Love Galaxy (The Intergalactic Dating Show #1)

Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

COMMENTATOR CHLOE:

Introduce yourself to our audience. Tell us your name.

FARMER SORIN:

Sorin.

COMMENTATOR CHLOE:

And…

FARMER SORIN:

…

COMMENTATOR CHLOE:

How old are you? Where’d you grow up? What’s your occupation?

FARMER SORIN:

Thirty-six Common years. On Ril, and then my family moved to this planet when I was five. I am a Nufaral farmer with my two brothers.

COMMENTATOR CHLOE:

Ah, yes, your two brothers are also searching for love. What qualities would your ideal Mate possess?

FARMER SORIN:

B—

COMMENTATOR CHLOE:

And don’t say Briar .

FARMER SORIN:

I— Akh— That is?—

COMMENTATOR CHLOE:

Come on, Sorin. You’ve got to actually say something interesting for this to be an interview. We can’t include five minutes of you staring sullenly at the camera.

FARMER SORIN:

…

DIRECTOR SMITH:

Cut!

Briar

“ S o where do you live?” I ask Sorin. I haven’t seen another house. “How do we get there? How long will it take? Will I have to walk?” Maybe it won’t be so far away, and I’ll be able to sneak back to speak with Harlee and Lydia when Mr. Smith is distracted.

“Ask these questions when I’m filming you packing.” Chloe bundles me down the corridor and back into the walk-in closet. If Sorin tries to follow, Chloe closes the door before he can.

“But the camera won’t answer.” I cross my arms.

She doesn’t answer either. Rather, she tosses a duffle bag at me. It’s green, of course. My new signature color.

“How do I know what to pack if I don’t know where his house is?” I wrench the duffle bag off my face, where it had landed, only to find Chloe holding a GoPro. She grins because I’ve done exactly what she wanted—asked the camera a question. “Fine. Whatever.” I pretend acceptance and start stuffing clothes into the bag. It’s nowhere near large enough to fit everything, and I quickly change my tactic, trying to find the most useful items for an escape.

Considering I don’t yet have a firm escape plan in mind, I’ve no idea what will, in fact, be useful. Probably not the two dozen lacy G-strings they’ve supplied. Nor the bra that doesn’t have any fabric where the cups are supposed to be and that looks more like a torture device with all its straps and buckles—unless, of course, I need to restrain somebody and don’t have any rope…

I hold it up to my chest. It’s the most useless thing I’ve ever seen.

But, well, it’s not like it’ll take up much space… Turning my back on Chloe, I pretend my shoelace has come undone, and when I’m bent over, I shove the bra-cum-torture-device into my bag.

Straightening, I flinch back. “Oh, shit!” She’s standing right in front of me again, the GoPro in her hand about five inches from my nose. I can already imagine the commentary she’s planning to paste over this footage— The Human woman who hasn’t had sex in three years and who doesn’t know what a cupless bra is called is going to attempt to strap herself into one. “Seriously, though. Why are you doing this? What are they giving you?”

“A shit ton of money.” And she rubs her thumb over her index and middle fingers.

“Earth money?”

No answer. Clearly, she thinks it’s too dumb of a question to warrant a response.

“Who’s paying you?”

Silence.

“Mr. Smith?”

More silence.

“Mr. Smith’s boss?”

Even more silence.

I feel like I’m a member of parliament, asking the opposition probing questions and getting nothing but bullshit in response.

“What happened to you that was so bad you decided to betray your own species?” This time I don’t wait for an answer. Closing the straining zipper, I hoist the bag onto my shoulder and hurry into the ship’s corridor, only to trip over Sorin, where he’s leaning against the wall, presumably waiting for me.

“Are you ill?” He sounds concerned.

“Oh, I’m bloody fabulous.”

“Briar—”

Of course, that’s when Chloe steps up behind me, aiming the camera on his face, and whatever Sorin was going to say seems to catch in his throat.

“There is—” He clears his voice, his scales tinged blue. “There is an underground tunnel from the main house to my house.” He takes the duffle bag out of my hold and jerks his head toward the exit. If he’s expecting that I’ll follow him, he’s absolutely right. Even the wind has got to be better company than a vindictive secretary in six-inch heels.

Sorin leads me down the gangplank extending out the spaceship’s butt to the ground outside.

I trudge after him, eternally grateful I didn’t listen to Mr. Smith and take off the bell bottoms. Because the hem of my dress is being blown up around my shoulders, but nothing below my waist is exposed.

I can’t do anything about pushing the hem back down. Unlike some on this planet, I’ve only got two hands, and both are preoccupied with protecting my face from the dust. I can only hope there are no cameras outside, filming me.

Let’s get some facts straight while I make the hike to the house. I don’t hate my body. I never have and I never will. But not hating something and loving something enough to put it on display for all the universe to see are at different ends of a very long spectrum.

Truthfully, I’ve never owned a bikini, and if headshots had been a requirement for applying to LOVE GALAXY, I’d have been hard pressed to find any selfies in my phone’s photo library I’d have wanted to submit, despite the hundreds of political dinners and charity fundraising auctions I’d organized over the last decade, where the name of the game was to be seen by as many constituents as possible.

My old talk therapist told me that’s called internalized fatphobia. But I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t hate myself. Sometimes, when I’m about to get into the shower, I stand naked in front of the mirror, turning left and right, examining myself from different angles. And I’ve never seen anything I haven’t liked.

I’m just not so sure everyone else feels the same way.

Maybe Sorin senses I’m stumbling in my fight against the wind or maybe it’s a coincidence that he glances back. Either way, his eyes widen as he catches sight of my dress flapping up around my neck, and his mouth drops open as if he’s never seen a bra before.

I try imagining what it must be like being one of only three people on an entire planet and fail. All of them wanting families, wanting children, and there being no possibility of a traditional meet cute with an alien lizard girl. LOVE GALAXY must have seemed like a godsend, with Mr. Smith et al promising to introduce them to their potential brides.

Sorin’s still staring. His mouth gaping opening must mean he’ll be accidentally swallowing a lot of dust. The particles are so fine, they’re nothing more than a haze, blurring the empty horizon and turning the sky gray.

Right on cue, he coughs and splutters.

Struggling against the wind, I close the distance between us so I can pat his back. He flinches, and I snatch my hand away.

“What? Did I hurt you?” But I don’t think he can hear me over the wind, even standing side by side. Leaning around him, I look at his back, but it appears like normal—rippled with the muscles a Greek hero would be envious of and covered in green-blue scales.

Blue? Is he embarrassed again?

I straighten, studying his face, but he’s suddenly refusing to meet my eyes, staring at a spot on the horizon somewhere over my shoulder, like he’s pretending not to see me. “Sorin?” I look him up and down, and?—

Wait a second. Is his bulge bigger than the first time I sneaked a look? You know: the bulge down there. At the apex of his thighs.

Does he like my bra? My breasts? My belly?

Butterflies swarm my insides, and I’m hard pressed not to grin like a fool—a fool with a mouth full of dust. Huh. Maybe we’re a little more compatible than I’d originally realized.

Abruptly, Sorin turns on his heel and continues striding toward the house. With his superior height, I’m left way behind, struggling (and failing) to keep up.

Fuck it. I shouldn’t have stared. I probably offended him.

Or scared him.

Living on a planet with no women undoubtedly means he’s never had sex. He might barely have spoken to a woman before meeting me. No wonder he’s always blushing. No wonder he was staring at me like a starving man stares at a feast.

“I’m sorry!” I shout after his fast-retreating form.

The wind steals my words.