Because he’s rude and awful and she can do better, not because I have any interest in him, of course.
Still, as I drive up the mountain with a carton of groceries tucked between two blankets in my back seat and snow flurries hitting the windscreen, my heart makes its own little flurries too.
Just like it always does on delivery days.
CHAPTER 2
Knox
I was born on a planet with very few resources. Water was scarce, and so fresh food was very hard to come by. At fifteen, I joined the space corps. At sixteen, I was called up to join the crew of a military starship. We had technology on board to grow plants for food, but that food had to feed one thousand people. It went through so much processing and dehydrating that by the time the produce reached my kitchen, there wasn’t much I could do with my incredibly limited ingredients. No matter what I tried, everything always ended up tasting like cardboard that had already been recycled a hundred times over.
That food kept us all alive for many years, and I’m thankful for that, but when we crashed here on Earth and I discovered fresh fruit and vegetables, I thought I may actually have died in the wreckage and gone to Earth heaven.
I learned everything I could about Earth cooking from TV and recipe books the guys brought me from Second Chance Books in Star Falls.
When we first got here, I went into town a couple of times to get supplies with the guys. But after a spectacular panic attackin a Howling Ridge supermarket that scared the shit out of me, the guys and everyone in the place, we all decided it would be better for me to stay on the mountain and have the guys bring any supplies I needed.
Panic attacks aren’t a thing on Virrindar Four, and so the guys didn’t really know what to do. Zeke, our starship medic, suggested it could be some kind of PTSD, Ezra, who I’m pretty sure actually does have PTSD, said it was because of the atmosphere here. Thought maybe I just wasn’t used to breathing in clean air.
I manage my anxiety better now. Mostly because I never leave the mountain. Luckily, most of the construction work I do now takes place on the mountain or at least out of town. Most of the guys go into town after work if they need something. I go straight home.
The guys were happy to pick up whatever I needed, but after a while, I felt like such a burden to them and a total loser for not being able to do it on my own, that I somehow found the guts to call Star Falls Market and ask if I could have my groceries delivered.
Now, once a week, I make a call to the market, tell them what I need, and the next day I get a delivery of fresh produce and other groceries. It’s my favorite day of the week, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the beautiful Earth woman who delivers my orders.
I just really love fresh fruit and vegetables.
I sit on my couch, bare feet up on the coffee table as I flip through recipe books, trying to decide what I’ll make with my produce this week. I’ve been going through a tomato phase, and while it may sound a little boring to most humans, the idea of a simple roasted tomato and garlic sauce with spaghetti is making me feel kind of warm and fuzzy.
That warm, fuzzy feeling has nothing to do with the fact that Clara will be here soon.
I frown out at the snow falling outside my window. Snow isn’t good. Snow means no Clara… I mean, no produce.
“Fuck,” I mumble, getting off the couch and stomping towards the window to get a better look.
I place a hand on the glass and stare out at the mountain road that’s getting whiter by the second.
Damn, I really wanted those tomatoes.
“You’re not going to die from a lack of tomatoes,” I mumble to myself. My chest tightens as I remember how hungry we all were back on Virrindar Four. How all our resources were used for war instead of to feed our people and how many Virrindarians died because of it.
I take a deep breath, bring myself back to the here and now, and then go check what I have in the kitchen to distract myself. I find some tinned tomatoes, and while they are a thousand times better than anything we had on the starship or on Virrindar Four, they aren’tfresh.
“Get over it,” I tell myself. “Tinned are fine. Better than fine.”
I slice some onion, crush some garlic and then throw them into a pan with a bit of oil. Then I stir mindlessly while I watch the snow fall and settle on the trees outside my kitchen window.
She’s not coming.
I sigh, open a tin of tomatoes and reluctantly throw them into the pan.
The tomatoes are just starting to sizzle when I hear a knock on my door. It must be one of the guys checking on me, seeing if I’m okay to weather the storm.
They’re always checking on me like this, and it makes me so pissed. Of course I’m okay. I’m an alien with super-strength and super-speed! A little blizzard isn’t going to be a problem for me.Apart from my lack of fresh produce, I’m more than fine out here on my own.
I open the door and there’s Clara — her long dark blonde hair dusted with snow, a carton of groceries in her hands. Wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a rainbow-striped sweater, she’s not dressed for the weather. She’sshivering!
I grab the carton out of her hands, scowling at her. “What the hell are you thinking driving up here in a blizzard?”
