22. Alaina
ALAINA
“You’re lookin’ at him again,” Jorla says around a straw, her pink cocktail fizzing like it's got something to prove.
I blink, caught mid-gawk. Across the bar, Troka’s hunched under the hood of the hoverfridge again, that stupid heroic silhouette outlined in flickering light. “No, I’m not.”
Jorla snorts. “Girl, if you stared any harder, he’d catch fire.”
“He already did,” I mutter. “Years ago.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” I slap a towel down and start wiping a perfectly clean table. Classic me—over-cleaning when my brain’s a mess.
Later, after closing, he stays behind to fix the neon flicker above the taps. The bar hums with that late-night silence only the dead of shift knows—the kind full of ghosts and gum wrappers and half-swept regrets.
“I think it’s the capacitor,” he says, elbow-deep in sparking wires.
“I think it’s cursed,” I reply.
He smirks. “Everything here is cursed. Even you.”
“Excuse me?” I throw the towel at him. “You saying I’m hexed?”
“Doomed,” he deadpans. “Cursed. Bewitched. You walk like sin and sass had a baby.”
“That’s poetic,” I grumble, turning away too fast.
But I hear the way his breath catches. Feel it like heat against my spine.
He doesn’t move.
Neither do I.
For a moment, the only sound is that stupid neon buzzing and my heart trying to claw out of my ribs.
The next day, my kid climbs up into Troka’s lap like it’s his damn job.
“I’m tall like you,” he declares, lifting his little chin. “Mama says I’m gonna be strong.”
Troka rumbles a laugh that sounds like thunder wrapped in velvet. “You already are.”
“Juice box!” I yell from the kitchen, nearly dropping the pitcher. “Hey, who wants juice?”
My voice is three octaves too high, and I fumble the cups like I’m drunk. I hustle over and shove a sippy cup in his hands like it’s a grenade I just diffused.
Later, when the kid’s down for a nap and it’s just me and Troka on the porch, he gives me a look.
The kind that scrapes the walls off your soul.
At the park, a week later, Troka chases my son around the hover-slide while I sip lukewarm caf and try not to combust.
He lifts the kid up like he weighs nothing, tossing him into the air, catching him with that unshakable strength. Laughter. Screams. Joy.
And I ache.
It’s not jealousy.
It’s terror.
This right here—this is the life I pretended I didn’t want. But now that I’ve had a taste, it’s like being half-starved and handed a feast I’m not allowed to touch.
That night, I find my son in bed with one of Troka’s old shirts balled up under his cheek.
“You miss him?” I whisper.
“Mmhm.”
“Why?”
“He smells like lava cake.”
I smile, but it’s brittle.
“He makes you laugh.”
“Yeah.”
“You love him?”
His tiny voice breaks something in me. “I wuv him.”
“Me too,” I whisper.
Then I press my lips to his hair and feel the guilt burn through me like acid.
Next shift, Troka walks in like he owns the galaxy again, leaning against the bar with that cocky smile and those golden eyes that never miss a damn thing.
“You look tired,” he says.
“Parenthood, baby,” I reply, snapping my gum. “It’s the new insomnia.”
He chuckles. “I could help, you know.”
I blink. “With what?”
“Anything.”
“You gonna babysit?”
He shrugs. “Wouldn’t be the worst thing.”
“You don’t know what diapers do to a person’s soul.”
“Try me.”
And just like that, the walls crumble a little more.
He doesn’t know the truth.
But he acts like he does.
He moves like someone who’s already chosen to stay.
And I can’t decide if that’s salvation or doom.
At home, I think of his laugh. His strength. The way he looks at my son like he’s made of stars and mischief.
The way my son looks back like Troka hung the damn moons.
“You have to accept him,” Jorla says the next morning, watching me burn a hole in my eggs with my eyes.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know what it felt like when he did the first time.”
“People change.”
“Not aliens.”
Jorla arches her brow. “You mean the seven-foot warrior who folds paper animals for your kid and bought a used jungle gym off GalacticNet?”
I groan. “Shut up.”
“Just saying,” she grins. “He’s already being the dad.”
And that’s the problem, isn’t it?
He’s everything I wanted him to be.
Now.
When I crawl into bed that night, I wrap my arms around my son and listen to his little breaths.
And I wonder if lies always sound this much like love when whispered too long.
Because I’m so close to accepting him.