Page 19 of When She's Handy

It’s nice to wash and chop veg and talk with her as I work. I’ve been so solitary all my life that it’s difficult at first, to talk to another person in the midst of preparing food. But when I see how intently she’s listening, and when I elicit a tiny chuckle from her, I’m addicted. I end up rambling about my first experience with fresh veg while on a farming planet, and how it changed me.

Melody puts away the rest of the things I’ve brought and then exclaims over the mugs. “Oh, I love these! Perfect for tea!”

Huh. That shopkeep was right.

Once the noodles and veg are put into two bowls, I hand her one and a pair of eating sticks. She takes the bowl from me with a tiny smile of pleasure and then holds it out. “To friendship.”

I echo her movements. “To friendship.”

We stand in the kitchen and slurp our food, and she makes appreciative sounds as she eats. “So tell me about your horns,” she says between sucking down noodles.

“My horns?”

She waves her sticks at me. “I’m learning about you. Tell me about your horns. How’d you lose them?”

Ah. I grin, feeling warm and pleased at how easy this has been. “It was during the Threshian War…”

CHAPTER

TWELVE

Weeks Later

MELODY

“I am king,” Brux announces, waving his hand at the checker piece he just moved to my end of the board. “Make it so.”

“You can just say ‘king me’ like any other normal person,” I mutter, because I’m a sore loser. “You don’t have to be so pretentious about it.”

“Yes, but when I say it like this, it bothers you more.”

I snort and put a black piece atop his black king, ‘making it so.’ “You’re too good at this game. We need to play something else.”

“I am open to suggestion.”

“Of course you are. It’s because you’re good at everything,” I grumble. I’m not really mad, though. Peeved that I can’t win against him, sure. But Brux is highly competitive and loves every single game we’ve tried, from poker to checkers to Slapjack, to memory matching, where we just flip over cards and pair them. He’s clever and attentive, and that means he’s far too good at everything we’ve tried. It’s fun to try to find something he’s not great at, though. In the last few weeks, I’ve made card decks, game boards, and even a terrible set of jacks. It’s allowing me to stretch my creativity with my scrap metal, and I’ve made a couple of extra game boards for Aithar and his friends at the cantina.

Not that I need extra work. I’ve got someone that’s asked me to make them a rolling refrigerated cart, two more toasters to make, and a woman that runs a couple of stills wants me to help her streamline her business. There’s a woman that lives on a distant farm that sent a request for a human repairman, and as the human repairwoman of the area, I’m going up there tomorrow. As usual, there’s enough to keep me busy for months. Work has never been the problem.

It’s time. It’s always time.

Because every day that passes is another day that I’m aware that Brux might be leaving soon. We talk daily about everything, and he’s mentioned that his job is going to be wrapping up soon.

Okay, maybe we don’t talk about everything, because I haven’t told him just now miserable the thought makes me.

I move a checker piece, not paying attention to where I’m going, really. My thoughts are on the next few days. At some point, one of us is going to have to bring up the fact that he’s leaving. And…then what?

“That was a terrible move,” Brux comments, swiftly jumping my piece with one of his kings and collecting it. “Are you giving up?”

I scoff. “No.”

He gives me a dubious look, leaning back in the rickety metal chair that I’d made from leftover pipe. “You normally play badly, but not this badly.”

I gasp. “You shit! I do not!”

A wide grin curves his mouth and I know he was just saying it to mess with me. “Say what bothers you, then. You know I’ll listen.”

I purse my lips, eye the game board and my lone checker remaining, and move it to a benign space. I jump to my feet and head to my tiny kitchen. “Where are those new snacks I bought?”

---