Page 19 of Alien on the Moon

“Do you know how many of the Thryal terraforming projects succeed?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know the exact percentage.”

“Half. Only half of all Thryal terraforming projects lead to a successful crop yield, and those that do are far too expensive to maintain. Growing a crop is not like keeping a potted plant. It needs a complete environment for it to thrive and provide any real yield, not just more nitrogen in the soil and carbon dioxide in the air.”

“But a complete overhaul? Do you know how expensive that is?”

“Probably less expensive than a famine,” she snapped. And then her stomach lurched. If she kept on this trajectory, their conversation would end with Rylan storming out of the room and out of her life, muttering “know-it-all bitch” as he did so.

It happened with her first real boyfriend, Mike, before a robotics team match. She’d noticed a flaw in his code for their entry and tried to fix it. Mike told her to leave it alone, and it turned into a fight. Eventually, she gave in and left it alone.

They lost the match, and the ensuing I-told-you-so argument had been even worse. He broke up with her and turned the entirerobotics team against her, telling them that she’d intentionally sabotaged the code for their robot.

It wasn’t true, of course. He wrote bad code, and he didn’t appreciate that his girlfriend called him out on it.

But that and a decade of other miserable experiences had taught her one thing. People didn’t like it when she told them they were wrong. She only ever wanted to help, but no matter what, she would somehow insult them.

Before yesterday, with Rylan, she felt safe being a bit snappish, but things were different now. Weren’t they? They were together, and guys didn’t like it when their girlfriends snapped at them. Even when those girlfriends knew they were right.

“I-I mean,” she stammered, her heart racing. If she didn’t watch her tone, he would leave her just like everyone else. Everyone but her sisters, and sometimes she worried they were obligated by familial ties to stay with her.

“You’re not wrong,” he said, his eyes narrowing in thought. He glanced around the room. Following his gaze, she clocked that people were listening.

He nodded to a nearby conference room. “Let’s talk in private, okay?”

She nodded mutely, feeling a bit like a prisoner on death row. Yesterday, their disagreements had been so easy, but now, the threat of rejection loomed large over her head.

The logical part of her knew that one rude statement wouldn’t be enough to get him to break up with her, and if it was, he wasn’t worth it anyway. She could tell herself that all she wanted, but the animal part of her brain that was wounded by rejection still flinched at the threat of being kicked away.

Closing her eyes, she practiced her box breathing, something Carmen taught her whenever her mind would get away from her, wild as a runaway horse.In for four, hold for four, out for four, repeat…

Rylan was just a guy—a hot, brilliant, and kind guy, but still a guy. She was there to help prevent a famine, not date Thryal’s most eligible genius. If being honest about what they needed to do caused him to reject her, she could live with that if it meant millions more would also survive.

“Are you okay?” He looked at her with such concern that it made her heart beat like a jackhammer.

She crossed her arms, suddenly feeling childish. “I’m fine.”

Raising a skeptical brow, he pulled up a chair and sat down. “Is that why you look like you’re on the verge of a panic attack?”

Despite herself, she chuckled. He was blunt, and she appreciated that. It took a lot of guesswork out of their interactions. And if he was being brutally honest, she guessed that she could be the same.

Grabbing a chair for herself, she sat down with a sigh. “Just another weird, neurotic hangup. I like you. A lot. And most of the time, when I like someone, they eventually decide that I’m too much and leave. I guess when I snapped at you, it made me panic about potentially driving you away by being a know-it-all.”

He smiled and took her hand. “You could never be too much.”

“That’s easy for you to say now. Give it some time.” She sighed. “As much as I enjoyed last night, it really made things weird.”

“Well, do you want to go back to being friends?”

“No,” she said much too quickly. When he shot her a smug look, she laughed sheepishly. “I like you a lot, and that’s the problem. It makes me afraid to disagree with you because people seem to take disagreement as insults.”

“I’ve been told that I have the same problem. It’s the body language. I’m not very good at reading it.” He hummed thoughtfully. “Here’s a proposal. When we disagree, I’ll tell you when I need to take a break or you’ve crossed a line. And you’ll do the same for me.”

“Please do,” she said, the tension leaving her body. “Thank you.” He understood. Hell, he understood her better than her own sisters sometimes.

“So, back to what you were saying about how our entire system needs an overhaul.”

He tapped a few buttons on the conference table and the holographic plans for the terraforming project appeared. “Why do you think this?”

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