Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
SELENE
Ifloat into the kitchen like my feet aren’t quite touching the ground.
The lunch rush is in full swing—the usual chaos of prep work and chatter filling the space.
Laura stands at one of the industrial cooktops, stirring something that smells incredible.
Elana is pulling plates from a cabinet, her pale skin flushed from the kitchen’s heat.
Charlotte sits at the staff table in the corner, nose buried in a book as always, thick glasses sliding down her nose.
I barely register any of it. My thoughts keep circling back to the courtyard, to Khatak’s shocked expression, to the taste of krivva fruit and—
I walk straight into the corner of the prep counter.
“Ow!” I rub my hip, face heating.
“You okay there?” Elana calls over, eyebrow raised.
“Fine! Totally fine.” I make a beeline for the coffee station, desperate for something to do with my hands.
The coffee maker gurgles as I fill a mug. I lift it to my lips, then set it down. Lift it again. Put it back on the counter. My fingers drum against the ceramic.
I can’t stop replaying it. The way I’d leaned in. The way his hands had found my waist. The little sound he’d made when—
“Selene?”
I jump, nearly knocking over my untouched coffee. Charlotte is staring at me, book lowered, her eyes magnified behind those thick lenses.
“You haven’t taken a single sip of that coffee.” She pushes her glasses up her nose. “And you’ve been standing there for three minutes.”
“I haven’t?” I glance down at the full mug. “Oh.”
“What’s going on?” Elana abandons her plates, crossing the kitchen toward me. Laura turns from her cooking, wooden spoon in hand.
“Nothing! Nothing’s going on. I’m just—“ I pick up the coffee mug again, realize my hands are shaking slightly, and set it back down. “I’m fine.”
“You’re vibrating,” Zoe says, appearing in the doorway with Tumeric perched on her shoulder. The little orange furball chitters at me. “Like, literally. You’re like a phone set on vibrate.”
I open my mouth to deny it, but Elana is already grinning. She knows. I’m certain of it. “Oh my god. What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I just—” My face is definitely burning now. I can feel it. “There was apple bobbing. And fruit. And—”
“Spit it out,” Zoe says, setting her bright orange alien fur-ball pet Tumeric down on the counter despite Laura’s squawk of protest about health codes.
She hops up to sit beside him, legs swinging.
“You look like you either won the lottery or committed a murder. Honestly, I could see it going either way with you.”
“I kissed Khatak!” The words burst out of me in a rush.
Silence.
Then chaos erupts.
“WHAT?” Elana practically shrieks.
“Oh my god!” Laura drops her wooden spoon, which clatters to the floor. She flaps her arms around, her gaze darting around the kitchen, no doubt searching for a way to clean up her mess.
Zoe punches the air. “Yes! Finally!”
Charlotte snaps her book shut. “Details. Now.”
I press my hands to my burning cheeks. “I didn’t mean to just blurt it out like that.”
“Too late, you already did.” Elana drags me toward the staff table, practically shoving me into a chair. “Start talking. And I mean everything.”
“There’s not that much to tell—“
“Lies,” Zoe interrupts, leaning forward with predatory interest. “Give us the goods.”
I take a shaky breath, then another. The words start tumbling out. “We were at the apple bobbing station. He was so bad at it. Like, hilariously bad. He got completely soaked… and I now understand the whole obsession with wet shirt competitions. ’Cause he was hot.
“And?” Elana prompts, eyes gleaming.
“And he caught an apple finally. And I told him to taste it, so he did, and there was juice on his lip, and I just—” I gesture helplessly. “And then I kissed him.”
Zoe whoops. Laura gasps. Charlotte’s eyes are huge behind her glasses.
“You kissed him?” Elana asks.
“I invited him to the haunted house tour tonight too,” I admit. “Like, as a date. A real date.”
“Holy shit,” Zoe breathes. “Selene, that’s amazing.”
“It’s about damn time you lightened up,” Elana says, squeezing my shoulder. There’s warmth in her voice, but also something that looks like concern in her pale eyes. “I mean that in the best way. You’ve been wound so tight since—well. Since everything.”
The words hit me harder than expected. Since the rescue. Since waking up on that ship. Since learning I’d been abducted and had no memory of how.
“I know.” My voice comes out smaller than intended. “I just... I haven’t been able to—“ Trust anyone again, because who knows when another alien’s just going to grab you and run. You don’t have any control over it; it’s not like an abductor is going to listen to you when you say ‘no’.
“It’s okay.” Laura’s voice is soft. “We get it. Trust me.”
I look at her, at the understanding in her expression, and something in my chest loosens slightly.
“So.” Charlotte leans forward, all business. “This Khatak. You like him?”
“I—yeah. I really do.” The admission feels both terrifying and freeing. “He’s... It’s...”
“Refreshing?” Elana offers.
“Terrifying,” I correct, then laugh shakily. “Both. It’s both.”
“That’s good though, right?” Zoe tilts her head. “I mean, you always know where you stand.”
I replay every moment of the afternoon, and a familiar cold weight settles in my stomach. That voice, the one that’s emerged since our abduction. The one that never quite shuts up.
What if you’re wrong? What if you’re missing something?
My smile falters.
All these aliens like to act so tough all the time. It’s like being in some galactic space opera where no one’s just themselves. Everyone’s always presenting their best sides, all the time. You can never know what’s true and what’s just a facade.
“But?” Charlotte asks, catching it immediately.
Damn it. Why does she have to be so observant all the time? If I stole her glasses, maybe she wouldn’t see my reactions. I mean, it also means she won’t see at all… but it’s for a worthy cause.
“What if I’m moving too fast?” The words come out rushed. “What if I’m only seeing what I want to see? I barely know him. We’ve spent what, a few hours together? And I’m already—” I gesture vaguely. “I’m already feeling things. Making decisions. What if—”
“What if you’re being stupid?” Zoe finishes bluntly.
“Zoe!” Elana smacks her arm.
“What? I’m being helpful!”
“You’re being tactless.”
“Same thing.”
I laugh despite myself, but the knot in my stomach doesn’t loosen. “What if there’s something he’s not telling me?”
Like he’s planning on abducting me. Like he doesn’t care about me as a person, just as a means to an end.
The kitchen goes quiet except for the bubbling of Laura’s forgotten pot on the stove.
“Okay, look.” Laura turns off the burner and comes to sit across from me. “I get it. I do. After my ex, I was terrified of missing red flags. Of thinking I knew someone when I didn’t. Of letting someone in who’d just...” She trails off, fingers twisting together.
“Hurt you,” I finish softly.
“Yeah.” Laura meets my eyes. “But here’s what I learned. There’s a difference between someone who respects your boundaries and someone who manipulates them. Does Khatak push you? Or does he let you lead?”
I think about the apple bobbing. About how he’d just stood there, dripping wet, looking at me like I’d hung the moon.
How I’d been the one to close the distance.
Until the moment he kissed me back, I wasn’t even sure he liked me.
He’s one of the first aliens I’ve met who haven’t outright hit on me constantly.
“I kissed him,” I say quietly. “It was almost like he was scared to kiss me back.”
“And does he hide what he’s feeling?” Charlotte asks.
“He shows me everything.” The words come out with more certainty than I expect.
“That’s what I was saying before. At the apple bobbing, he was making these faces.
Like, the most obvious frustrated, embarrassed, hopeful faces.
And when he carved his pumpkin earlier, everyone laughed at it because it was happy instead of scary, and you could see him—“ I press a hand to my chest. “You could see him breaking. Right there. No masks. Just hurt. There’s no—“
“No games.” Elana finishes quietly.
“No games,” I echo.
Charlotte pushes her glasses up, eyes sharp with interest. “So he wears his heart on his sleeve.”
“Completely.”
“Then let me ask you something.” Charlotte leans back, crossing her arms. “In every mystery novel I’ve read—and I’ve read a lot—manipulators hide their intentions. They’re careful. Calculated. They show you what they want you to see.” She pauses. “Does that sound like Khatak?”
I open my mouth. Close it.
“Because from what you’re describing,” Charlotte continues, “he’s doing the opposite. He’s showing you everything, including the embarrassing parts. Including his failures. He’s being utterly honest with you.”
“He knocked over an entire bucket of someone else’s apples with his tail,” I say faintly, a hand over my mouth to hide my little grin at the memory. “And looked so mortified about it.”
“Exactly.” Charlotte nods like she’s just solved a case. “That’s not manipulation. That’s just... him. An honest guy that’s super clumsy. It seems that he doesn’t hide anything. When he’s embarrassed, you know it. When he’s happy, you know it. That’s honesty. Like, painfully honest.”
“Right. Yes. Exactly.” I pick up my coffee mug again, cradling it between my palms.
“If he hurts you, I’ll feed him to Tumeric,” Elana says suddenly, her voice taking on that protective edge she gets whenever an alien guy bothers any of us girls.
She’s always quick to violence… at least threatening it.
She walks around with a bunch of guns and weapons strapped to her at all times, but I haven’t ever actually seen her use any of them.
To be honest, she probably doesn’t need to with her mate hovering behind her most of the time; no one in their right mind messes with him.
“Eww.” Zoe wrinkles her nose. She picks up the puffball of fur and gives it a tight squeeze, so much so that I can practically imagine its eyes bulging out of its head.
“That would give Tumeric a stomach ache. He’s got a sensitive system.
You do not want to be helping me clean his litter box out after. ”
“Don’t you make Taruk do that?” Elana retorts.
“What’s your point?”
“You didn’t say no,” Elana points out. “Simply that we won’t be doing the cleaning.”
“You’re both missing the point,” Laura says, shaking her head at the two. “I think it’s safe to trust him.”
The words settle over me. I press my fingers to my lips, remembering. I think about how he’d looked at me after the kiss. Like I’d given him something precious. He’d looked at me like I was precious.
“I think I do,” I say quietly. “I think—I think I trust him.”
“Then what are you worried about?” Zoe asks.
“That I’m wrong,” I admit. “That I’m missing something. That he’s not telling me something. I just have this feeling that keeps telling me that I’m missing something, you know?”
“You’re overthinking it,” Zoe says. “Which, no offense, is kind of your thing.”
“None taken.” I laugh weakly. Every time I interact with an alien, I’m thinking about all the ways they could be trying to deceive me. I know that I’m overthinking everything, all the time. It’s kind of my thing now: not to trust aliens.
The thought hadn’t occurred to me quite like that before. Am I being too prejudiced? Am I just making this stuff up? Am I just making excuses to not commit to someone who looks at me with such fierce desire, with dark, heated eyes and…
“Just go to the haunted house tonight,” Laura says. “See how it feels. You don’t have to figure everything out right now.”
“And if he does anything sketchy,” Elana says, her voice taking on that protective tone again, “you tell us immediately. Sutek has an entire armory.”
“Why does everything come back to violence with you?” Charlotte asks.
“Because it works,” Elana says simply, shrugging her shoulders.
I laugh, properly this time. The knot in my stomach has loosened.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. I’m going. To the haunted house. Tonight. As a date.”
“Hell yes you are.” Zoe slaps the table, a triumphant grin across her face.
“And you’re going to have a good time,” Laura adds.
“And if you need to bail, you bail,” Charlotte says practically. “No shame in that.”
“But you won’t need to,” Elana says with confidence. “Trust your gut.”
“Tell us everything after,” Zoe demands.
“Every detail,” Laura agrees.
“Especially the kissing parts,” Elana adds with a wink.
“I’m leaving now,” I announce, standing up and finally—finally—taking a sip of my now-lukewarm not-coffee. It’s terrible. I drink it anyway. “Before you all get any more insufferable.”
“Too late!” Zoe calls after me as I head for the door.
“We love you!” Laura adds.
“Don’t forget—an assassin who will work for free!” Elana shouts.
I wave them off, laughing as I slip out of the kitchen.
I’ve seen how happy the girls who found mates are, and I want that for myself. I don’t want to be afraid someone’s lying to me or keeping secrets. I want someone honest. I want someone like Khatak: awkward and completely honest.
After all, it’s not like he’s keeping anything from me.