time with James. His work with weapons were of benefit, so I worked my project. I was not a poop head.”
Max stopped and caught the cart to force Xander to stop, too. “Did I ignore you?”
Xander did a quarter turn. “Max Father spent most of his time with me when I was small. I was not small when Max Father worked with James.”
That was definitely not an answer. “I spent too much time with James, didn’t I?”
“You spent enough time to make James all, ‘Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.’” Xander even raised his voice to mimic a girl’s voice.
“Now you sound like Rick Father,” Max said dryly.
“I sound more like Max Father, who loves human entertainment. My words are still truth. James is spoiled. Kohei never becomes poopy head.” Xander started the cart moving again, leaving Max to stare at his retreating back.
Now Max felt worse. After a second, he ran to catch up. “I didn’t mean to make any of you unhappy.”
“James is unhappy because he is James,” Xander said without an ounce of sympathy. “Max Father does not make offspring unhappy. He is like a brother in making me happy.”
Max was almost sure that Xander was trying to say that Max spent lots of time teaching them, but that didn’t assuage his guilt. “With humans, parents are supposed to treat children equally.”
“Marsha, Marsha, Marsha,” Xander repeated. “Humans have unreasonableness for parents.”
Max snorted. “Asking parents to treat children equally isn’t unreasonable. And I’ve hurt James, so I need you to be a little understanding.” No wonder Kohei was being so supportive. As the offspring most likely to get ignored, he could probably sympathize. Max sucked at fatherhood. Sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked.
“Did your parenthoods always treat you and co-offspring equally?”
Max judged the length of the empty boardwalk between them and the ships in the posher end of the port. They had time, especially with the cart slowly bumping over the lines set in the walk. “My parents tried. I think my brother was frustrated because I got to do more than he did. He is six years younger, so it frustrated him that I got to go out on my bike and run around with friends when he had to stay with the babysitter.”
“Did he torture the babysitter?” Xander asked.
“What? Of course not. Why would you ask that?”
“In entertainment, the offspring often torture the babysitter.”
“Television isn’t real.” Max regretted letting them watch television. If they hadn’t been hanging out on the edge of Earth space hijacking signals, Xander wouldn’t have screwed-up ideas about humans. Actually, he would rather the kids not have accurate ideas about them either.
“Are families together the way entertainment shows?” Xander asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Do genetic relatives gather for celebrations and continue with alliances after reaching independence?”
“Yeah,” Max said. “Of course we do.” The second the words came out of his mouth, he realized that the question implied that the Hidden People didn’t live like that. Xander was implying that he would grow up, move away and never come back. His breath caught and he stopped dead on the boardwalk. Xander continued for several feet before he stopped. Maybe something in Max’s expression registered because Xander abandoned the cart and hurried back.
“Max Father. Identify wrongness.”
The air burst out of Max’s mouth and he didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath. Xander curled tentacles around Max’s wrist and tugged at him. “Max Father.”
“I just realized you plan on leaving,” Max said weakly. Fuck. No wonder Rick tried to keep his distance. The cute little bastards were going to break their fathers’ hearts, or Max’s anyway.
“Query. Do not human offspring leave? Query. Did not Max Father leave?”
Max sat in the middle of the boardwalk. The raised seam dug into his ass, but he didn’t give a shit. After a second, Xander inched close enough to rest his leg tentacle against Max’s knee. “I left, but I never meant to leave forever. Before the law-enforcement poop faces took me away from Earth, I called my parents every few weeks.” Okay, that was almost true. Max hadn’t called them often enough, but if six or eight or ten qualified as a “few,” then he managed it every few weeks. “My mom was always asking if I had met anyone I wanted to pairbond with.” When Max had failed at having any long-term relationship work, he’d started avoiding her. “But I planned to go home for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. I always visited home.”
Max stared at Xander, wondering how he was supposed to react