Page 5 of The Pregnancy Pact
His attention seemed to be laser-focused in my direction, despite his weaving around other patrons, so I assumed he was walking toward me. A huge, goofy smile pulled at my lips as he approached. Our eyes locked.
He really is coming to say hi.
I gulped down a surge of nervousness. What would I say to a male like him?
Turned out, I didn’t have to worry about it. Maybe I’d had too much blitza. Just as he reached me, he sidestepped, sauntering directly past and up to shiny red bar, placing his palms flat on the gleaming wood.
“Craftsa,” he summoned, loud enough for the bartender, a purple eight-tentacled creature with three ears to hear, “fetch me my favorite.”
Craftsa nodded, burbling something through his funnel-shaped mouth that I didn’t catch.
He hadn’t been walking towards me. He’d simply needed another drink.
I wanted to sink into the floor. Embarrassed at being an idiot, I swiveled my seat back around, hiding the best way I could. All of a sudden, I felt the need for another drink too.
“Craftsa,” I said, after tossing back the remaining gulp of blitza that burned, burned, burned its way down my throat and into my belly. I held up my empty glass. “Another, please.”
The tentacled bartender nodded at me over his shoulder before going back to whatever drink he was preparing for the gorgeous Asterion next to me.
“You look as if you do not belong here.”
The voice came at me from the side and was vaguely familiar. I blinked a few times, trying to process it.
“Human female?”
Human female? Who addresses a woman like that?
Stifling a hiccup, I turned to my left. Oh, yeah. The freaking gorgeous alien. The one I’d humiliated myself by imagining he was checking me out.
“Were you—were you talking to me?” I frowned. After he’d blown right past me and up to the bar, I genuinely thought he’d hadn’t noticed me at all.
“I was addressing you, yes,” he said. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t frowning, either, but he seemed almost annoyed. Or frustrated.
“I’m sorry…I…what did you say?”
Was I having a memory lapse? Why was I suddenly having a difficult time remembering words? Also, was the smokey haze in here getting thicker, bluer, or was it me?
“I said you look as if you do not belong here,” the Asterion repeated, gesturing a hand towards my outfit. “You appear as out of place as I feel, at the moment.”
I blinked a couple of times, processing his words, unsure if I should be insulted.
“Is that because I’m not wearing an evening gown, like half the women here, or because I’m not letting my breasts fall out like the other half?”
His turn to blink at my grouchy tones.
“If you do not like the way you are dressed, why did you not dress differently?”
“Maybe I didn’t have any other clothes,” I snarled back. “Nobody warned me when I took this job as a records keeper that I’d be accompanying my honorable captain—” I allowed the term to drip with disdain. “Here, to Drixus. I packed for a boring, stable life as a secretary on a space ship. I didn’t pack for this.”
I felt my nose wrinkle in distaste as I indicated the goings-on before us. The alien picked up on my disdain. Not that I was trying to hide it. The corner of his mouth turned up in a bored smile.
“I take it this is not to your liking?”
I shook my head vehemently, admitting, “No. I don’t belong here.”
I didn’t, and I shouldn’t have been surprised that I stood out. Unlike the Asterion next to me, I wasn’t wearing evening clothes or anything that passed for finery. Unlike the women who worked here, my prim blouse was buttoned to my neck, revealing no cleavage, and my loose grey slacks went to my ankles, revealing no thigh. My ash-blonde, shoulder-length hair was drawn back from my face and held in place by a barrette—sensible, professional. And my nails were short and painted a soft pink—not long and bright or decorated with jewels, as many of the girls here seemed to favor. Also, I was probably one of the oldest females here, by a good five years or more, but who was counting?
I definitely stood out, and not in a good way.