CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
Finishing his business, Bribie came lolloping over, managing about three steps at a run before he slowed to his usual plod.
But then he sat down beside me and put his head on my leg.
I reached out to rub his ears automatically.
On my loneliest nights over the last year, after Bo had gone home, and when there were none of the casual staff staying the night, I’d sometimes let him come and stay in the cottage with me.
Breaking my own rules, yes, but some nights, the silence had just become unbearable.
With Xel here, that was looking to get a hell of a lot better, and if we managed to get this Vangravian colony up and running, I’d more likely end up craving some peace and quiet, rather than being desperate for company.
But Bribie had seen me through some dark days.
He looked up at me now with big, soulful eyes, perfectly satisfied to simply be by my side.
There was a part of me that knew why I’d tried so hard to keep him at a distance.
If he’d passed away on one of the nights when I was barely holding myself together, I think it would have broken me.
And he was so old that I knew he could be going any day now.
Maybe I’d get a day or two’s warning, with Bribie refusing to eat or unable to stand up on his wobbly legs.
Or maybe I’d just wake up one morning to find him already gone.
I wasn’t looking forward to that day, but I already knew it would be a lot easier to cope with now that Xel was here.
The sound of the front door opening again got my attention, and I looked around to see Rohinavon padding quietly outside, barefoot, like both Xel and me. She was still wearing the makeshift clothing I’d found for her yesterday.
“Morning,” I greeted her, then hastily said, “We can get onto the grid today and order you some more clothes.” I’d washed her set from the day before, but noticed at the same time that the skirt was torn, which made me wonder where exactly her smuggler friend had dropped her off, and what she’d had to go through to make it to my old barn.
“Thank you,” she said. She came around to my other side, taking the third chair on the porch. And then she pointedly leaned over to give my scars a quick once-over. “It’s none of my business,” she said, with a wry twist of her lips. “But if you wouldn’t mind me asking?”
“I was caught in a house fire,” I said, answering the question she hadn’t quite asked. “Electrical fault.”
“Ah,” she said, when it became clear that was all I was going to say on the matter. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Ironically, her brusque attitude was reassuring.
Most people were curious, I understood that.
And Rohinavon had managed to ask what had happened at the same time as admitting that she was being rude by doing so.
Self awareness was an admirable trait. But then, that had been the end of it.
I’d known far too many people who had tried to give me advice on how to get on with my life, or listed all the things I should be grateful for, or even worse, had tried to tell me that everything happened for a reason, and there was some great good that was going to come out of the fact that my sister had died an agonising death that I’d been helpless to prevent.
Rohinavon’s response was far more like my own perspective on the whole thing; sometimes shitty things happened, and that sucked, but in the end, we had no choice but to move on.
“Is there anything I can do to be useful today?” Rohinavon asked. “I have a feeling you’re going to end up doing a hell of a lot for me, whether or not we get this colony up and running, so I’d prefer it if I didn’t make things any more of a strain than they have to be.”
I considered that for a moment, then shook my head.
“Honestly, the best thing you can do for me is stay near the house and keep relatively out of sight. Bo will be around, and she knows not to let any visitors anywhere near the cottage, but until we get some idea from Aiden about security and long-term plans, I mostly just need you to stay out of sight.”
“Understood,” Rohinavon said, taking no offence at my reply.
I waited… but she said nothing more, and I once again admired her awareness of the situation.
There were so many people in the world who wanted to ‘help’, not because they genuinely wanted to be helpful, but to assuage their own guilt about sitting around idly.
But today, with all the risks inherent in Rohinavon being here, asking her to do literally anything else would only increase the chances of something going wrong.
We all sat quietly as we watched the sky brighten and the sun rise above the horizon, glinting through the leaves of the trees across the paddock.
Then finally, I stood up, stretching my arms over my head.
The scars down my right side protested, the skin not nearly as flexible there, but I’d got used to the sensation, and mostly managed to ignore it.
“I’ll go and do the early check of the animals,” I said, and predictably, Xel was on his feet a moment later.
“Would you like me to take care of the barn?” he volunteered.
“Yeah, that would be great. I’ll meet you back here for breakfast.”
It didn’t take long to get the checks done – even less time, now that Mr Beans wasn’t there to knock his water dish over, and Bribie seemed content to sit beside Rohinavon on the porch, rather than following us around the property.
He knew the routine well enough to know that he’d have plenty of time outside later.
While I wandered up the aisles and cooed reassuring nonsense at the animals, another part of my mind was wondering what to do about Xel.
On an intellectual level, it was simple.
He needed sex, he’d proven that he had no aversion to my scars, and he’d demonstrated the ability to say no, if he didn’t like what I was asking him to do.
So there was no ethical reason that I couldn’t meet his needs for him.
But at the same time, actually taking the leap of getting intimate with him seemed like…
I wasn’t sure what. But it was something big.
Something filled with meaning and commitment, something that made me feel shaky inside, like the world was being turned inside out and I couldn’t figure out which way was up.
I’d spent the last five years expecting not much at all from the world.
I’d given up on any real career, I avoided people, and though I’d toyed with the idea of turning the old barn into a laboratory, I’d found every excuse under the sun to delay the process of actually cleaning it out.
And here was Xel, looking at me with desire, and getting in people’s faces for being rude to me, and now we had Rohinavon, with all these dreams of changing not just this property, but the entire galaxy.
It was all so much, and as ridiculous as it sounded, I was terrified that letting myself get close to Xel would be the one small move that would unleash a landslide that set everything else into motion.
But at the same time, I was privately forced to admit that I desperately wanted him. I hadn’t touched anyone in five years, and until recently, I’d largely given up on the idea of ever touching anyone, ever again.
Maybe I should take a leaf out of Rohinavon’s book and do something that would force me to commit to one course of action or another, without giving me the chance to back out.
But then again, if I was wanting to find something that would make me commit, didn’t that mean that I wanted things to change in the first place?
The truth was, I was getting bored. I loved my work, and I loved Bo and Leesha and the other casuals, but deep down, I knew I was capable of more than this.
And while there were plenty of people willing to be rude assholes about my scars, there was a growing list of people who treated me like a regular person.
Aiden, Kade, Xel, Rohinavon… all of them had accepted me without judgement.
And maybe that knowledge was starting to push me to go further out into the world.
With the initial check of the kennels finished, I closed the door and headed back to the cottage.
Xel was just arriving as I got there, and we both pulled off our boots in the hallway.
Rohinavon was still sitting on the porch, making notes on her comm about something or other…
and a flash of inspiration hit me, as I stared at Xel’s backside as he bent to set his boots neatly on the rack.
“I’m going to take a quick shower before breakfast,” I said, before I could think better of the idea. “I didn’t end up having one yesterday.”
“Yes, sir,” Xel said, and in just a second or two, I knew he was going to volunteer to go and start making breakfast.
“How about you come and shower with me?”
It was hard to say who was more stunned by the invitation, me or Xel. “You want me to… shower with you?” he asked slowly, his frown showing that he thought he’d misunderstood me.
“Yes,” I said, desperately hoping I didn’t completely screw this up.
A dozen excuses were on the tip of my tongue – that it would be quicker, that it would save water, that we had a lot to get done today.
But I managed to just shut my mouth and let the statement stand.
I wanted him to shower with me. And I waited to see what he would say.
Xel glanced towards the door, and I could almost see him thinking about Rohinavon, sitting just metres away.
When he spoke again, he lowered his voice.
“You want me to come and be naked in the bathroom with you?” The way he said it said that he knew exactly what I was asking, at the same time as having some doubts about whether I realised what I was asking.