Chapter 14
KITTINIR
Carl was here, and as wonderful as seeing him was, I was puzzled as to his actual motivations.
Carl never did anything spontaneously, despite any appearances he engineered to the contrary.
I watched him carefully as he ate his Bratty Dog, his expression jovial.
His eyes expressed happiness here as well, but there was also an air of calculation to them.
I knew this look. It was the same one he got every time he hoped to elicit a positive reaction from me, along with an agreement to go along with whatever scheme he’d come up with.
To date, I had been genuinely pleased with his ideas and happy to make an effort in whatever his proposals were.
I didn’t wish to examine my reasons why, as I feared I knew the answer to that: Carl had become my happy place, as the humans phrased it.
The person who made me feel the most at ease and who I wished to make as happy as he did me.
That was a problem, as I knew he couldn’t be my mate.
I’d laid eyes on him first three years ago and spent immeasurable hours in his company without him triggering my mating drive.
I might only be a quarter Mylos biologically, but everyone knew that it was the Mylos genes which were dominant.
Every aspect of my physiology pointed to this being true, which heartbreakingly meant that Carl was destined to always remain in ‘The Friend Zone’, no matter how much my emotions tried to convince me I wanted otherwise.
It simply wouldn’t be fair to enter into an affair that no doubt would turn torrid, only for my match to come up and for us to have to walk away from each other forever.
No, I’d rather keep the wall up around my heart and pretend he meant nothing more to me than a best friend.
That way, we could remain close buddies all our lives, him acting as my best man at my wedding to my human mate, me doing the same at his when he met his forever love someday, and when the Fleet finally sent me to another duty station far from this solar system, we’d still have weekly vid comm chats and visits once or twice a year when returning to visit my mate’s family. It would have to be enough.
“So, I was hoping to spend the rest of this week and all of the weekend experiencing life within the Fleet,” he said. Oh, so casually.
“I have work after this and the rest of the week until Saturday. I get off at 1700 hours ship time, however, so we could not only meet up for lunch, but enjoy dinner together. I’m free to show you around over the weekend, though.”
He gave me a mischievous grin right before taking a long pull of his soda.
I glanced away, refusing to be drawn in by the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed.
“Actually, I was hoping to go with you for a few hours one morning or afternoon, to check out how the joint academic program is being set up. You see, I’m thinking about joining the team and basing myself here by running a few classes for existing students.
I don’t need to be back on Earth to teach an extension course, and the option to relocate is on the table.
Plus there’s you so we can continue our movie nights and just hang out like always.
I even found out there’s a bowling alley on board and they have an inter-Fleet league. ”
Everything slotted into place then. He feared losing his best friend, willing to follow me to the stars to avoid feeling lonely.
“You’d have to agree to join the mate matching program,” I reminded him, “And now, that includes the Dragonii. You could end up matched to a Dragonii and having to move across the galaxy to join him on his colony world.”
He let out a soft snort of disbelief. “Or, I could end up mated to a super hot Mylos right here,” he countered. “Besides, the odds of either happening are, well, astronomical for want of a better term.”
My heart plummeted. No. He couldn’t be hoping that he’d end up matched to me?
Surely not. He’d never given me any of the overt romantic signals I’d observed other humans do when interested in someone.
No, that definitely could not be it. He knew as soon as we Mylos laid eyes on our mate, that we went into mating fever, our mating display manifesting until we fucked, bit, and thoroughly claimed our mate.
Carl must instead truly believe the odds were on his side that he would NOT be matched, and the math was clear that he likely would not be, leaving him free to work wherever I, his best friend in all the universe, happened to be.
I smiled at him, feeling a buzz of contentment knowing he was willing to go so far to remain in my life as my “brother from another mother”.
“Let me contact my supervisor and see if I can make that happen."
His answering smile held the warmth of a thousand suns, and I basked within it as I lifted my arms and activated my kunnarskyn’s text based message mode to do just that.
“Probably not today,” I told him.
“Oh, no, I wasn’t expecting that. But, um, Xero, uh, kind of posited that I should stay with you, seeing as officially this is a personal visit.”
I blinked in astonishment. Even during a personal visit, it was standard for guests to stay within guest quarters, but then a good many Mylos had been recalled from the surface and outlying stations, not to mention all the Dragonii who’d arrived.
No doubt space was at a premium in order to properly accommodate them all.
“Yes, that’s fine,” I replied, ignoring the way my heart raced at the thought.
In all of our three years as best friends, we’d never once stayed over at each other’s homes.
We’d always returned to our own, and the time we went to a conference together in Pasadena, we’d had separate rooms at two different hotels as the one hosting us had also been hosting a large wedding, so had booked overflow guests to their sister hotel a few miles away.
Carl had been put out that no one had been willing to swap rooms so we could both be at the same hotel, but we’d made it work.
We simply ate breakfast together at my hotel at the free buffet and lunch at his, followed by dinner at the IHOP next to mine or the Outback Steakhouse next to his.
“Cool beans. So, up for watching another Brady Bunch movie tonight?”
“There’s more than one?”
“Yes, but I tell you what, how about we start marathoning the series from the beginning, then revisit the movies?”
This suggestion implied he’d already made up his mind about staying and was merely reassuring himself by doing the normal thing by checking out the job and locale.
I knew him. As soon as he visited me at my job, he’d go sign on the proverbial dotted line.
And seeing as the odds were indeed in our favor that he would not be matched, I agreed with his proposal.
“Sounds like a plan. Seeing as you’ve already more or less had a taco meal with your choice of Bratty Dog, should we skip picking up tacos for Taco Tuesday and have something else instead?”
He looked at me in mock horror. “As if! Who are you and what did you do with my Kit?”
I snorted. “Fine. I’ll show you to my quarters on my way back to work, and you can settle in. I’ll pick up the tacos on my way home.” Yep, totally not listening to just how domestic that had sounded. Just roommates, nothing unusual to see here, not at all, I sternly reminded myself.
“Sounds great. Add a couple chimichangas if they have them, or burritos.”
“If they don’t, we can replicate some,” I reassured him.
“Then how about I use the replicator and set us up a taco bar instead, and add plates of chicken chimichangas and beef burritos on the side? You can get home quicker that way, too. You know I used the one at your old place a few times.”
I nodded, knowing it was true. “Okay, deal.”
He stood up, ready to dispose of his trash, and I followed suit as my lunch break was nearly over.
Not that anyone would say anything about my being a little late, as Xeranos would have notified everyone that I had a guest to get settled.
Everyone except me, that is. Xeranos had become quite the rascal from his association with humans, but never maliciously so.
This was one surprise I definitely didn't mind, so I wasn't going to complain. Though, just when had he started calling me Kit? This was the first time he’d addressed me thusly, and I liked it, but why now?
Then it hit me. The room I’d set up as my study - he was going to move in there, as my assigned roommate, after making the request when accepting his contract.
I’d need to get rid of the small dinette and obtain some barstools for the bar area so we wouldn’t have to rely solely on TV tray stands and the coffee table.
Roommates were even closer buddies, with little nicknames for each other.
I’d seen it in the entertainment vids he’d shown me and observed it among my students and colleagues who shared domiciles.
I’d have to think of one for Carl, but I wasn’t sure how, as his name didn’t shorten to anything.