“Neither do you,” he said.
She shrugged. “I figure I’ll give it a ride. I don’t have a lot to go back to, to be honest.”
“No family or clan?”
“Not really. My family died when I was a kid. Grew up in foster care, and when I was old enough to get out, I did. The only thing my foster family ever told me was that I was pretty, and to find a guy who’d take care of me, because I didn’t have any skills.”
Tori looked down, and the stabbing pain of those words sunk back into her, like they’d just been freshly told to her.
She inhaled a breath, trying to swallow the emotions that the one little moment had imprinted on her. She’d been young, and her foster mother had been drinking. It was supposed to be a joke at the time.
It hadn’t felt like it.
She glanced at Olmed and forced a smile on her face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so…” She picked up some food and shoved it in her mouth to stop herself from saying more.
He tapped his sticks on the side of the bowl, before taking another bite, and they sat there in silence for a couple of beats, until he finally spoke.
“What is foster family?”
“Good question,” she muttered.
He raised his eyebrow again. “Explain.”
“Sorry. I mean, they’re people who take in kids who don’t have a family or clan. Raise them. Some do it because they want to help kids. Others do it because they want the money.”
“There is money in raising little ones?”
“Yep.”
He sat up a little taller and his shoulders went back. “Think I would fit in?”
She blinked. “You like kids?”
“Would be better than working in the mines. Little ones are amusing. They are full of truth.”
“They are that,” she said. “You might scare the kids, though, on my world. However, some of the kids I knew growing up, that may not be a bad thing.”
For a second, he smiled.
Like a real smile.
Progress, she guessed.
7
Appealing.
Tori was appealing.
At least the Intergalactic Dating Agency got that much right for his mate. Smaller than he’d normally liked. Thin. She needed more curves. Maybe she was underfed.
Talkative and generally blunt, which had its own kind of appeal. He knew what she thought. He may not understand her idioms, but they were coming together.
He, on the other hand, wasn’t all that interested in speaking if he didn’t have to.
"This is so weird," she muttered as she attempted to make a list of things she needed.
A lot of it didn't make sense to him.
