He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, appreciating again how good the burn cream was. He didn’t have a single blister—just some pink, healing skin. “Some humans fight to protect others. Some humans hurt others. Most humans protect offspring. Some don’t.” Max thought about the assistant football coach who had been arrested for child porn. He’d had a long conversation with his brother, and he remembered the fear that the man might have touched Petey. “Humans rarely prey on offspring,” Max added after a pause. Rick’s tentacles all curled up, which was fair because that’s how Max felt about pedophiles. “Query. Are all your people the same?”
“No,” Rick said slowly. “But no my people are warriors. We hunt from secrecy.”
“Some of my people do that too,” Max said. “This is not about humans. This is about me. I would always protect you. I would always protect the offspring.” As Max said the words, he felt a tightening in his chest at the idea of someone threatening his adopted family. In the past, Rick had always been the one to initiate touch, so Max took a risk. He held one of Rick’s tentacles. “The invaders deserved to die because they would have hurt the family. I only killed them because of that.”
Rick curled his tentacle around Max’s wrist. “Clarify. Family is a genetically related grouping of individuals.”
“Correction.” Max squeezed Rick’s tentacle. “Family is grouping of individuals committed to helping each other without seeking compensation.” Maybe that wasn’t the most linguistically accurate definition, but it described how Max felt about the people on this ship.
Rick tightened his hold on Max’s wrist. “Invaders want me. I create numbers that computers use.”
“Clarify. You’re a programmer,” Max said.
“Programmer,” Rick echoed. “I computer programmer for instructions that...” At this point the translator completely broke down, but Max could think of a number of different endings for that sentence. Rick could be involved in cybersecurity or weapons development or any number of other valuable fields. Hell, maybe Max was sitting in a room with the alien version of Tony Stark. Max considered Rick and the shy way he held Max’s wrist and inched closer bit by bit.
Maybe not. Rick was far too shy to be Iron Man.
Rick continued. “I thought ship safe. I thought I hidden my work.”
Max didn’t need to understand the various belches to hear the guilt. “I should have killed the last guy,” Max said.
Rick blasted a whale song. “Better this way,” Rick said. “He will tell others that humans are terror-causing and violent to defend offspring. Scare universe. They treat you like moron, so they deserve terror.”
Max laughed. “You have a mean streak.”
Rick twirled slowly. “No streak. Just mean.”
Max’s laughter grew so wild that he collapsed back onto his bunk. That was the sort of meanness Max could get behind.
Chapter Twenty
Max walked into thepool room, trying to ignore the sudden distance between himself and Rick. Rick followed several steps behind, and until this moment, Max had not realized how he had grown used to having Rick hovering at his elbow all the time, even after the offspring were born. Sure, there was a period where they spent almost no time together because they were taking shifts with Xander. At most one of them had sat at the edge of the pool and talked.
But when Xander had gotten large enough to push them away and swim on his own, they had fallen back into their old patterns. When Max had given up on translations for the day, he would get into the pool with the kids, and Rick would show up shortly after.
The minute Max saw Kohei spinning in circles, the tightness in his chest eased. He stripped off his shirt as he walked toward the pool. “Hey kids, looking good,” he called out.
