Earth Husbands are Odd (Earth Fathers #2) - Lyn Gala Page 0,36

of flailing panic.

He hated when others looked at him and decided they knew who he was based on some piece of information. When his commander in Afghanistan had pulled him in to talk about the inappropriateness of Max flaunting his sexuality in the Middle East, Max had tried to defend himself, but Colonel Barrington had made up his mind. To that old dinosaur, gay meant flouncy and queeny and flamboyant, and he didn’t want to hear anything that might contradict his dumbass assumptions.

And that was exactly what the universe had done. They had decided humans were odd, panicky, stupid creatures and nothing Max said convinced them otherwise. Until now. Now they were seeing the real him. Capable. A little dangerous. Still weird. Yeah, Max could own that one. He was definitely a little odd.

Chapter Thirteen

Max sighed as the door slid closed behind them. Home. He had never been so happy to see the inside of his little ship. Rick came out of a side room. “You return in sighing,” he said.

Max watched Rick’s tentacles get wavier and floppier as he closed the distance between them. he caught a tentacle in his hand. “Carrington is sending payment over. We helped her people plan for a potential breach attack.”

“Father Max impressed with violence,” Xander said.

Max cringed as Rick’s tentacles stiffened. “Snitch,” Max muttered before he turned his attention to his unhappy husband. “I was not violent to Carrington’s people. I was perfectly polite.”

“Xander says impressed with violence!” Rick protested with a trumpet.

“I impressed them with my theoretical violence against invading peoples. I was not violent.”

Xander blew raspberries while Rick did a little quarter turn. Ignoring the little shit, Max pulled Rick closer. “I was very non-violent. You would have been proud of me.” That was even true if Max ignored the way he had horrified Carrington's head of security with a detailed description of how to use a maintenance hook to disembowel the enemy. That had not secured his reputation as a sane, nonviolent individual, but if Hunters did get on the ship, Carrington's people were now prepared.

Eager to change the subject, Max turned his attention to Xander. “I noticed Carrington was using female pronouns for you. Have I been wrong about your gender?” Guilt gnawed at the idea that he’d spent months calling a girl by a boy name and he couldn’t even tell the difference. Then again, Rick had demonstrated his genital tentacles and they still looked like the tool manipulation tentacles which did not appear different than the foot tentacles. And, for that matter, Rick tended to use all of the above equally well when having sex. So boy versus girl was still a mystery when it came to Hidden people.

“I do not wish to be female,” Xander said. “I do not prefer to spend time on appearance.”

“Whoa!” Max blurted. “Female does not mean spending time on appearance. Where did you even get that?”

“Television,” Xander said.

Max had a flashback to his mother complaining that the “boob tube” was a bad influence on the kids. His father had never done more than grunt unless she got shrill. Then their father would drive them outside to get some healthy air. Their childhood home had been a half mile downwind of a cattle farm. He would not have described the air as healthy.

“All females I observed on television are more decorated. Buffy often moans over the loss of shoes. I do not have time for decoration on my face.”

“You mean they wear more makeup? Women don't have to wear makeup.”

“Okay,” Xander said, and then he started pushing the utility cart down the hallway.

“Wait,” Max called, unwilling to let this misunderstanding stand. Xander ignored him and headed through the door into the main junction. “It’s not like that,” Max said weakly.

Rick tightened his tentacle around Max’s wrist.

Max sighed. Kids. “It isn’t like that. So, how is James?”

“Equally unreasonable.” Rick slid closer. “Query. Define difference male or female.”

“Males produce sperm and females eggs.” Max frowned. Wait. That wasn't true. “Most females produce eggs and some don't produce anything. And males are still males if they can’t make sperm. Sometimes men get cancer or things happen, although most men avoid talking about it. And there are a few women who produce sperm. That's a little less common.”

Rick did a quarter turn, hesitated, and then quarter turned again. Yeah, he could consider Max with every eye he owned, and that still wasn’t going to make a lot of sense. “It’s complicated,” Max finished. And the older