Page 21 of Avery

"Are you an actual idiot, or do you just pretend to be one to irritate me?"

Holoth means the question good-naturedly, but it's not the first time in the last week I've been called an idiot. I don't know what every Rytharian has against me, but I'm an intelligent life form. More intelligent than plenty of them, considering I pilot that ship and take care of it and repair it, mostly on my own.

I've never been a stupid male, not when I was younger and learning how to create my own explosives, and definitely not now that I am successful in creating explosives and piloting whole ships.

"Why's everyone assuming I'm a stupid male?" I ask, my hiss coming out stronger than I mean it to. "Stupid Phial and his stupid decisions. He's such an idiot. Idiot male, stupid male. Why? For what reason?"

Holoth's eyes go wide, his hands coming up as if to show he's no danger to me. I know he's not he's been my best friend for years, but that doesn't mean I'm not hurt by how many people have called me stupid recently.

Holoth shakes his head. His hands stay up as he waits for me to finish ranting. I turn away from him, my hands on my hips, my feathers sticking up.

"I didn't mean anything bad by it," Holoth says, waiting to make sure I'm not going to hiss at him some more before continuing. "I don't know who else has been calling you stupid, but I can go have a chat with them."

What Holoth means is he will take care of it in the way Rytharians are good at, fighting. As much as I would love for someone to fight Jia, it wouldn't be fair for it to be a male so much larger than her. No, I'll need to recruit a female to do it for me, so it's a fair fight. Maybe Helna, Holoth's sister, will offer. She's a vicious female.

"Jia called me an idiot the other day." I wave my hand in the air, turning back around to face Holoth. "It's nothing. We don'tsee eye to eye on anything, but it's fine. Why do you think I'm an idiot?"

Holoth's brows progressively grow closer and closer to one another as I talk. When I end with a question, instead of letting him ask about my strained relationship with Jia, he looks more like he wants to return to the first part of what I said instead of just telling me why he thinks I'm stupid.

I tap my foot, my claws digging into the soft grass underneath my feet as I do so. I'm too agitated, and my claws are almost fully extended everywhere.

"I was only trying to say you should ask Avery to copilot for you. She's stuck on the ship anyway. You might as well make good use of her."

I am making good use of her.

I cough back the thought, surprised at myself for even thinking it. No way, no how, would I ever utter that to anyone who knows both of us. Especially not someone who I don't want looking at Avery as anything other than a friend. It takes me a second to compose myself after that little thought of being with Avery surfaces in my mind.

"We're taking her back to Earth," I remind Holoth.

"Yeah, and K'Vella only wanted a baby." He shoots me a wink that has me frowning. He throws his head back to laugh and cups my shoulder. "You should offer her the job. Maybe she wants it, maybe she doesn't. Either way, it'll beat having Jovi be copilot."

Holoth isn't wrong about it being a better option than Jovi. Really, a stone sitting in the copilot chair might be more helpful than Jovi sitting there. I run my tongue over my teeth, going over the merits of having Avery as my copilot.

Pros: she's not Jovi, she's fairly intelligent as far as I can tell, she's easy to get along with, and maybe this will help us spendmore together to get over whatever weirdness has come up since we kissed for a solid two hours a few days ago.

Cons: I might spend more time looking at her than is deemed appropriate.

Okay, so the pros outweigh the cons by a large margin.

Holoth pats my shoulder, somehow realizing that he's given me enough to think about, and I'm not going to spiral even further down about everyone calling me stupid recently.

He's walking away from me, back toward the house he shares with K'Vella, when he turns around. "You should ask Jia why she thinks you're stupid. She cares for the females a lot. If she doesn't like you, it's because you did something to hurt one of them."

My lips turn downward, my eyes narrow, and my nose scrunches. I've done nothing to hurt one of the females she cares for. The worst I've done is reject the advances of some of the Rytharian females who wanted to see what two cocks stretching them would feel like, but that wouldn't have hurt any of them.

No, this must be some misunderstanding. I stand in place a moment longer, deciding whether or not to go and clear this up with Jia now or another time. A ping on my comm tablet alerts me that Avery's done with her alone time.

Just like that, any thoughts of anything other than being near her are gone. I'll deal with the Jia misunderstanding another time. Today, I'll spend the rest of the day lazing on top of the nest dome, waiting for Avery to decide that things shouldn't be awkward between us anymore.

eleven

Avery

There are about a million blinking lights, all flashing at differing intervals across the navigation pit. I try not to let it all overwhelm me, but my eyes must be saucers as my brain tries to compute how I'm ever going to understand what any of this means.

When Phial asked me if I'd want to be his copilot, I jumped at the opportunity. Things have been weird since we kissed.

Maybe it's because I can't see him without thinking about all of the things he said he wanted to do to me, and I don't want to be caught not in the room when I'm soaking through my underwear and leaving a wet spot on my dress. It's a little gross, and something Jia's promised me will lessen as soon as I start getting intimate with someone. Right now, my body's in overdrive, wanting to fornicate, and it'll keep being like that until I give it what it wants.

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