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“I didn’t ask what would be fastest,” I reminded her sternly. “I asked what you wanted.”

“Well… If you insist.”

“I do.”

“Then… A two-piece set would be ideal, please. Pants and a top with long sleeves, if you don’t mind. It’s quite cool here at night, even in the summer.”

She said it almost shyly, avoiding my eyes and seating herself on the bed. She suddenly made herself very busy fiddling with the twist of hair at the back of her head, removing metal pins and setting them on the small bedside table. It was as if she could not sit quietly and face me – or herself – with the fact that she’d just asked me for something.

It made me wish she’d ask more of me.

It made me want to give her things. Things beyond a simple two piece set of jamberinos.

Did she have anyone else in her life to ask things of?

To give her things?

What a stupid notion. Of course she did. She literally wrote the book on human marriage. And she was so beautiful she had to be…

“Are you married?”

Tasha froze with both her hands poised behind her head. I was seized by the image of her seated there, her hands raised and arranged so artfully that way, her human face in profile, lit by the candle on the table. Elegant. Pristine. So lovely in the way that things were never lovely here.

It made me hurt a little bit inside.

“No,” she said.

The joy I felt at her reply was alarmingly savage.

She removed the final pin from her hair, and the length of it came tumbling down. It was much longer than I’d realized, the ends swishing around her waist.

I liked seeing her like this. Probably liked it too much.

This intimate unravelling.

She began to collect and then comb her shiny, pale hair between her hands. For a long moment, I made no progress on my sewing project. I was too busy staring at her, mesmerized by the movements of those clawless fingers through the shimmering, fragrant strands.

I wanted to do that for her. Let the strands of her hair run over my hands like water. Comb out the tangles. Wash out the dust.

But I had other things to do for her right now.

I turned my attention to the fabric and got to work.

10

TASHA

Iwatched Warden Tenn while I continued to detangle my hair with my fingers. He’d set himself up on the flat surface of the floor and was currently cutting swaths of white, silky-looking fabric into big, vaguely shirt-shaped pieces. He was quiet and focused, his large hands moving with surprising deftness.

I hadn’t seen this side of him before. This silent, nearly studious diligence. The swaggering arrogance was tamped down, shaped into something careful. Something thoughtful.

Once my hair was smoothed-out, I had nothing else to do with my hands. I pressed them together between my knees, feeling suddenly awkward about watching Warden Tenn while he made my pyjamas.

“I’ll be right back,” I told him, deciding to use this time to get ready for bed. Before she’d retreated to her own bedroom, Darcy had given me some extra toiletries, like soap and a toothbrush. I made use of the outhouse – which was certainly rustic, but serviceable – and then washed up and brushed my teeth in the kitchen sink. The dark kitchen, aside from the apparently impossible-to-eliminate dust, was otherwise clean, Fallon and Silar having tidied it all up admirably.

Gerald and I had lived together before I left him for the job on Elora Station. I couldn’t even remember the last time he’d done a chore without being asked. And when he did complete a chore I’d asked for, it was always half-assed and accompanied by an endless litany of passive aggressive complaints.

Every sign was currently telling me that a pair of alien convict cowboys were better partners than my non-criminal, human ex-boyfriend could ever dream of being.