Page 15 of Invasive Species (Outcasts of Oloria #2)

“For… what you've been through.” I sit next to him, dragging my mug closer to me like a shield.

“You’ve done nothing to apologize for in that regard. It is I who…” He holds out the damp and battered cylinder of my drawings. “I should not have dismissed your ideas.”

My breath catches. He held onto these while he was being punished.

Taking them out of habit, I turn the papers over and over in a crocodile death roll. “It's fine, I'm used to it.”

“It… it's not fine,” Gara states.

Does he think I'm going to punish him? “Apology accepted, if you prefer.”

His hand takes the edge of the papers firmly but gently, smoothing them out with firm strokes.

He's clearly agitated, but as he tugs out the creases, I notice his fingers sparkle like ice in the light.

They have very small scales on them, so tiny I never noticed that detail before, but this close they make an interweaving pattern.

Do they continue all the way to his palms?

“I don't prefer,” he blurts, bringing me back to the present. “What do you mean, you're used to such treatment?”

“You’ve seen what I do. Starting stuff, not finishing it. Always coming up with ideas with no follow through. That makes people think my thoughts are… throw-away things.”

“And are they?”

My fingers slow over the pencil marks. “No. But when I have a million of them, they don't all get the attention they deserve.”

I wait for his response. Somehow, the quiet with Gara isn't as bad as normal quiet. I can stand his silence, because I know he's taking what I'm saying absolutely seriously.

He gestures to the crumpled roll. “Your ideas. They aren’t… bad. ”

“Yeah, they’re good. I got some… inspiration.” Hm. Because now I'm thinking, where did that inspiration come from? Could it be big, green and grumpy?

“But you just said they were to be thrown away.” Gara huffs out a breath, nostrils flaring, and I almost imagine he's like a scaly dragon breathing fire. “I'll never understand… never mind.”

He's gone all stiff again. Slowly he reaches out for the papers, watching me from the corners of his eyes like I'll pounce. He unrolls them, studying them, jaw working.

The heat shimmers off him, like he's a mirage. An illusion not just of an alien in my best friend's kitchen, but someone taking my ideas seriously.

“They're good,” he says, so quietly I almost don't catch it. “They shouldn't be discarded or discounted.”

Oh, man.

I fold my arms. “I don't want my ideas to be tossed aside,” I admit. “People just think they are because I have a million a day, but that doesn't mean I don't love each and every one of them.”

He smooths out the paper in his huge hands. “I can help.”

I eye him. He's sincere as far as I can tell, scales changing to dark colors, verdant green as dark as obsidian.

“How?” I ask.

“I'm a healer class of clone. I'm bred to be organized, decisive and make hard calls.”

A clone. “So there's more frowny-faced guys like you on your planet.”

He looks away. He's so thundery all the time, his jaw permanently twitching. His teeth must be ground flat.

“Sorry if that pissed you off. I bounce around subjects all the time and I banter, okay? It's how I talk.”

“You're misdirecting the conversation. It's a defense mechanism,” he counters, then slams that jaw shut again like it's a drawbridge.

I've so had it with this. “Just stop with this stupid ‘she’s got tits so I can't talk back to her’ shit. I don't care if you chew me out when you're angry with me, but I hate you walking on eggshells around me.”

He blinks, then picks up his foot to look underneath. “I haven't walked on any eggshells. Only shot a chicken.”

I screw my hands up into Ellen’s threadbare gown. If I damage it, I don't have the money to replace it, but right now I don't care. Give me strength with this guy.

“That would be funny, but I know it's a language barrier. Or, more like an idiom barrier. Just… be honest with me. I'm not going to bite your head off.”

“Humans can do that?”

I glance over the table at him. Okay, now there's a smile playing at the corner of his lips. It softens his severe face, makes that tense jaw relax into chiseled beauty. He is really handsome, even when he's frowning up a storm.

“Take your head off, then,” I allow, and his nostrils flare. “Wait. Do women do that on your world?”

His gaze drops to the battered table. “Females control what we do. We can be killed on a whim, or thrown away in a fit of pique.”

My stomach goes cold despite the hot chocolate. No wonder he was so terrified to come tell me about Old Mae. But he came and told me anyway, fearing death or worse.

He’s really brave.

“Were you thrown away?” I ask gently.

He flinches, a ripple of crimson flickering across his chest and shoulders. “Yes,” he admits quietly.

Does he mean all of them together, or him specifically? I'm hyper focused on him and only him. His face is guarded, a haunted look in his eyes. Shit, there's trauma there to unpack .

“I… might know how that feels,” I offer. “Not as bad, it's not, like, my life… but people tend to dismiss me and my work.” It's so hard to say, it tastes like iron and ash in my mouth. It pales against his problems, though.

He glances up at me, and this time his gaze holds. Green like the grass of Wales, emerald and shining.

Holding up the plans, he promises, “Well, I won't. Never again.”

That feels…nice, like the cold training is circulating in my brain, making it sharp and fuzzy at the same time, but there's still a niggle.

“What's changed?” I press. “I still have a vagina.”

“A…” His eyes bulge as his nanites or whatever translate that for him.

I giggle at his opening and closing mouth.

“No, no,” he manages. He unfurls the papers, his thick finger sliding across my pencil lines with nimble dexterity.

“These here, this detail right there, it…

it all works, and it feels like El-len. How do you do that when it's mere walls and corners, and how do you get it to come across on something as primitive as paper?” He sounds genuinely flabbergasted.

“Magic,” I say sagely. “Welsh magic.”

He scowls. “No, it's your skill.”

And oh shit, I get a high just as good as one from the cold lake.

“Thanks.” I lean back against the counter. There's a new scent in here tickling my nose, a woody tone, like sandalwood.

His color strobes briefly into nuclear reactor green. Is that his happy color?

I like it a lot.