Page 26 of Mated on Live

“Are you nervous about being matched to me?” He asked. Biting his tongue immediately after. That question hadn’t been on the list he meant to ask. It just came out instead of the wrap up he had meant to begin.

Sophie nodded. “I am. This isn’t a usual relationship on Earth. We are still coming to terms with the idea of mates. To be suddenly given mine was unexpected, but not unwelcome.” She smiled. “I’m nervous. But in the kind of way you feel before a roller coaster. You know you’re going to be taken for a ride, but you also know it’s going to be exciting and worth the journey. I’m eager to ride this coaster with you, Serval. Whatever twists and turns it might bring.”

He could only grin back at her. Her cheeks had darkened. A blush. So cute. As was the way she ducked her head, pushing her hair behind her ear. She was precious.

His olules moved in their bind, eager to try to reach for her. Desperate to try to make the bond that eluded them.

Sophie’s eyes turned back up to him, and he cleared his throat, looking away as he realized he had been staring at her for an awkwardly long time.

“Thank you,” he said, grateful all his years of reporting kept him from stuttering. “For letting me interview you. I hope we have a good follow up soon to report to the people.”

Sophie beamed. The smile so bright, it caressed along his skin like the rays from a sun. “Thank you for letting me do this. I can’t wait to give everyone good news.”

He turned to his main camera and began his sign off. “I’d like to thank everyone for watching today. For more news, reviews, and interviews, join One Action News. And to learn more about True Match, you can subscribe to my channel specifically. Thank you. And… that’s wrapped,” he said, gesturing to the bots. The fleet broke their dome at the familiar hand signal and flew back to their case.

Immediately, Sophie relaxed back into her seat, laughing. “That was perfect. I don’t think either of us stuttered even once! That editing is going to be so easy. Do you do your editing yourself?”

“No. I send the raw footage to Nox. He has editors that do all that.”

“Yeah, I had an editor for a while, but it turned out she was doing crack on the side, and when she got caught, she had to go into rehab, and I never replaced her.”

“Doing… crack?” Serval repeated, completely baffled about how one did a crack.

He didn't get any further information, however, as Sophie was already up, moving her chair to sit beside him.

It was her turn to do his interview. Which involved her setting up her archaic human camera – which was only a camera and couldn’t even hover – onto a tripod.

“I asked my followers to submit questions for you,” she was saying as she worked. “So, I’ll ask you their questions, and you just answer them if you want. If not, that’s fine. I can edit anything out. Or we can laugh about it, not answer it, and I’ll leave it in. Just be natural, okay?”

He remained sitting as he had before, one leg over the other, upright and formal in his chair. Meanwhile, Sophie unclipped her cape and tossed it aside, revealing the full majesty of her chest, uncovered and sparkling like she had put glitter on it. She fluffed up her hair as she sat down. This time, she didn't cross her legs but spread her feet, keeping her knees together, as she perched on the edge of her seat, like she was about to jump up and run away.

“Ready?” She asked, pulling out her archaic human phone.

It was already integrated into his systems so she could access the communication relays that put her back in contact with Earth. Luckily, Serval hadn’t had to deal with the headache of setting that up. It had all been done on the transport ship that brought her here. He had just needed to transfer all that programming onto his system.

“I’m ready,” he assured her, switching back to English.

“Okay.” She cleared her throat, looking at the camera again. A brief pause, a second for her to begin the video in editing later, and she took off-

“Hey, sweeties! It’s me, Sophie, coming to you with another episode of SophServe. Today, we’re doing a Q&A! I haven’t done one of these since my one million subscriber mark,” she looked at him, as though cuing him to speak, but he didn't have anything to say. She covered immediately, facing back towards the camera. “So, everyone, I know you saw him on the live stream, but let me introduce you to him officially. This is Serval, my mate and, I guess… boyfriend?”

Serval frowned, concerned. “A juvinile? I assure you, Sophie, I am of age and have been for some time.”

She started laughing, grabbing onto his arm. “No. No. It’s just a title for someone who isn’t yet a husband but more than a friend.”

“That makes absolutely no sense.”

“Yeah. Sounded way cooler in high school.”

“What?”

“Getting off track. We have questions!” She held up her phone. “So, I told everyone that I was going to be doing this, and I said they could ask you whatever they wanted. I’m going to be screening some of them though. Like, this one, redizhurr92.” She looked up from the paper at her camera through her lashes. “Shame on you. Such language. What that looks like is my business. Other than that, free for all. You ready?” She looked at Serval expectantly.

“I suppose.”

She snickered. “You don’t have to be so enthusiastic.”

Serval blinked, confused. He thought his response had been measured.

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