Page 52 of Time Traveling Space Bastards

I was bouncing off the walls and I couldn’t leave Big Daddy. It wasn’t just that I was about to leave the entire galaxy. I’d never even left the United States before. My parents didn’t trust me in an entirely different country because yeah, I probably would have fucked off and ran away. We didn’t actually go on any vacations after they decided I was crazy.

The only time we left the state was to visit my grandparents, and they were just as awful as my parents. My grandparents didn’t think I was schizophrenic, they just thought my parents didn’t beat me enough. I’d have to sit there while they lectured my parents about how a few well-placed spankings would set me straight. Sometimes, I had to leave the state because they were trying out some new treatment, but never vacations.

I didn’t have enough money to travel after I ran. I was barely getting by as it was. But they were about to take me somewhere they could bring home the ability to grow coffee beans and cacao on their planet and that was nearly as awesome as time traveling.

I knew it wouldn’t be a vacation. I probably wouldn’t even be able to go shopping just in case my face got picked up on any cameras when I was supposed to be dead. But maybe I could step outside Big Daddy and said I went there.

Enix was back with the e-reader before I knew it. I knew they wanted to buy my books, but honestly, I didn’t want them to do that. I was going to load them onto it from my laptop. When the cops eventually connected Baxter Holmes to my birth name and contacted my parents, they might eventually find my publishing account.

They weren’t going to read the actual books, but they’d know enough from the blurb that they were about my aliens. They’d think I wrote them in a haze of schizophrenia and take them down. I didn’t know if they could Yoink them off a device several lightyears away when my parents took the books down, but I really didn’t want to risk it.

I had them loaded pretty quickly and then I turned to look at everyone.

“Is this it? Is this when we leave this planet behind?”

“Almost,” Kuka said. “Enix found out where we can buy seedlings. There’s a farm in Costa Rica where we can buy both. We’ll be stopping there and then going home.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to Costa Rica for the first time and I’m not even going to get to enjoy it,” I moaned.

“Why not?” Torrek demanded. “I’ll kill anyone who prevents you from enjoying anything.”

“I’m supposed to be dead. Chances are slim, but we can’t have the cops in Alaska seeing me in Costa Rica.”

“I’ll make it happen,” Enix said. “When we get to the farm, I’ll scan for cameras and if I need to keep you off of them, I will.”

“That’s because you’re amazing. All of you are. You’re more perfect than I could have written you and that’s saying a lot because book boyfriends are hard to live up to.”

Yeah, they probably only understood half of that because I doubted they read much smut. Because smut was universal and I knew they had it on their planet. But they still liked that because Torrek started that rumble in his chest that he made when he was content.

“Okay, so let’s make a pitstop to this Costa Rica and then we can leave this galaxy,” Omi said.

Honestly, I should have been terrified, but I wasn’t. I was looking forwards to it.