Wyst

by J. A. Hornbuckle

  It was true he didn’t know her very well and had cowardly avoided her company since their disastrous attempt to become lovers, but he’d watched and listened as she interacted with others. So he wasn’t at all surprised by her retort. And why don’t you try and guess which finger I’m holding up, asshole? I’m not going anywhere with a douche-bag like you!

  Wyst couldn’t help his laughter even though he was probably courting another temper tantrum by giving voice to his humor. In an effort to deflect it, he quickly continued as he zipped his bag. Leah will need your help, pixie. We cannot let her give birth alone with only Rykhan to help.

  Luckily his specific thought did the impossible by allowing her to acquiesce while maintaining her pride. Because the next mental echo through their connection had to do with ensuring she had every warrior’s cellphone number programmed.

  One thing was for certain, the next few days of shared travel wouldn’t be boring.

  Chapter Two

  In the weeks I was around the Picari warriors, the aliens sent to Earth to secure brides so they could work the whole be-fruitful-and-multiply mojo in order to replenish their planets, weird was my new version of norm. I mean, I was surrounded by a group of guys who were hotter than any Chippendale or Thunder From Down Under troop, smarter than any of the scientists or engineers secluded in a think-tank university and more caring than any new-age, environmentally conscious dudes I’d ever had the pleasure of meeting.

  In a word, the men occupying the house in the too-expensive-to-be-believed portion of Phoenix called Troon North, were the definition of perfect on almost every level. That was, until you got to know them—the individuality of each hunk in residence. Then they went from hot to hell-on-wheels smokin’.

  Hunks who, outside of Leah, were my best friends.

  All except for Wyst.

  Yeah.

  No, Wyst definitely wasn’t my favorite person and hadn’t been for awhile. Not since we’d mutually discovered a problem in getting our jiggy on. Something that concluded well before ‘tab A’ made it to ‘slot B’. And especially since we somehow, in some way did something that triggered our ability to share thoughts.

  It was an added feature we both hated.

  But I wasn’t Wyst’s favorite brand of ice cream either, so it was kind of ironic Bronsyn ordered the two of us to follow my pregnant bestie and her man, Rykhan. All the warriors said Leah and Rykhan were true and legitimate mates, whatever that meant. I only knew my BFF found the man of her dreams and had his bun in her oven. Because their little bundle of joy was a human-alien hybrid, conventional medical care was out of the question.

  Thus my inclusion into the road trip.

  ‘Auntie Pam to the rescue’ was my bolstering thought, although what I knew about childbirth was close to zilch. I was counting on using most of the ‘Pam and Wyst road-trip’ to research everything the ‘Net contained about birth in order to help Leah when the time came.

  If only I was making the journey with anyone other than Wyst!

  It wasn’t so much he was a bad guy, not at all. More like everything he said or did simply rubbed me the wrong way to the point I couldn’t stand to be around him for very long. And the thought of traveling with him, just the two of us in a car for the next four or five days? Uh-uh, not something I would’ve chosen if given a vote.

  At least he held his tongue and somehow shielded his thoughts from me during the drive back to my place, even though I still had trouble being in a car that drove itself. To the band of warriors, Earth was a crazy place. Nothing was familiar to them and between all the human laws and cultural differences between my species and theirs, learning to drive was a huge hurdle.

  So Arbrynt, mechanical genius that he was, made some modifications and did some programming until…Viola! Each vehicle in their eight-car garage operated without a driver. No steering needed, no having to remember the speed limit or even calculating when to brake. Nope, all you did was enter the address of where you wanted to go into the GPS-like system and then sit back to enjoy the ride.

  That is, if you weren’t in the presence of a man who made you itch in all the wrong places.

  “This is where you live?” Wyst’s voice interrupted my stewing thoughts and at his disbelieving tone, I turned to him. He was standing in the vee of the opened car door, looking around the parking lot and scowling at the two-story structure in front of us.

  Unbuckling my seatbelt, I deliberately tried to keep all expression off my face and out of my voice. “Yeah, why? Isn’t good enough for you?” Compared to the warrior house on Troon North, my place was pretty dismal. But it was cheap and located in a decent area.

  He didn’t answer but I caught a whiff of a thought from him as I hopped out of the car. One that ended on the words, ‘not fit for male nor beast’. The bastard!

  Not wanting to begin another argument, I simply replied, “The sooner we get my stuff, the faster we can be on our way.” Our eyes caught as I walked around him and made for the stairs, carefully keeping my feelings to myself, as I mentally reviewed what was in my closet in order to pack. I only had a vague notion of where South Dakota actually was, all I knew is that was north of Arizona. And north to my way of thinking equaled ‘cold’. And everybody knew an Arizonan winter was the stuff of dreams compared to all the other states north of its borders.

  Unlocking the deadbolt on my apartment door, I reached in and flipped the switch turning on the lights of my living room. “There’s a cooler on the bottom shelf of the pantry. Why don’t you load it up with ice, water and the juice boxes in my refrigerator? I think I even have some cheese and crackers and granola bars in the pantry. Go ahead and put them in a carrier bag and we can take those too.”

  I didn’t bother to see if Wyst understood what I said since I was racing down the short hall to my room. His very posture told me he was anxious to get on the road and since he wasn’t the most patient of men, I knew I only had a short window to pack as much as humanly possible to last me for an indefinite time in someplace which got snow. Dragging out my largest suitcase, I immediately dumped the entire contents of my underwear and pajama drawers into it without caring about keeping my formally tidy piles neat. Throwing my mirrored closet door wide, my hands shook as I reached for the stepstool I kept tucked inside before grabbing at the piles of jeans stacked on the top shelf. Tossing them on top of the first layer, I flew back to the closet to snag a handful of my fancier tops.

  Remembering it was going to be cold, as in very cold where we were going, I went back to my drawers and grabbed an arm full of thermals and long-sleeved T-shirts. When I dumped them on top of all the other clothes spilling out of my luggage I wondered if I could fit anything else in.

  Shit! Shoes! I needed shoes. And I thought I did well in only packing six pair. Well, six pairs of heels, two flats and two pairs of boots.

  “Are you about done?” I looked up to find Wyst standing in the doorway, his eyes going over every inch of my bedroom. Although his face showed no emotion, I assumed he was giving it the same assessment as he’d given the outside of my apartment building.

  I went back to the floor my closet and grabbed my cosmetic case. “Yeah, just about. If you could get my bag closed, I’ll start packing up my bathroom and make up.” But by the time I made it to the doorway he still hadn’t moved to the point I had to turn to the side and squeeze by him. Making my move awkward and jarring my already unsettled nerves. Or was it because as I passed, the tips of my breasts brushed against the hard muscles of his abdomen? Muscles I’d had the distinct pleasure in viewing uncovered and admired with trembling fingertips.

  By the time my cosmetic case was full of everything I absolutely had to have just to look and smell human before leaving the house, he was already standing by the front door with the large suitcase zippered and closed, the small red and white cooler and a carrier bag full of what appeared to be bags of chips, small packets of cheese and crackers as well as the granola bars.

  “Good work,” I
offered, willing to give credit where credit was due. And what I considered as a reward for talking nice, Wyst carried a heavy suitcase, the cooler as well as the cosmetic case down the two flights of stairs to the parking lot. Leaving me with just my purse and the carrier bag to schlep after I locked up behind us.

  He even had the passenger door open for me by the time I made it downstairs.

  If this was the guy I was going to travel with, maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I originally envisioned. Because when I first met him, he’d been sweet, gentlemanly and even funny. It was only later I discovered he could be a complete and total butt-faced, shit-for-personality ass-wipe of the first order. After settling me into the passenger seat and closing the door, Wyst rounded the hood and I wondered about his change in attitude. Was it really predicated on how I treated him? Did I have to play nice in order for him to be nice?

  After starting the car and pulling out up the driveway I told him where to turn in order to get to my bank. Giving me a look of incredulousness, he shook his head in the negative. “We are not going to use your money for this trip.”

  “But I need to pay my way for my everyday expenses,” I argued. “You guys have been paying me for a while now. I have enough to pay my own way.”

  “And you will continue to get paid for your time even while we are traveling. This is just another step in our quest, even though it’s unplanned. The fact remains your friend is mated to a Picari warrior on a mission. Your role is required to succeed in our objective. Therefore you will be paid and we will avail ourselves of the currency Tyshar provided before we left.” Around his buds, Wyst was normally a pretty laid-back guy, always up for a laugh and whose joking nature came out in inappropriate ways. But when he dug in his heels, the man was about as an movable as a effing mountain.

  “Allrighty, then.” It was about the most gracious thing I could think of to reply, but I want to go on record as naming it a load of crap.

  Turning right for the ramp to take us up the 101, Wyst muttered flatly, “I heard that.”

  “If you don’t like what you hear, big guy, then stay out of my freaking head.”

  And that was the last we spoke for more than a few hours.

  I found myself yawning and cradling my head in the long length of seatbelt as we traveled. “How long is this going to take anyway?” Even to my ears my voice sounded sleepy.

  In my peripheral vision I saw him reach for the GPS system as he pushed a couple of buttons. “Another 20 hours and 47 minutes, without stops.”

  “And just when do you plan on stopping, oh fierce warrior?”

  His long bearing sigh hit me hard in the feels. I was being a bitch without provocation and that was unfair. Especially when it was combined with his, “We can stop any time you have a need. Do you require a cleansing unit? Or perhaps food? I have read certain humans cannot sleep in a moving transport. Is that the case with you?”

  Okay, if I was going for bitch-of-the-world, a diva of the worst sort I would’ve captured that crown hands down. But that wasn’t me, not the girl I knew myself to be. How would he know that though? After our disaster in the bedroom, I’d treated Wyst more like an enemy rather than someone I’d once tried to have sex with, even though it didn’t work out.

  And even I knew that wasn’t fair.

  When did we get to be such enemies? I asked myself staring into the blackness outside my passenger window. One failed attempt at sex and we’re hateful strangers?

  I don’t hate you, leca purvya. His voice sounded in my head and although I couldn’t hear any emotion in it, his words alone were enough to make my racing heart calm. Nor do I consider you my enemy.

  “Then why can’t we get along, Wyst?”

  Me speaking aloud seemed to give him permission to do the same. “That I cannot tell you. Perhaps it was because I was embarrassed by the fact we found our bliss individually and with most of our clothes still on. And that is not right, correct? When a male and female decide to have sex, to join their bodies together, orgasms are supposed to be achieved while naked. At least it is from all I have studied.”

  I decided to go with the enjoyable portions of time I’d spent in Wyst’s company. “You know when I met you at the speed dating event? I thought you were hot. You were funny. And when the four of us had dinner together, I considered taking you home with me.”

  I heard a sharp inhale of breath from the driver seat at my words. And in all truth it made me feel bad in admitting it. Perhaps I shouldn’t told him of the attraction I’d immediately felt in his company.

  I looked down at my hands illuminated in the green lights of the dashboard. I needed to remember he was an innocent, new to my planet, to the human race as well as to an American female. A girl totally different than those of his world and probably poles apart from the females he’d studied on his journey to my world. But in order to give myself time to think I chose to address words he’d used I didn’t understand. “What does leca purvya mean, Wyst?”

  “Little flower,” he replied, on a voice filled with an emotion I couldn’t yet read.

  Okay. That was a shock, because I’d taken it as an insult before. Along the lines of ‘supercilious cock-blocker’, or even ‘cock tease’. So much for keeping the good thoughts, right?

  But then I remembered what Leah’d told me, about how Wyst didn’t want to choose a wife until he had one foot on the ramp of the Searcher before going back to his home base. “Can I ask you something else? I’ve heard through the grapevine that all you wanna do is play around. That you’re looking to tap as much ass as you can before choosing a bride. Is that true?”

  My eyes drifted to the windshield and I saw his expression mirrored there, although I was shocked by what I saw. If I was to assign words to describe what was on his face, I would call it shame. Although what he had to feel shameful about didn’t make any sense to me. Because what I’d experienced with him hit the charts of the orgasm of the century, clothed or not. And far be it for me to judge him if he wanted to share his brand of honey with others. Especially since I had no plans to tie myself to one guy either.

  He cleared his throat and opened his mouth a couple of times without any words coming out. Shifting his glance to the side mirrors where I knew he didn’t see anything but blackness since there seem to be no other cars going north at that time of night, I waited to hear what he had to say. “That was my original plan. Candidly, I did not think it was fair for me to zero in on just one girl to take as my forever partner. We are so different as a species, so how would it be if I took her back to Nutrol and found we were completely unsuited in our everyday lives just because I found her body appealing? She would be an immigrant to my world and I would feel responsible for her safety and happiness. But what would be the result of our joining if instead of learning to love one other, our initial lust turned to hate and avoidance?”

  Shit! The man had a point. One I could more than imagine and agree with—mainly because I’d experienced that selfsame thing without even living with any one of the ass-hats I’d considered to be my forever-and-ever dude. So instead of replying truthfully, I went for the humor. “Yeah, that’s the beauty of love. You never know what you’re going to get until reality hits you upside the head.”

  But I wanted to help take him to the truth, at least the one I knew. “Being around someone 24/7 is a whole lot different than just bumping uglies. Yeah, it feels good for a time but in the long run, does she really make you happy? Are you excited to be around her at the end of the day? Is she the one you can whisper your secrets to at the end of the night, knowing your confessions will stay between the two of you when dawn comes?”

  I shook my head because basically I was only giving him my version of what I hoped to achieve a few years down the road. When I finally found the other half of me. “But I’m probably just talking out of my ass.”

  He was quiet for a moment, as if mulling over my words. “I found youI found toI found you extremely attractive as well, when we first met. Y
ou were my first contact with a human female and I found you interesting, exciting and challenging. But I’ve also discovered you are very, very wise in the way of how males and females relate on your planet.”

  My heart swelled at his praise, which was kinda shit considering how I’d been avoiding him after our…you know, the-night-that-didn’t-happen. And much to my chagrin, I pressed the issue. “So if have you sworn off of human girls, or just me?”

  He seemed hesitant to reply but eventually answered. “I don’t know. Actually, I don’t know much about human females except for what I’ve seen on the internet. And experienced with you and Leah.”

  Crap, crap and crapidity crap! I was supposed to exemplify the human female species? Oh hell to the no! “You can’t use me as an example, Wyst. Even among my own kind I’m kind of an enigma. Not part of the norm, okay?”

  “I don’t understand,” he muttered, staring out onto the road as if it held the secrets of the universe.

  God, how to answer? I mean it was great to think that he considered me a woman of value, even though I knew better. Not only was I far from the physical description of a man’s dream, my personality was too prickly for most. Yeah, I had more issues than tissues when all was said and done. “When it comes to a lifetime partner, if you really knew me, you wouldn’t even include me in your list.”

  My summation brought his eyes to me before they went back to the road. “Both Leah and Bronsyn think you sell yourself short. But here’s what I know…”

  I caught my breath in on and inhale and held it, because I so did not want to hear what he had to say.

  “You, my Pam, are scared. Afraid to choose the right man, thinking you will never be the right woman to complete him. To the point where you find fault in everything he does, everything he says and discount him out of hand, not because of who he is but who you believe yourself to be.”