“He will be pleased.”
“Hope so.”
Karuk nodded. “I will let you know when I see him next.”
Both Polly and Re-lee watched them with those knowing expressions. Again, Jenny wanted to yell at them, something to wipe that look off their faces.
Instead, she tried to get her brain to wrap around this. And not blame Karuk.
Seriously. He was nice. She’d probably date him, if this was a normal thing, and they were on Earth and everything.
He wasn’t Phil, and it wasn’t fair to him that she jumped defensively to be so against the idea.
She ran her hands through her hair, wanting to feel something, something normal and grounding.
And she found herself glancing at Karuk’s hand that casually rested on the chair arm. Pale, with gold specks in it, in kind of a pattern on the top of his hand.
This just isn’t real, she thought.It just can’t be. Marrying an alien? A humanoid from another world?
“Really?” Polly asked. “And that’s not any kind of proof that you two have a connection? I mean, it looks like you two have made a friendship of a sort, all on your own. Over your cat.”
“That doesn’t mean I want to marry him, or mate him, or whatever.”
Karuk looked at her, and was she seeing things, or did he look offended? That look hit hard, and she felt bad for her words. He didn’t deserve that.
Regardless of the circumstances.
She tried to backtrack, and not be so rude. “Not, uh, that you’re not, uh, mating material, or anything. I just didn’t come here for that.”
“Neither did I,” he replied, and turned, looking straight ahead.
Damn. Here we go again. I’ve said something stupid and offensive. Just because he’s from another world doesn’t mean he doesn’t have normal feelings, does it?
The last thing she needed to be worried about was offending him or anyone else at this point.
Focus.
She needed to understand what was happening now. What would they be forced to do? “Look, what does this mean? Seriously. What are we supposed to do now?”
Polly and Re-lee looked at each other. Polly shrugged. “Well, it’s up to you two, how to proceed.”
“In a standard Intergalactic Dating Agency contract, we have a thirty-day clause,” Re-lee said. “If you agree to a thirty-day mating period, at the end of that contracted time, if you twochoose to separate, you both are free to walk away. Any legal contractual obligations are fulfilled.”
Jenny blinked. “Would that apply here?”
“It could, if you made this an official IDA match,” Re-lee said.
“The only caveat to that is any agreement made between the two of you that are culturally binding will be held in place,” Polly said.
“Meaning?” Karuk asked.
“If you two decide to get married on Earth,” Polly said, “You’re bound by Earth laws to be married, regardless of the IDA agreement.”
“Or if you commit to a Dalgurian Mating Promise,” Re-lee added. “You will be committed by that bond, and it will take a Dalgurian court to release the bond.”
Jenny looked at Karuk.
He glanced at her.
