by H. E. Trent
“I miss people terribly, too,” Sera said. “I suppose now I look for similar personalities to fill in the gaps they left in my heart.” She reached into the basket at the bedside and from within, pulled out a bottle. She and Trigrian had squeezed the juice from a fruit that had a tendency to overpower the palate if consumed at room temperature. The drink was much more enjoyable chilled, and she wanted to see what he thought of it. She already knew Marco liked it, and she’d set aside an entire jug for him.
“Aw, jeez, thanks!” Jasper said, saluting her with the bottle.
His smile was broad and bright as the dry season moon. A genuine smile. Warm and beckoning, and that stirred something deep in her. Something like concern, and longing. She put her hand over her stuttering heart and rubbed, willing the unsettling nervousness to abate.
“I keep hearing about this juice,” he said. “I was thinking this stuff was some kind of urban legend. No one ever seems to have any when I ask.”
“It goes quickly,” she admitted. “I’ll try to save some for you next time.”
“Hey, don’t get into trouble at my expense.”
“It’s good trouble.” She had no idea what that meant, but he was eating again, and his focus was on something that wasn’t her.
That meant she only had Marco’s querying gaze to contend with.
She smoothed her fingertip across his eyebrow and nudged his hair behind his ear.
One is enough. Isn’t it?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“I don’t understand the logic. Why would anyone want to watch other people win money?” Gritting her teeth against the pain, Sera rotated her left wrist and stared at the rivets on the floor in Jasper’s room. Her rear end was numb from an hour’s lack of movement, but she was too invested in the conversation to give up her spot. Besides, according to Ara, Elken had collapsed into a deep sleep after consuming a large wedge of Headron’s giveen cake, and had already entered the rapid eye movement stage of sleep. She might be down for a few hours yet.
“Same reason we watch spectator sports,” Jasper said. There was a sleepy burr to his voice, but he’d insisted that he wasn’t tired and that Dorro’s painkiller simply made his tongue a bit heavy. “Living vicariously through someone who’s doing something exciting.”
“We don’t, or didn’t have, rather, spectator sports here. Competition has never been a large part of our culture.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. There’s gotta be something that’ll catch on here, though. Basketball, maybe? Especially since you guys tend to be taller than your Terran counterparts.”
“I don’t know anything about the game.” She still needed resolution as to why people watched “game shows.” She didn’t see the thrill of someone else winning money she would never get to help spend.
Marco, seated on the bed with his back against the wall at the foot end, grunted. “You know what, man? We could put up a couple of hoops here and make a court. I wouldn’t mind playing. Gotta get exercise somehow.”
“Could introduce the game in Little Gitano, too,” Jasper drawled. “There’s plenty of open space for a park. I’m surprised there isn’t one.”
“There used to be a park,” Sera said.
“Hmm?”
“Yes. When I was a child, before my siblings and I had to move into Buinet, there was a greenway in town that divided the north side of the road from the south. We would sometimes picnic there on market days. There was also a larger space on the west end that was sometimes used for performances. I imagine those spaces went into disrepair during the years when the Jekhans were hiding.”
Marco passed his fingers through Sera’s hair, his fingertips massaging the tightness from her scalp. His touch was still so tentative, but the gentleness was pleasant and appreciated.
Touch me more.
She lifted his hand from her head and laced her fingers between his.
“That’d be a good project for someone. You should suggest the town add park reconstruction to the improvements list at the next town meeting.”
She laughed, appalled. “Me?”
“Yes, you. You don’t have to do the work. Folks like Fastida would probably take that on, and Cet. They like keeping themselves busy. Give them a blueprint, and they’re off and running.”
“That’s true. Those two women are so happy to be someplace where they could freely be themselves that they bend over backwards to integrate.” They may have been Buinet natives, but they wanted to be thought of as locals. No one seemed to mind. She kissed the back of Marco’s wrist. Touching for the pure pleasure of affection was a new motive for her, too, but she liked dispensing the touch almost as much as she was coming to like receiving it.
He stroked along the edge of her jaw in return, and her breath fell out in a sated stream.
She cared less and less about her numb rear end.
“Any chirps from Luke?” Jasper asked.
“Nah.” Marco straightened up, drawing his hand away.
Sera pouted.
“Connection was super spotty from the jungle. I don’t expect to hear from him anytime soon. Court or Erin might have heard from Owen, though, if their ma has been nagging them for updates.”
Sera turned around to meet his gaze. “Ask them, please. I’m curious about how Ais is managing with Michael.”
“Okay. Hold on.” He turned his wrist COM around so the face was against the top of his arm and tapped the voice activation sequence. “Connect to Courtney.”
The computer chirped.
“Yes, darling?” Courtney responded.
“Hello, hellcat. Have you heard from Ais or Owen?”
“Why? Worried?”
“Nah, I’m sure they can take care of themselves. Sera wanted an update.”
“Gotcha. I chatted briefly with them—no, ma’am, you take your skinny little butt right back to bed. Do your fathers know you’re up?”
Sera realized after a moment that Courtney hadn’t directed that scold to her, but likely to Kerry.
Kerry murmured something indistinguishable.
Courtney sighed. “Sorry. Anyway. Like I was saying, I chatted with them briefly about an hour ago while Trigrian was detangling my hair. They were back at their ships.”
“Back at them?” Sera asked.
“Yep. Not empty-handed, either. They made contact with the folks inside the bunker, and the lady who might be Ais’s mother went back to the ships with them to do a test. The folks inside the bunker are holding Alex as collateral.”
Jasper chuckled.
“Is that Jasper? Only Jasper chuckles with an accent.”
“Whatever. I don’t have an accent,” he said.
“You totally have an accent.”
“Do not. Not like yours, anyway, with all your weird vowel shifting.”
“Hey!” she said with an indignant huff. “What do you expect? I’m from Boston.”
“I’m just sayin’ you sound like you are.”
She harrumphed. “Are you guys having a party over there?”
“No, we’re chatting about game shows and spectator sports.”
“As good a thing as any, I guess. I’ll let you know if I get any other updates from them. I suspect they’re probably mindful of the time zone difference, though. They won’t get in touch again until morning here.”
“Is there any cake left?” Marco asked.
“Uh. No? Why?”
“You’re lying. Why are you lying, Court?”
“Love you. Bye.” Courtney disconnected.
“She’s hoarding cake,” Marco muttered.
“I wouldn’t bother pursuing her on the matter,” Sera said. “By the time you get there, she’ll have eaten the evidence.”
“She’s so little,” Jasper said. “I have no idea what she does with all those calories.”
“She’s a force of nature,” Marco said. “Calories mean nothing to her. She laughs in the face of saturated fats and sugar.”
“Lucky her,” Sera said. �
�For the first time in my life, I seem to be carrying a bit of extra weight.”
Neither men said anything for so long that Sera had to turn to see if Jasper hadn’t fallen asleep after all or that Marco hadn’t had an aneurysm or something.
They were both perfectly attentive.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Marco said, averting his gaze. “Just trying to stay out of trouble.”
“What were you going to say that would have caused enough offense to get you into trouble?”
“Anything I would have said would have gotten me in trouble.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“He’s right,” Jasper said. “There’s no good response to that. Not one that doesn’t require fifteen minutes of forethought, anyway.”
“Well, tell me what you really think.”
“I think you are, hands down, one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever encountered,” Marco said.
“But?”
“No buts. I don’t know how to be plainer. I’d try for poetic, but you’d think I’m corny, and that won’t get us anywhere, either.”
She happened to like “corny,” because unfiltered corniness tended to be genuine more often than not.
“I think you’re fine the way you are,” Jasper said. “If you’re happy, nobody else’s opinion matters.”
“Fine?”
He put up a hand. “Wait, before you want to smother me with my pillow. Fine’s not a curse word, sweetheart. In some circumstances, it could even be considered a compliment.”
Sera smoothed her hand down her belly—not so flat as it once was—and onto her thigh. That wasn’t so firm, either. At her age, she really shouldn’t have expected to be perfectly taut, but she’d felt like she’d lost most of her “good years”—her youth—in captivity. She’d never had a chance to show off, if she’d wanted to. She’d never know what kind of personality she might have come into if she’d been allowed to bloom at home and around her friends. She’d never know if she’d be more comfortable in her own skin, disability and all.
“Trust me,” he said. “When I say fine…I mean fine in every possible way.”
“Watch it,” Marco murmured.
“All right,” Jasper said carefully. “No harm done.”
She was missing something, obviously, but didn’t want to ask what he’d meant. Didn’t want to feel stupid. She could ask Courtney or Erin later.
She looked over her shoulder at Jasper. His lids were heavy, but there was a gentle smile on his face. “Don’t fall asleep. You’re going to tell us how you intend to dismantle the wager pool.”
That made his eyes open. “I am?”
“Yes. You’re the perfect candidate, seeing as how you’re already vetted and have paid into the system.”
“That may be the case, but I also have to see a lot of those guys daily. You expect me to abandon all those connections to prove a point?”
“What does one thing have to do with the other?”
“You can’t see where shutting down the system that men who are desperate for companionship use to find mates might create some hard feelings?”
“Desperate?” That was a word she would have never ascribed to Jasper. He was too confident, too self-assured. She wouldn’t have thought he’d have a problem finding a lover, or even something more permanent if that was what he wanted.
“Yep. Desperate. Paring off is one of the strongest human compulsions there is, and I think nowadays, folks aren’t as good at connecting as they could be. My abuela didn’t have problems, you know? She could walk into any bar and find a single and willing cowhand if she really wanted one, and she had plenty of opportunities for trial and error. That’s how she found my granddad. Trial and error. We don’t have those same opportunities here. We don’t have the luxury of choice. Sometimes, we set our gazes on people and our hearts get stuck on them. We open ourselves up to the possibilities only to realize later, the match is a hopeless cause. We should take who we get, right? Settling for someone who’s nice and companionable will make us happy enough in the long run, even if they’re not perfect.”
She shook her head without willing it to move, the instinct was so strong. She didn’t believe, not one little bit, that people should have to settle. Not anymore. They may have had limited choices immediately accessible to them, but they had freedom. They could make compromises sometimes, if they needed to. Sera didn’t need to, but in that moment, she wanted to. Why should Jasper have to settle?
She pulled her legs beneath her and pushed up onto her knees as she turned toward the bed. “Is that really enough?” She looked from Marco to Jasper. “Is companionable really enough?”
“I think companionship is a good start,” Marco said. “Why are you asking this? I thought—”
Sera took one of his large hands in her and gave his fingers a squeeze. “I haven’t changed my mind about you. To borrow one of your Earth sayings, I’m not letting you off the hook. I’m simply wondering if there’s room for accommodation.”
“What do you mean?”
She let him help her to her feet, and then sat on the edge of the bed with Marco behind her to her right and Jasper to her left. “Jekhan women are accustomed to having two men.”
“Yeah, when those men are Jekhan.”
“Yes, and those men are usually in a relationship of their own,” Jasper said. “If that’s what you’re getting at, I’m afraid we’ve got our wires crossed.”
“No one here is insinuating that. While I’m not personally aware of any Jekhan trios that weren’t complete triangles, I’m certain some have had to exist. I don’t believe that the men in every single trio are truly so compatible.”
“Sera?” Marco’s voice was a low murmur of discontentment. “What are you suggesting?”
“Yes,” Jasper returned, not nearly as discontented. “What are you saying?”
This could go badly. She bolstered her courage by curling her left fingers again and again. She didn’t want to risk losing Marco. He made her sure that the potential for love could actually be stronger than fear. She still had plenty of fear, but she wasn’t tamping down her “good stuff” anymore. She was going to love and be loved back, and if there was more than one man capable of filling her well and of treating her daughter like she mattered, she’d let him try.
“I’m…sympathetic about the shortage of women here.” She rubbed her nail marks on her palm. “You’re not Jekhan, but you’ve chosen to live here and help here, so why can’t you live as Jekhans do? I…don’t believe adopting some of our customs would be so unreasonable.”
Marco leaned forward, his movement forcing her attention to him.
He twined his fingers between his spread legs and furrowed his brow. “Are you suggesting that you’d take more than one partner?”
Am I suggesting that you’re not enough? No, my love.
He was more than enough, but she kept that to herself. That was a conversation for her and him, not for in front of Jasper. There was no room for emotion in negotiation.
“I’m only saying that I’m open to possibilities,” she said.
“Are you suggesting that I’m a possibility?” Jasper asked.
“I…suppose I am.”
The statement immediately lifted Jasper’s mood, but Marco didn’t look especially thrilled. In fact, he looked stricken—as though he’d built a house of cards and she’d walked past and demolished his artistry with a sweep of her foot.
“Gods, I’m botching this.” She rubbed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath. She put her hand to Marco’s cheek and skimmed her thumb along his jaw. “I must seem terribly flighty to you. I’m not usually one to turn an about-face, but I think this case may merit one, don’t you think?”
He didn’t respond, except to swivel his gaze over to Jasper, who looked back with wariness.
“I didn’t want to share,” Jasper said, “and I imagine you didn’t think you’d have to, either.”
“You’re right. I mean, for all I know, compromising like that could be the best idea ever, but I don’t know what to expect. I was having a hard enough time with just me.”
“Then maybe two will be easier for you. Think about it.”
Obviously uncertain, Marco dragged his tongue across his lips and looked to Sera.
She tried to put all her hope and optimism in her stare but worried they’d need more convincing. She worried he wouldn’t want to try to see the benefits of the arrangement, and they were numerous. More love was always better than less, even if the affection wasn’t flowing in all directions in the triangle. They didn’t have to like each other. They needed to want her, and to be excellent to Elken.
Please say yes to this.
She wanted her comfort. She wanted her touches.
“Sera, let me think, okay?” Marco said.
She forced on a smile and nodded. That was better than an outright no. “Yes.” She leaned back and offered her lips to him, and he didn’t hesitate to kiss her. The kiss wasn’t passionate or exploratory. Just a sweet peck, and that suited Sera fine because it wasn’t inhibited. He still wanted her. “Think about it.”
She heaved herself onto her feet and knocked the folds out of her skirt. “I’ll need to be getting back to the house now. I have some chores I need to do before bed, including gathering Elken’s eggs.”
“I’ll walk you.” Marco started to stand, but she waved him off.
“I was born here,” she said. “I’ll be fine for such a short walk. Nothing is going to hurt me. I try to be quite careful.”
He looked uncertain, staring at her with his lips pressed into a tight line and large hands fisted into the covers.
“Truly,” she said. Stay. Bond. Please.
“Ping me as soon as you get into the house,” he said.
“I can do that.” She gathered Jasper’s dirty dishes and set them into the basket.
She didn’t bother looking over her shoulder as she fled. She was too afraid of what she might see, and that she’d be disappointed in Marco’s lukewarm response.
As she hurried up the path, she wasn’t entirely sure what had gotten into her, either. She’d gone from being hostile to men in general, to sweet on one, to potentially accepting of another in such a short period of time, and that wasn’t normal for a Jekhan woman. Her reversal probably wasn’t normal for any woman. Perhaps she needed a reality check, but she already knew what her sisters would tell her.