“So, sex is the second half?”I asked
“Sex seals the deal,” Hope confirmed, sobering slightly as she met my eyes.“Don’t sleep with him unless you’re sure you’re in it for good.Turochs don’t do situationships, they don’t do casual, and they don’t do divorce.”
“They do fuck like gods though, so it's a good deal,” Taz chortled.
Hope pressed her lips together, fighting a smile.“They take female pleasure very seriously.The first time you have sex is like an omen of your future, the more you come, the better the relationship.”
“No divorce at all?”I questioned, feeling like that was a pretty short sighted and optimistic look at two people trying to spend a lifetime together.
“No divorce,” Taz confirmed, finally dropping her smile.“If he cheats, the other males would probably beat him to death, if he hits you, same thing.Aside from that?They expect you two to put your big girl and boy pants on and be a team.”
“Come hell or high water,” Hope agreed.
“Shit or get off the pot,” Taz declared.
Hope waved a hand at her friend.“Now you’re just saying things.”She turned back to me.“But seriously, don’t have sex with a turoch unless you’re fully fucking committed.If you’re not the monogamous sort just accept it and let him go.A broken mating would probably kill one of these guys.”
I looked between the two women.“That’s a lot of pressure.”
Taz shrugged.“It’s the end of the world, babe.Do you want to spend it with a guy who’s just there for the good times?Or a guy who’ll walk through hell to make sure you get fed?That kind of love comes at a cost.”
She had a point.
“Tovis is a great guy, one of the best,” Hope said, eyeing me.“I know it’s a lot and none of us pictured our futures like this, but he’s not a mistake if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It just doesn’t feel real,” I admitted.“The world ends and an alien shows up, claims me and we ride off into the sunset?How’s that something I’m supposed to process?”
“You don't ride off into the sunset,” Taz said.“You fight every day, to survive, to take care of each other, to make it work.It’s hard and its scary and its heavy.But it’s great, too.If you want it, take it.Don’t get in your own way.”
I tried to picture a future with Tovis.Years down the road, a life with an alien mate.But it was hard to do when I couldn’t even picture a future without him.I’d had vague plans before everything.Eventually I’d find a guy, fall in love.Eventually, I’d have a family.
But those hazy fantasies had been blown to shreds when the world ended and now the future was just a blank yawning void in my mind.Maybe that was the problem, I’d been in survival mode and completely blocked out everything but the present.
But the future was coming, and if I didn’t make plans, make decisions, it would just happen to me.If I wanted a say in how my life went, I had to actually accept that the world hadn't ended, it just looked different now.
Maybe that faceless online profile I’d expected to become my husband was gone, the visions of a wedding and a honeymoon in Hawaii weren’t possible.But I could still have a life.
I just had to decide if this was the one I wanted.
As if summoned by my spiraling thoughts, Tovis charged out of nowhere and slid to a stop beside me.
“Amy’s water broke,” he announced, panting.“Where’s Kes?”
