by Sonia Nova
His job obliged, and he quickly earned a good reputation with his colleagues because he would always take on extra shifts that they didn’t want. The work was steady, if not as active as a military job would be. There wasn’t much dangerous activity around the buildings, but Garr patrolled fastidiously even so.
For some reason though, even with how busy he was, he couldn’t get Shea out of his mind. At night, he would often think of her, and whenever he’d catch a whiff of her in the corridor, his cock would harden.
A couple of times over the next months, he spotted Shea going about her business. It was only to be expected, since she lived in his building.
She always smiled and said a cheerful hello to him when she saw him. Garr nodded in response. He wanted to say something nice to her, but didn’t know what to say. It didn’t help that his cock had a bad habit of rising whenever he was in her presence. He often had to leave hurriedly just to hide his condition.
Garr didn’t know what to think of the encounters – or his body’s reaction to her. It made him only want to lose himself in his work even more. In something familiar and not the unfamiliar sensations coursing through his body. Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t see her often. She evoked strange feelings in him.
Garr considered going to a doctor about his strange affliction, but the thought of being stripped and examined was extremely uninviting. He’d had enough of that when he had been an experiment of the Krezilans. Besides, asking a doctor to examine his cock just seemed wrong. Surely, they wouldn’t want to be bothered by his petty problem.
In fact, he’d heard that talking about such things in public was frowned upon on Earth, and if he did so, he would be likely to be sent back to the psych ward. He hadn’t been there in ages, not since the first years since he’d been freed, and he didn’t want to end up there again.
No, he had just gotten a job at the security company. He was doing good. He couldn’t afford to risk it all now. He had a job that he was good at, and he was being useful. It was all he could’ve ever hoped for. As long as he was working, he was okay.
All he had to do was stay away from Shea.
Chapter 3
Shea
December
Shea picked Lila up from school at one, slightly earlier than their usual time. Since this was the last day of school before the Christmas holidays, they were ending early.
Shea was proud of how well her daughter had adapted. Lila loved school and already had loads of friends. It was also amazing having Hazel nearby again. True, Hazel was often busy with little Maya Zerel – as they’d named their newborn daughter – but they still got to see each other loads more than they would have when they were living in separate cities.
It almost felt like the old times again, before her divorce.
Evan, of course, hadn’t been pleased about the move at first, but he had eventually settled for Shea’s word that she would bring Lila to visit during the holidays. Right now, they had a truce. Shea had even agreed to invite Evan to her parents’ Christmas dinner – for Lila’s sake.
Last Christmas had been a mess with the recent divorce and Hazel’s disappearance, and Shea just wanted Lila to have a special holiday. If it meant inviting her jerk of an ex, so be it. She still wasn’t sure how she was going to tolerate Evan, but she was going to try her best for her daughter.
She’d drawn the line at inviting Tiffany, though.
It had taken her a long time to fully recover from her and Evan’s brutal divorce, but she finally thought she was over him.
Despite all the effort she was making on Evan’s behalf though, he still seemed too busy with his new girlfriend and baby to be bothered much with Lila. The thought still rankled, but there was nothing Shea could do about it. She only hoped that when Christmas came, Evan’s focus would be on his first-born daughter.
“How was school, Lila?” she asked as they got into their car.
“It was fun! We made Christmas cards. Look!”
Shea examined the four cards with felt Christmas trees on their fronts. “These are amazing, honey. Who are they for?”
“This one is for you.” She raised the first card up with a grin. “This one is for Aunt Hazel, Uncle Zeriq, and Baby Maya. This one is for Grandma and Grandpa. And this one is for Daddy.” Lila looked sadly at the last card and Shea felt a pinch in her heart.
“I’m sure they’ll love their cards just as much as I love mine. Thank you, sweetie. You can give them to everyone once we get to New York tomorrow.” She placed her card on the dashboard and started driving toward their apartment. “When we get home, how about we make some gingerbread cookies for our neighbors? It could be a nice Christmas gift before we leave.”
“Yes, please!” Lila exclaimed, her eyes round with excitement. “We can give them to Falia!”
Shea smiled. “Yes, we can give them to Falia.”
Falia was a very kind Ekrin woman who had watched Lila more than a few times for Shea when she’d been in a bind. Her boss in this city was nice enough, but he didn’t have children, and didn’t really understand how unpredictable things could be when you were a parent.
Shea definitely wanted to give Falia some gingerbread men, but Garr also hovered on the edge of her thoughts. She only knew his name because he’d mailed her cookie plate back to her, all wrapped up and taped together with several address labels with his information.
It had been the strangest thing. He lived literally next door to her. Surely it would have been easier to just knock on her door.
Garr didn’t seem to like to talk though. Maybe that’s why he had mailed the plate. Even though they’d been living in the same building for nearly half a year, he still hadn’t spoken a single word to Shea. She didn’t think that was out of rudeness though. He certainly acknowledged her when she spoke to him, just not verbally.
Shea couldn’t help but wonder if it was due to his past; she’d heard plenty enough stories from Zeriq to scar her for life, and she hadn’t even been the one to experience those things. Either way, she didn’t want to push him. Although they saw each other rarely, her thoughts strayed toward him a bit too often.
Shea shook her head. She didn’t have time for mysterious neighbors.
Still, it would be nice to give their neighbors gifts. She felt justified in doing it if it wasn’t just Garr.
Once they got home, Shea helped Lila put her school bags and books away. Their apartment was small, but serviceable. Over the past months, they had turned it into a comfortable home for the two of them.
“Alright, let’s make some gingerbread men.”
“Yay!” Lila ran into the kitchen, eager to help.
Shea already had all the ingredients out on the table. Her holiday vacation had started today, and she’d spent most of the day preparing and packing so that they could leave early in the morning for New York and spend the holiday with her family.
Hazel and Zeriq had already left a couple of days ago. They’d initially wanted to wait for Lila to be out of school so they could all drive together, but Shea had told them to go ahead. Her parents would be excited to see Baby Maya again, and there was no real reason for Hazel and Zeriq to wait for them. They would follow behind just fine.
“What’s the first ingredient?” Lila asked excitedly, grabbing the bowl.
“Careful, Lila,” Shea said when she almost toppled over the flour bag. “Here, let’s take a look at the recipe.”
“Why? Can’t we just put everything in?”
“No, honey. We need to know how much of each ingredient to use.”
“Why?”
“So that we can make the cookies taste the way we want.”
“Why?”
“Well, if the cookies don’t taste the way they’re supposed to, they might not be good, and we might not like them. You don’t like eating things that taste bad, do you? Imagine if you tried a bite of one of these gingerbread men, and it turned out to taste like broccoli.”
“Ew!”
; “Exactly. It’s best to follow the recipe, unless we want broccoli-tasting gingerbread men.”
This argument seemed to impress Lila. She carefully checked the ingredients list. Her reading skills were still very basic, but she was improving rapidly.
“See that?” Shea asked. “That says sugar, and it says to add half a cup. Why don’t you fill this cup halfway and then put the sugar in the bowl?”
Lila grabbed the sugar and spilled some of it on the floor, giggling. Sometimes, her daughter could be a handful, but Shea still loved baking with her. She retaliated by putting her hand in the flour bag and putting a dot of flour on her daughter’s nose.
This, of course, resulted in an all-out food fight. By the time they were done, there was flour everywhere. Shea knew that she would have a hectic cleanup job to do when she was finished with the gingerbread men, but it was worth it, seeing Lila’s happy face and hearing her squeals of glee.
As they baked, Shea found herself fantasizing about giving Garr his gingerbread men. She wondered if he had liked her chocolate-chip cookies. She could ask him, of course, but that would force him to talk, and she didn’t want to do that.
“Alright, Lila, these are ready to go in the oven. Time to clean up now.”
“Whyyy?” her daughter groaned, clearly not impressed with this part of baking.
“If the kitchen is this messy later, it’ll make things difficult when I need to cook us dinner. You don’t want flour in your dinner, do you?”
Lila swiped a bit of flour off the counter and tasted it. “Ew. No flour for dinner.”
“Then help me clean it up. Here, take this wet cloth and just wipe it up.”
Lila wiped some flour around on the floor while Shea went around the kitchen, methodically cleaning up, humming slightly under her breath.
Once the countertops were clean, she set to work making the icing while Lila happily smooshed flour all over the floor. The icing was done just as the gingerbread men were ready. Shea put them onto a rack to cool, then got out the jar of bits and bobs she’d bought to decorate them.
She waited until they were cool enough not to hurt Lila’s hands before calling her.
“Lila, we’re ready to do the icing.”
“Yay! Icing!” Lila jumped up from the floor.
“Now, how do you think we should decorate these?”
Lila frowned at the chocolate chips, jelly beans, and licorice laid out before her. “I think they should have hats.”
She proceeded to take five jelly beans and put them onto the first gingerbread man’s head. It certainly wasn’t like gingerbread men Shea had seen before, but she went with it. They had fun putting hats, ties, and shoes on the gingerbread men, as well as some completely random bobbles for decoration.
When Lila was done, Shea took the white icing dispenser and drew thin lines along the gingerbread men, trying to make the decorations make a little more sense by adding some more clothing. The end result was hilarious and had both of them giggling. Shea suspected that she would have been better off leaving the cookies alone. Decorating was not one of her strong suits.
“When can we eat them?” Lila demanded. At least, she was satisfied with how they had turned out.
“These are for the neighbors, remember?” Shea said. “Don’t worry though, we’ll save a few for ourselves.”
“I want to make more cards!” Lila exclaimed, suddenly jumping up from her seat.
“But you already made cards at school.”
“For the neighbors!” Lila said. “I’ll make them for Falia and the silent man.”
Shea cocked an eyebrow at her daughter. “The silent man?”
“The one who looks like Zeriq. He always nods at us, but he never talks.”
Shea was surprised that Garr had made such an impression on Lila, given that they had never interacted in any meaningful way. “What do you think of the silent man?”
“He’s nice! I can tell.”
Shea was truly intrigued now. “How can you tell?”
Lila shrugged. “I can tell.”
“Is it because he helped us carry our things in when we moved here?”
Lila thought for a moment before shaking her head. “No. He’d be nice even if he didn’t do that.”
Children could often be more insightful than adults, but they could also sometimes be plain wrong. Shea wondered which circumstance this was.
“We don’t really have many materials here to make Christmas cards…” Lila started to pout, but Shea quickly added, “But I’m sure we can figure something out. Come, let’s make some cards!”
“Yay!”
Shea got out Lila’s craft box and they quickly started digging through it for a variety of cardboard, glue, paper, glitter, pencils, and random objects to glue onto cards. Shea probably didn’t have the same selection Lila had enjoyed at school and the cardboard was pink and blue instead of green and red, but she was satisfied that they had enough to make some nice cards for the neighbors.
Lila took the colored pencils and started drawing. Shea recognized Falia by her purple skin and pointed ears. Garr was similarly easy to recognize by his gray skin and horns. Lila stuck decorations on the cards and added a liberal application of glitter. She couldn’t write yet, so Shea filled in the cards with generic ‘Merry Christmas’ messages.
It was getting late by the time they were done, and Shea didn’t want to be rude by intruding on people’s evenings.
“How about we give these and the gingerbread men out tomorrow? Your glitter glue needs time to dry anyway. We can do it just before we leave for New York.”
“No, I want to do it now!”
“Sweetie, this isn’t dry. We aren’t going to get glitter glue over everyone’s hands. People won’t like that.”
“Why?” Lila pouted.
“Because then their hands will be sticky, and make everything they touch sticky.”
“Why?”
“That’s just how glue works. It sticks.”
“Why?”
Shea took a deep breath. Lila’s questions could get exasperating at times. “I’ll tell you later, honey. Right now, it’s time for your bath and then we can have dinner.”
Lila whined, but Shea was resolute. Once Lila was in bed, she put the gingerbread men in a tin and cleaned up the mess from the card making. She went to bed thinking about the next day and the long drive ahead.
New York was nearly ten hours away with all the breaks they would need to take, and Shea had never enjoyed long drives. Which is exactly why she was determined to make it in one day. One day of suffering was enough. She didn’t want to make it two. They would wake up early and make it to her parents’ house in New York by the evening.
The long journey wasn’t the only thing that occupied her thoughts though. Before they left tomorrow, they would give their neighbors the cookies, and in the case of the lucky ones, cards.
Shea wondered how Garr would react. Would he simply nod as usual, or would the gift pull a word of thanks out of him?
Shea knew she shouldn’t try to push him to speak when he clearly didn’t want to, but she was curious. She’d never heard him speak before and she wondered what his voice sounded like.
She turned off the light and settled in her bed. Not surprisingly, her dreams were filled with gray skin and bulging muscles.
The next morning, Lila was practically bouncing up and down with excitement as Shea finished up the last of the packing they hadn’t been able to do the day before.
“When can we give them the gingerbread men?” Lila whined.
“As soon as I’m finished packing.”
Shea tuned out Lila’s many whys so that she could get done quickly. She didn’t want to arrive in New York too late. Lila was glowing when Shea finally handed her six little tins decorated with Christmas trees.
“Put the gingerbread men in these, and we’ll give them to the neighbors. We can put the cards on top for Garr and Falia.”
Lila picked the most bri
ghtly colored gingerbread men for Garr and Falia. Shea couldn’t help smiling, even though she was nervous about giving Garr a present.
Before, when she’d brought him those cookies months ago, it had been as a thank you for helping to move all that heavy furniture. This time, it was unsolicited. Based on her earlier interactions with Garr, he clearly wanted to be left to himself. Was Shea overstepping here? She shouldn’t force her company on him if she didn’t want it.
It was Lila’s excitement that overcame her doubts. Lila would be heartbroken if she didn’t get to give Garr the card she had made specially for him. It wasn’t like they had to stay long. They would just drop off the gift and card, and then leave Garr in peace.
They started on the right side of the building, which would leave Garr’s apartment for last. Everyone was very grateful. Falia hugged them both and wished them a Merry Christmas.
“Thanks so much for everything you’ve done for both of us.”
“Oh, it’s no worry,” Falia said. “My own daughter is not on Earth and it warms my heart to see your little one. Of course, mine is all grown up, but she’ll always be my little girl.”
“Are you seeing her over Christmas?” Shea asked.
“No.” Falia shook her head. “She doesn’t celebrate Earth holidays. I’m going to her in March to celebrate the New Year on our planet.”
“That sounds lovely. Do you need someone to look after Pinto for you?”
“If you wouldn’t mind, I’m sure Pinto would love that. I was going to take him to one of those cat boarding houses, but…”
“Nonsense,” Shea injected. “He can move in with us while you’re gone. Can’t he, Lila?”
“Ooh, yes, please!” Lila’s eyes shone with excitement. “Can he sleep in my bed?”
“Of course.” Falia twinkled down at her. “He would love that.”
