Chapter 8 Sem
As hard as I tried not to, I’d been watching Elanie, stealing glances, furious that I couldn’t read her.
I’d been studying her facial expressions during our visits, trying to figure out what that quirk of her left eyebrow meant.
If the way she occasionally flared her nostrils was because she was annoyed or amused.
If that tightness in the corner of her mouth was habitual or if it meant she was upset.
By her expression tonight, though—her pursed lips, tense shoulders, the deep, fearful lines etched between her brows—it was clear that something was wrong.
I’d wanted to talk to her. Needed to. Especially after she raced by my table like she was running from something. I wanted to check in with her so badly that I may have pretended that I needed to go to the bathroom just so I’d run into her.
And now here she was, pressed against my chest, her fingers curling around my arms as she stared into my eyes. As we both caught our breaths.
“Elanie—”
“Why were you standing in front of the females’ bathroom door?” she asked, stepping back, letting me go.
“I, um, wasn’t.” I hooked my thumb toward the males’ room and laughed a little. “I’d just gotten done and…” And what? And I decided to just pause here? “I guess I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“You should be more careful,” she said, her nostrils flaring. Definitely annoyed. “Pay more attention.”
Elanie, I couldn’t pay more attention to you if I tried.
“You’re probably right.” I ran a hand through my hair, then slid both hands into my pockets.
“Are you having a nice time tonight?” Not my smoothest segue, but considering we were still standing right outside the bathroom, smooth was a big ask.
“It’s a party,” she said, her shoulders sinking. “Everyone has a good time at parties. I’m having a”—her hands gestured vaguely in the air—“party kind of time.”
I hadn’t meant to, but I’d insulted her.
Saints, non-empathic conversations were next to impossible.
How did other species have them all the time without constantly offending each other?
How did the rest of the beings in the Known Universe communicate anything to each other without this constant bone-deep insecurity?
I’d never given them enough credit for simply continuing to exist inside a society.
For not deciding to hells with it and living alone on some icy rock floating through uncharted space.
She stared at me, her eyes haunted. I knew I should probably let it go, let her go, but I had to ask, “Are you okay, Elanie? Did something happen?”
Her lips parted on a sharp inhale as her finger whipped out at me. “It’s you,” she said. “You’re the one who asks me if I’m okay. This is all your fault.”
“Okay.” Shit. Had I screwed this communication thing up again already? “I’m…sorry?”
“Why did you ask me that?” Her eyes caught the light, glowing like amber. “Why did you ask me if I was okay? Is that a doctor thing?”
“No. Well, it is, I guess. But it’s a coworker thing too. A friend thing, I mean. It’s a thing friends do, ask each other how they’re feeling. It’s polite. It was a polite thing. I was just being polite.”
“Polite,” she repeated, placing her hand on her hip. “So you don’t actually care if I’m okay or not.”
“Um. I…” You are completely blowing this, jackass! “Of course I care if you’re okay or not. So, are you? Okay?”
A sea of emotions stormed across her face, too many and too quickly for me to have any hope of teasing them apart. “I’m fine,” she eventually said. “Thanks for asking.”
A serving drone would have sounded more convincing. She looked far from fine. She looked like she had something to say but wouldn’t let herself. Like water trying to burst through cracks in a dam held together by bubblegum, tiny pink thought bubbles filling, expanding all around her, ready to pop.
I lowered my voice. “Elanie, you seem upset. If there’s anything you want to talk about, we can make another appointment or—”
“Stars above!” She stomped her foot, her heel clacking against the floor. “You just won’t let up, will you? Fine. I couldn’t do it, okay? I tried, and I just couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t do what?”
Her jaw clamped shut so tightly it was a magical feat any sound came out between her teeth at all. “I couldn’t look at my vagina.”
How did she do it? How did she continue to shock me into stunned silence by saying these things I couldn’t anticipate?
Summoning all the calm I had left and borrowing some from my ancestors, I asked, “You tried, though? To look at—”
“Yes,” she hissed. “And your drawing was highly inaccurate.”
I nearly laughed. “Well, I never claimed to be an artist.”
“It looked nothing like your picture. It was hidden, first of all.” She glanced around, making sure we were still alone. “And when I uncovered it, it was pink and complicated and”—her nose crinkled—“slick.”
I packed that last comment away somewhere deep in my subconscious. “I’m sorry I didn’t have markers or colored pencils,” I said. “That probably would have been helpful. But pink is a completely normal color for that part of your body.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she shuddered. “It didn’t seem normal.”
“What is normal, really?” I asked, aiming for levity.
“Certainly not this conversation,” she mumbled, but her nostrils flared again. Amusement this time, I was sure of it.
To test my theory, I gave her a small smile in return, my lips barely tipping at the corners.
She didn’t scowl at me, which was progress.
“Elanie, your vagina isn’t going anywhere,” I said. “It’s yours for the long haul. If you want to try to look at it later tonight, ten years from now, or never again, it will continue to do its job for you.”
She was about to say something when the whirring of Chan’s hoverchair echoed down the hallway.
“Heyoo,” Chan shouted, waving at us. “What are you two up to?”
“Don’t you dare tell him what we were talking about,” Elanie warned with fire in her eyes.
“I’m not a complete ass, you know,” I said, affronted. “I’m actually a pretty nice guy.”
“Maybe.” She squinted at me. “For a Portisan.”
Just before Chan reached us, I muttered, “A Portisan who can’t draw a vagina to save his life.”
She snorted. And when I looked at her, there was a definite smile on her face. Success!
“We’re going out after the party.” Chan was rosy cheeked, slurring his speech as a champagne-bubble happiness sparkled all around him. “Sunny made reservations at one of the private karaoke rooms on thirty-two.”
“Yes.” I slapped his raised hand. “I’m in.”
“You like karaoke?” Elanie asked me with another amused nostril flare.
I scoffed. “Do krakelwyrms have acidic spikes?”
She frowned. “I have no idea.”
“Don’t let him fool you, Elanie,” Chan said. “Sem has one of the best singing voices on this ship. Every time you sing ‘The Only Star in Eranthia,’ there’s not a dry eye in the house.”
“This is completely untrue,” I said, leaning toward her, pulled like a magnet. Stars above, she smelled phenomenal, so sweet, like cinnamon and vanilla. I inhaled as inconspicuously as I could and, hmm, delicious.
“What’s going on here?” Sunny asked, sauntering up to join our impromptu meeting in the bathroom hallway.
“Dr. Semson is evidently a karaoke star,” Elanie deadpanned.
“You don’t have to tell me, darling.” Sunny winked. “Whenever he sings ‘The Only Star in—”
“Please stop,” I begged, a blush scalding my cheeks.
“Elanie, will you come?” Sunny asked. “Please come.”
Turning toward me, Elanie said, “I’m oddly tempted to watch you sing one of the cheesiest songs ever written.”
I hung on each word from Elanie’s lips like they were branches keeping me from falling off a cliff—until they all snapped at once.
“But I can’t. Blake’s coming over after work.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” I lied.
One of her shoulders rose unenthusiastically toward her ear.
“What time does he get off?” Sunny asked.
“In a few hours,” Elanie answered.
Chan waved a hand through the air. “That’s plenty of time to come with us for a bit. Come on, Elanie. Live a little.”
I watched her spine straighten, and I knew she was going to say no. I didn’t want her to say no. Sacrificing my pride, I threw caution to the stars. “If you come,” I told her, “I promise to sing any song you want.”
So close to smiling again, she said, “Any?”
I hadn’t heard “Oops, I Kissed Him First” by the Old Earth twenty-second century pop star Macey Valentine in years, and I’d never once tried to sing it.
Awkward didn’t begin to describe the sensation of belting “Didn’t mean to, but I kinda liked it,” in front of everyone—including Captain and Co-Captain Jones.
But Elanie was watching me, smiling so wide her teeth were showing.
And when I hit the high note on “he smeared my lip gloss,” her shoulders shook with laughter.
So I gave the song she’d requested by her favorite singer everything I had. I shook my hips. I walked the stage. I even got down on my knees during the bridge, not caring how ridiculous I looked under the swirling disco lights. Not as long as I kept her laughing.
Toward the end of the song, the realization that I hadn’t worked this hard to impress someone in a very long time almost knocked me sideways. And when I sang the last refrain, “I thought he’d take me home, but I ended up alone,” the truth of the lyric made my voice wobble.
I was trying too hard. I was feeling things about a patient I shouldn’t be feeling. I would definitely end up alone. And I was in deep, deep trouble.
But when I hit the last note, Elanie leaped to her feet, her hands bracketing her mouth as she howled, “Woohoo!” Suddenly the only thing that mattered was her fist pumping the air when I took a bow and her laughing applause when I stood back up.
Until she turned away from me and toward the tall and handsome bionic striding her way. With a coffee cup in each hand and an obnoxiously cocky smirk on his face, he flipped his jet-black bangs off his forehead and sat down next to her. Where he belonged and I didn’t. Of course.
As Freddie walked up for his turn at the mic, I dropped off the stage and warily accepted the bright green and steaming shot he held out for me.
“Sem,” Freddie said, clinking his shot glass with mine. “How in the stars will I possibly follow that?”
Girding my loins and more than ready for a little buzz, I knocked back the shot. It tasted like flaming licorice and burned my throat a little, but it wasn’t half bad, all things considered. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I pointed my chin toward Elanie. “Is that the boyfriend?”
Freddie followed my gaze. “Aye, that’s Blake. I haven’t met him myself, but I can’t say Sunny is a fan.” His eyes narrowed at me as his suspicion prickled over my skin. “Why do you ask?”
“Because she could do better,” I muttered, even though I shouldn’t have. What was in that drink?
Warmth seeped from the hand Freddie placed on my shoulder. “I may not be an empath like you,” he said, his fingers squeezing. “But I have a feeling she’ll figure that out soon enough.”