Alien Scrooge - Zara Zenia Page 0,13

fiddling with the framing until she had something that was, at least, satisfactory. A few stray whisps of cloud floated lazily through the sky alongside the burning ball of light and she hoped that their ghostly impression would make for a unique finished product.

She sat on the flat rocks next to her bag and pulled a handful of Polaroids from the pocket of the hoodie she wore that day. On the top was the photo of Egrix she'd taken yesterday. His eyes were penetrating, even captured on the grainy Polaroid. She traced the edges of his frame in her mind, a bit embarrassed to be looking at his naked body again.

"What are you doing?"

Cara, who had been seated next to her equipment, nearly threw the pictures in her hands in surprise at his question. She spun around wearing an exasperated expression on her bright red face. Egrix grimaced at her reaction, looking away from her. She was distractingly attractive to him, despite his best efforts, and he had struggled with work all morning, perplexed with thoughts of her. He groaned internally at his unending ability to upset this woman who had been very kind to him even with his standoffish personality.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up on you." He turned his strong gaze back to her, measuring his control. When their eyes met, Cara's gaze dropped quickly to the sand and she crossed her arms in front of her chest. He continued, "I'll also apologize for what happened yesterday. I honestly wasn't sure if you'd come back."

"I considered not coming," she admitted to the sand that shifted under her feet.

Even though it was to be expected, Egrix still didn't like hearing it. He had been harassing himself about the way he'd treated her since the night before.

"I have pictures I want to take though, and…" She paused looking up at Egrix, frowning shyly, "and I said I'd help you, so I'm here."

As she said this, her gaze grew more confident. Egrix faltered a bit as she tugged at his heart. "Then let's go," he said, clearing his throat, before leading the way back to his base.

Egrix went into his seashell pod and then returned, carrying a stack of papers in his arms and made his way to the table that he and Cara had shared yesterday. He had seen her fiddling with something on the table through the one-sided, translucent walls of his pod and now he could see pictures spread out in front of her as he approached.

"What are these?" he asked, a bit cautiously in case she was still upset with him. He set the papers down out of the way and leaned nearer to Cara to look at one of the images.

Cara smiled, lifting up one of the photos closer to Egrix's face. "I did some investigating for you. I had to go shopping this morning, so I took some pictures of storefronts, merchandise, and ads I saw while I was out." She tilted her head to the side, watching him.

He studied the picture with his hand on his chin. He felt her eyes on him and couldn't help turning his eyes from the photos to her face.

Both of them seemed surprised by how close they were to each other, and Cara pulled back a little in her chair, he supposed it was to give him some more space, diverting her eyes for a moment. "Um, I'm sorry for yesterday too," she said quietly, turning her gaze back to focus on him. "You weren't nice about it, but you weren't wrong either. It wasn't fair for me to trivialize your work with Earth traditions. I was hoping that helping out with this would make up for me being… silly."

Egrix grinned, a sudden laugh escaping his lips in response to her satirical use of his expression from the day before. Cara's cheeks flushed pink. As he looked back, he felt his face heat as well, and he swiftly retreated to sit at the other side of the table in a few long strides, hoping Cara wouldn't notice him blushing. The two awkwardly observed each other and smiled until Egrix cleared his throat quietly, sparking Cara to speak up again.

"Do you want to see what I have? I can promise to keep things informative if you promise to be nice." She slid a photo across the table, touching it to Egrix's fingertips.

He smiled, happy to have the harsh weight of yesterday's argument lifted. "Yes, I would like