“Why?” I asked.
“Because an escape pod is not a small tech, and it will take the protectors months to break down and remove every piece of it by hand.”
I winced. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You didn’t ask to be stolen from your planet and dropped on this one.” Kex pressed a kiss to the top of my head.
I turned to Rainair. “So what’s with the stories?” I asked, and Kex groaned.
“He’s obsessed,” Kex said. “Any downtime we had, he’d be reading on his little handheld. He even carried an extra solar charger with us everywhere. It broke when a quax kicked him in the chest. He broke three ribs and the solar panel, and guess which he was most upset about.”
“I didn’t hear you complaining when I read to you at night,” Rainair said, crossing his arms.
“I didn’t say the stories were bad, just that you’re a little codependent with that thing.”
Rainair rolled his eyes.
“What kind of stories?” I asked.
“All kinds,” Rainair said.
“He’ll read anything,” Kex said. “But somehow he only ever ends up reading love stories.”
“I like the interpersonal dynamics and character development,” Rainair said, a little defensively.
“I love reading romance,” I told him.
“Ha, see? Your mate gets it.”
Kex squeezed me against him. “Yes, my mate and my best friend are both hopeless romantics. What a coincidence.”
“What sort of stories does your world hold?” Rainair asked.
“Oh, so many,” I said. “There’s every genre you could think of, and then subgenres. Just in romance alone, there are a million choices. Like, for example, humans obviously don’t knowany species exist outside our planet, yet there’s a whole subgenre of alien romance.”
Rainair’s expression grew distant. “A whole new world of stories. I wonder what it would take?—”
“Absolutely not,” Kex cut him off.
“I wouldn’t really,” Rainair said.
“If you get caught sneaking to a preflight world to steal reading materials, I will absolutely not come to your sentencing.”
“Yes, you would,” Rainair said smugly.
“But if you did decide to sneak off to a preflight world to steal reading materials, let me know, because I have recommendations. And if you could, like, bring my cat back, I’d appreciate it,” I added.
“What’s a cat?” Rainair asked.
Kex snorted. “You, but smaller.”
I covered a laugh, but Rainair looked confused.
“My mate informs me it is a small, fluffy creature kept as a pet with pointy ears and whiskers,” Kex said.
Rainair ran a hand over his own impressive whiskers. “Sounds like a brilliant creature.”
Rainair asked me about romance stories on Earth, and I spent the rest of the flight explaining the plot of Pride and Prejudice, along with the cultural context he needed.
