched on a couple more of the berries and then finished her drink.
For the short time I was here, I intended to immerse myself in Earth culture. I couldn’t believe my good fortune in landing such a plum job. Not only did I get to indulge my creativity, I got to work in a very pleasant environment called a freezer room. I wished the temperature of the barracks where I resided was as comfortable.
I popped a couple of the berries into my mouth. They reminded me of macha dough rolled into balls and fried in kel fat. Tasty. I ate a couple more and then took a drink of my ale.
Perhaps when I returned to Dakon, I would carve some ice. We had enough of it. Would my people appreciate the sculptures or think I wasted my time? We focused on survival, practical needs. What did one do with an ice sculpture?
“My understanding is Earth people use ice sculptures at mating ceremonies and other festivals?” I said, unsure. My employer, Love on Ice, gave me images to work from like doves, which I recognized as a fowl similar to our phea, a “heart,” which bore little resemblance to the actual organ in one’s chest—but maybe Terrans had different kinds of hearts—blossoms of all sorts, and couples who, more often than not, were depicted as meshing mouths.
What would it feel like to press my mouth to Moxie’s? Her rosy lips looked soft and smooth, like her skin. Some Earthers were as dark as Dakonians, but she was one of the paler ones. I found her hair fascinating. How could it grow like that? Dark at the roots then lightening to a yellow shade. What did Earthers call that? I scratched one of my swollen, pulsing horns. Blonde. Her hair went from brown to blonde.
“Your hair is beautiful,” I said. “I’ve never seen hair lighten like that.”
“Thank you. It’s, um, called balayage.”
“So, Moxie, what do you do for your job?” The instructor in the “Conversing with Earth Women” class had advised us to ask about their employment.
“I’m a video game coder.”
Was the translator implant working? What she said made no sense. I rubbed the lump behind my left ear.
“You don’t know what that is, do you?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“A video game is an imaginary scenario people play for fun and entertainment.” She twisted her mouth. “You could call it a toy, although gamers would be offended. There are military ones, car chases…” She lifted a shoulder. “I’m verifying the code in an alien invasion one now. People play the games on their phones and computers.”
“On my planet, kits play hunt-the-kel,” I said. “Some kits pretend to be kel and hide, and the others try to find them.”
“Like that. Only here you watch the game on a screen, and you interact with it and change the outcome—here, I’ll show you.” She glanced right and left then grabbed an electronic tablet from her purse, swiped and tapped it a couple of times, and then turned the screen toward me. “This is called T-Rex Island. Castaways have been stranded, and they have to get to the mountaintop to signal the rescue ship, but they have to fight dinosaurs along the way. They get points for each dinosaur they kill.”
“This game is what you do for your job?”
Her voice dropped. “This one is mine; I’m working on it off-hours. But the concept is the same. I can’t show you any games under development with Ellison Game Group because they’re secret.” She closed out the game and shoved the tablet back into her bag. “A coder writes the program that creates the game. My current assignment is to find and fix glitches in code, ens
ure the game works correctly before it’s released to the public.
“My real passion is designing the games themselves, writing code and seeing them come to life. Game design is a hard market to break into, but I happened to know the big boss at Ellison Game Group. I’m working there while I save money to start my own company.” Her eyes lit up, but then her glow dimmed. “It’s taking longer than I thought. The hours are long, so it doesn’t leave much time to moonlight.” She snorted. “Sometimes I think the long hours are an evil plot. If Miles works us to death, we can’t seek employment elsewhere or break away from the company.”
“You broke away for our date,” I said.
“I gnawed through the chain,” she said.
“They had you chained?” Alarm raced through me.
“No—no.” She touched my hand. “Sorry. Figure of speech.”
Only a small touch, but my skin tingled at the point of contact, and heat sizzled through me. My horns were pulsing like mad. They’d never done that before. She removed her hand, and our eyes met. She wet her lips, my gaze slid to her mouth, and my thoughts shifted to mouth-meshing.
“Would you like another drink? Another star flight? An ale?” The server reappeared. My tankard was empty. I’d enjoyed talking with Moxie so much, I had no recollection of finishing my ale.
“I’ll have another star flight,” she said.
“An ale for me.”
“Coming right up.” The server vanished.
“This will have to be my last drink,” Moxie said. “I didn’t drive; I walked, but still…”
The server returned with our order, and I pulled out my special card.
“I’ll pay for mine.” Moxie reached for her bag.
“I’ve got it.” A man took care of his female, and I was eager to participate in as many Earth customs as I could. One entire assimilation class had focused on money and credit. Earth operated differently from Dakon. Terrans didn’t trade for objects they needed, they paid for them with bits of paper or a numbered plastic card. When I’d come to Earth a month ago, an account had been opened for me.
The concept of money had been alien, but I’d been told I was very wealthy due to my planet’s illuvian ore, an energy-rich mineral that could power everything on Earth. “Every single Dakonian is sitting on a gold mine,” I’d overheard somebody say.
“Thank you,” Moxie said, and the server swiped my card through her machine, and then I scribbled my name. I could speak and understand Terran tongues due to the implant, but it didn’t allow me to read the languages.
Moxie took a sip of her fresh drink and then said, “So, best-case scenario, what do you hope to get out of the Intergalactic Dating Agency?”
“A mate,” I said. “A life partner. Then, we’ll go back to Dakon.”
Her eyes widened. “Back to your planet? Why?”
“It’s home, and I have a duty to help save my people by returning with a female and producing kits.” Joho was the light of my life, but I wanted him to have siblings, and Dakon desperately needed females.
“But she’d have to leave her home. And your home is covered with ice and snow.”
“Only for twelve months out of the year,” I answered. “Our year is fifteen months. The Thaw lasts for over three months and is getting longer every year. We would have each other and kits, and my mate would never lack anything. She would have her own cave—or one of the Terran huts if she prefers, although the caves are better—all the kels she could ever desire for eating, clothing, and bedding.”
She looked shocked. “I assumed you were staying here.”
I shook my head. “Earth is a great place to visit, but Dakon is home.” I looked at her. “You would not go with your mate?”
“It wasn’t something I had considered. Earth is my home.”
“So why did you tell the Lorexan I was your mate? Was that a lie?”
“No, more a difference in translation. When you said mate, I took it to mean date.”
“A mate is a lifetime partner,” I said.
“A date is a person you spend time with for an evening,” she said.
Her language failed to clarify matters. “That’s why you joined the dating agency? To see someone for a few hours?” How could I have been so wrong? The feelings I had for her upon first seeing her, the tingling in my horns couldn’t have been meaningless. She was supposed to be mine! But it appeared she’d been toying with me.
“Said like that, I sound shallow. I joined for the possibilities.”
“What are the possibilities in such a limited time?”
“It’s a start!”
“A start to what?” I asked.
“A relationship! With a guy who will love me for me and stand by me—here on Earth! I can’t leave. My mother is here. My friends. My job.”
“My family is on Dakon,” I pointed out.
“I didn’t know the men who came here through the agency could return. I thought it was a one-way trip.”
“When the program first started, it was. Many men refused to consider it because of that. So now the IDA will ferry men back to their home worlds when they go to collect the ones who are leaving.”
Moxie set her glass on the table with a final-sounding clunk. “So, where do we go from here?”
Chapter Three
Moxie
Nowhere.
That’s where Sixx and I would go.
I strode down the street, my purse crisscrossed over my shoulder, pepper spray in my jacket pocket, and my phone clutched in my hand. Normally, my mother, with her string of broken relationships, would be the last person on Earth I would seek dating advice from, but sometimes a girl needed to talk to her mom. The date had gone so well, and then pfft…
I felt deflated, like I’d won a big prize and then lost it on a technicality. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so attracted to a man—right from the start, my body had reacted like it never had before. Sixx could hold a conversation; he was smart. He had a job. He didn’t just talk about himself—he’d asked about me. He checked all the boxes. Except one. Geography.
I pressed speed dial, and my mom picked up right away. “I’m so glad you called!” she squealed like a teenager. “How did it go? Did he like you?”
“Shouldn’t it be more important that I like him?”
“So did you?”
“Yes,” I said glumly. I could picture his wide smile, his sexy chocolate-brown eyes, and those adorable twitching horns. The way he’d parlayed whittling into employment showed initiative and gumption, which I respected, and I’d enjoyed his stories of Dakon, his obvious love of his homeland—until it became apparent he intended to return there.
“You don’t sound happy. What’s wrong?”
“We come from two different planets.”
Mom laughed. “Yeah, well, he’s an alien.”
“We’re light-years apart in what we’re seeking.”
“I thought you wanted a partner.”
“I do.”
“He doesn’t want that?”
“No, he does, too.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“He’s GU—galactically undesirable. He intends to go back to his planet.”
“Again, what’s the problem?”
“Mom, there aren’t a lot of positions open for software developers on Dakon. His planet is primitive, and it’s caught in an ice age. He showed up for our date dressed in animal skins!” He’d rocked those skins but still.
“What’s more important—love or a computer game?”
“It’s not just a computer game! This is my passion. It makes me happy.” I waited on the corner for the red light to change. Next to me, a scruffy guy wearing earbuds swayed to the music in his head.
“Does it?”
“What do you mean by that?” The light changed. Scruffy guy bounded on ahead, and I crossed the street at a more sedate pace.
“Honey, you work sixty to eighty hours a week, leaving you little time for any
thing else. How often have you had to skip your yoga class? Your life is spent hunched over a computer. You’re stressed out; you have trouble sleeping. You’re thirty years old, but if you maintain this pace, you’ll have a heart attack before you hit forty.”
“I’m only doing this until I can start my own company. Another year should do it.”
“And then what? You’ll work longer hours? A man might be the perfect motivation for you to take a break.”
Mom rode a roller coaster of highs and lows, careening from one man to the next, from the euphoria of a new “love” to the depths of despair when the relationship bottomed out. My mother was a fine one to give advice about balance and happiness, but I bit my tongue before I said something I regretted. She wouldn’t appreciate the truth.
“Dating this man would require more than cutting back. I’d have to give up my career. I would like a partner to share my life with here on Earth.”
“What did you think you were going to get when you joined the Intergalactic Dating Agency?”
“I assumed…”
My mother tsked.
Yeah, yeah. When you assumed, you made an Ass out of U and Me. “Lexi and Toni’s Dakonians chose to stay on Earth,” I pointed out.
“Maybe your Dakonian will, too, once he gets to know you better. Give him a chance.”
“He’s not my Dakonian.” I thought I heard shuffling and turned around. I caught a tail-end glimpse of a dark shirt before a man vanished between two buildings. I scowled. That couldn’t be Sixx. I’d made it perfectly clear I would see myself home. I waited to see if the man reappeared, and, when he didn’t, I told myself I wasn’t disappointed, slipped my hand into my pepper spray pocket, and continued on.
“I haven’t heard you say you don’t like him.”
“He’s all right.” I downplayed the attraction. Sure, he was sexy as all get out, but chemistry wasn’t enough to build a relationship on. How much did he like me, anyway? He’d more or less admitted men from his planet would take any woman they could get. So maybe I was just a warm female body.