Joston
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
I’m zooming around Engra’s capital city with Niya Redmor, a friend of Chlo Nightbird’s—an absolutely irresistible friend of Chlo Nightbird’s—and Niya’s son, who’s obviously Chengdry. So it’s actually impossible that he’s Niya’s son, I think, since her Chengdry connection is distant, but his is immediate.
“Here,” says Niya as I nearly miss stopping at the house she’s pointing at. It’s small, but cute. Wild-grown yard. We’ve passed several yards like this, so it must be the style here. Not like on Choryn, where a yard is a place to keep everything in neat, ordered rows. This is much prettier yet a bit jarring to the Chorynean eye.
In between wondering about the true origin of Niya Redmor’s “son” and what really happened to her mate, if she ever had one, which I doubt, I wonder how the two of us are going to manage what is undoubtedly on her must-need list right at the top, where it is on mine.
I’m hoping her bedroom is at the opposite side of the house from Aeryen’s. Far, far away from it. Far away.
I don’t have to hope that she intends for me to stay here tonight, because I have no way of getting anywhere, since we took her rollcar, or s-car, I think the kid called it, out here. Unless she intends to just kick me out and let me fend for myself.
Well, I’ve done worse. But this is too intriguing to give up on just because of a few lies and an overenthusiastic kid. An overenthusiastic Chengdry kid. He must have a helluva time in school.
“Aeryen, go wash up,” Niya says.
“No!” he says.
I love this kid more every second.
“Want to play a game?” I say to him.
“He has to wash up,” Niya says.
“Afterward,” I say, and I grab Aeryen’s hand, he grabs mine, and we race out to the backyard, where he’s got a collection of balls and things to hit them with, so we start in right away. I throw and he hits for a while, then we trade off. He’s damned good at this. Got the dexterity of someone much older. Another big hint at his Chengdry connection.
After Aeryen and I exhaust each other, we stumble back into the house, make a big show of washing up, and present ourselves for dinner.
“Tell me about the landing again,” Aeryen says as we dig in.
Niya is a not-bad cook and I am hungry, but I’m having an increasingly thorny time concentrating on any sensual pleasure that doesn’t involve my naked body, Niya Redmor’s naked body, and some mutual ecstasy. I mean, it’s been months.
I tell Aeryen about the landing again. Maybe for the fiftieth time since we picked him up at school.
“Will you take me for a ride?” he says as we finish up dinner.
I should probably ask Niya if this is okay, but what the fuck. “Of course,” I say. “Tomorrow after school all right with you?”
Niya glares are me like she’d rather kill me than strip off all her clothing, a rather boring flight controller uniform incidentally, and embellish the activities we were engaged in earlier. Before all the lies and the advent of the kid.
“Yes!” Aeryen jumps up, something he does quite a bit of, hugs me, hugs Niya, and runs to his room, perhaps to comm his pals and tell them of the marvelous coup he’s pulled off.
“You can’t take him,” Niya says after we hear his door shut. A very definitive shutting, too.
“Come on,” I say. “It’s fine. When’ll he ever get the chance to do something like this again?”
“I don’t trust you,” she says as she starts clearing off the table.
“Really?” I say, picking up some dishes and following her into the kitchen, which looks as little like a kitchen on Choryn as it possibly could. “You don’t trust me?”
“No,” she says. I detect her scent. I think I picked it up the moment I walked into the control room earlier today, which seems like it happened about a year ago. That’s what pulled me toward her.
“Your eyes are violet when you’re angry,” I say.
“Really?” she says, mimicking me. She puts the dirty dishes in some contraption, just throws them in there and then kicks a switch.
“They’re gray when you’re kissing me,” I say, hoping she’ll take the hint, but her eyes stay that very dark violet.
“You absolutely cannot take Aeryen in that raft. You are completely untrustworthy. I think you’ve proven that today.”
She’s leaning against the dishwashing device, which makes no noise or movement. These would be very popular on Choryn but perhaps too expensive to ship. I’ll have to talk with Nik about it.
“I’m completely untrustworthy?” I say, laughing. “I’m not the one who invented a nonexistent mate and pretends to be the mother of a Chengdry child.”
“There’s not a nonexistent mate,” she says, doing her damnedest not to raise her voice.
What if Aeryen hears her, leaves his room, and tells me the truth?
“Because there’s no mate,” I say.
We say nothing for a bit. I mentally try on different methods of transporting these dishwashing things around the galaxies—or at least to Choryn, where they’d be a stunning success—as a ploy to keep my libido in check. And exporting these devices isn’t a bad idea. I could use the credits.
“What is Chengdry?” Niya says.
Finally. And she obviously has no idea what Chengdry is.
“He has those hairs on his wrists, doesn’t he?” I say.
“He doesn’t,” she says. “And you haven’t answered my question.”
“No amount of shaving will keep them in check,” I say. “You need a chemical solution for that.”
A Chengdry pal at flight school had to use it. Regulations. Stupid regulations, as all regulations are.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” she says. So I answer it.
“The Chengdry are the indigenous population of Choryn,” I say. “The ones the Choryneans destroyed in order to take over.”
“Oh,” she says.
“The ones who left Choryn to settle Engra,” I say. “Millennia ago.”
“Oh,” she says again.
“You never heard of this, did you?”
“Of course I did,” she says. “I just forgot.”
“The way you forgot the year your mate died,” I say.
“I didn’t forget,” she says.
That’s when I get this idea and just blurt it out, like the fucking oaf I can be at times. “He’s got a vestigial tail, doesn’t he?”
Niya
When did I start trembling?
When Joston first kissed me in the control room?
When he came into my s-car and acted like he belonged there?
When he took Aeryen into the backyard and played with him the way I always wished someone would play with him? Someone who wasn’t me?
When he called me out on my lies?
But how could he possibly know about Aeryen’s vestigial tail?
“No,” I say. “Of course not. Why would you even think that?”
“It’s all right, Niya,” he says. “It’s very common among Chengdry. Admired. Treasured.”
“He doesn’t,” I say.
“But I’m guessing it’s not admired or treasured here on Engra. Because you don’t even know about your own Chengdry heritage.”
“He doesn’t,” I say again. “He’s not Chengdry, whatever that is.”
“Don’t ever bring him to Choryn,” Joston says. “Everyone there would know instantly.”
“He’s not. He doesn’t. He isn’t. It’s not true.”
“Niya,” Joston says. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying,” I say.
I’m actually sobbing. Crying would be quieter and less awful than this. And in front of someone I don’t even know. Not really.
“It’s all right,” Joston says.
He puts his arms around me. Not like he did in the control room, but gently, like a brother, not a sweetheart. I bury my head against his chest and sob harder. I can’t seem to stop.
“It’s all right, Niya,” he says. “Does anyone else know?”
I nod, but I can’t talk.
“Chlo?”
I nod again.
“Good,” he says. “You can’t do this by yourself.”
I do it by myself every day, I think, but I can’t talk. I haven’t cried this hard since I was Aeryen’s age.
Then Aeryen shows up in the kitchen. Terrible timing.
“Mom!” Aeryen says. “What’s wrong? What did you do?” he says to Joston, pinning the blame where it belongs. This brash pilot has been the catalyst for every runaway emotion I’ve experienced since he landed this afternoon.
“Your mom’s just upset,” Joston says. “She hasn’t seen her friend Chlo in a long time and she’s a bit emotional about it.”
“You’re going to see Chlo?” Aeryen says to me. I’ve extracted myself from Joston’s grasp, even though I would rather have stayed there for another month, maybe more.
“Yes, Aeryen,” I say. I swipe at my eyes.
“Can I come too?” he says.
“Of course,” Joston says before I have a chance to say the exact same thing. “We’ll take the raft. It’ll be fun.”
Then Aeryen hugs Joston harder than he’s ever hugged me.
“Thank you!” he says. “This is the best day ever on Engra!”
He starts back toward his room.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me good night?” I say. “Like we do every night?”
Aeryen gives Joston a look, then shakes his head. “Let Joston do it,” he says, and he and Joston both smile the sort of conspiratorial smile that I imagine fathers and sons must share with each other.
“Yes, sir,” Joston says to Aeryen, who’s already halfway down the hall.
“I should let you get back,” I say.
“How would that work?” he says. “I came out here with you.”
“You did,” I say.
Did I plan it this way?
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he says.
That’s what his words say, but his body says something altogether different.
It’s saying the same thing my body is saying.
I need you. Tonight. Now.