also needs to collect the musical instruments, and because Mandi got dragged off by her kitty cat, we’ll have to step in and do the pick-up job for her.
“GRRRR.”
I know that growl.
I raise my head from the mess of wires I’d been winding into neatened rolls to see Bash being cornered by Gracie.
I drop my bundle of wires and nimbly cross the catwalk to rescue my man. “Gracie, should you really be climbing up here?” I’m genuinely concerned.
Gracie waves my question away and gestures to something behind her.
“Ah,” I say, a smile taking over my face. “Right: hob-taxi.” Dohrein is perched in the shadows, wings relaxed in front of him like a cloak rather than keeping them closed and tucked behind his back. He brought her up here, and he’ll take her down. Much safer than her moving up and down on that ladder. “What’s up? And by that, I mean how are you testing my husband’s patience this time?”
“Thank you,” Bash mutters. He reaches out and tenderly sweeps a lock of hair behind my ear. “You understand.”
I pat his ribs. “I’m here for you, love.” I raise my brows expectantly at Gracie.
Gracie is watching Bash playing with my hair, and she’s also watching how I’m touching him. She grins and her grin only gets bigger. “I came to share good news. Real good news. The Gryfala are wigging out over what we’ve got going on here, and they want more.”
“That is so awesome!” I squeak. Bash looks concerned at the change in my voice, but when he sees that this is how I express this level of happy, his expression turns bemused.
“It IS,” Gracie agrees, her eyes bouncing between me and Bash, “and this is an opportunity,” she stresses.
Bash releases a wordless grumble—all right, it’s really another growl, but I know how he means it. It’s a protest, not really aggression-aggression. Gracie’s man can just settle down back there.
“Easy Dohrein,” I say quickly, because her hob isn’t big on his mate getting grumble-growled at, I guess. To Gracie, I ask, “What kind of opportunity?”
Gracie folds her arms above her stomach. It’s a triumphant communication. “I say we put a value on our talent. We charge them to see the next show.”
I nod eagerly. “This was a lot of work.”
“Huge,” Gracie agrees. “If we do this again, everyone deserves to get paid for their time. And the Gryfala loved it. So did the hobs and the Rakhii. It’ll be bigger next time, we’ll attract others who heard about this one—they’ll come and they’ll pay because they know the out-of-this-planet entertainment is worth it.”
“That’s great,” I say. I glance from her to Bash. “So… what’s the problem?”
Here, Gracie gives a tiny, theatric wince. “Well…”
Bash grumble-growls again, and Dohrein, still behind Gracie, shifts his wings, the blue streaks on them turning even brighter. Starting to look like a dangerous warning.
“We have a really great crew of hobs and Rakhii,” Gracie points out.
“We do. They do slammin’ work,” I agree.
“That’s because they’re my crew,” Bash erupts. Not loudly, but with a lot of growly Rakhii feeling.
“Ah.” I slide my hand up his back, patting him on his shoulder right next to his puffed-out dorsal spines. “You don’t want to share.”
“She isn’t proposing sharing,” Bash smokes. As in, he says the words with little clouds of irritated smoke-filled exhales.
Gracie shrugs at me. “It took us how long to build the sets? We’d pretty much need a full-time crew if we want to try doing this every few weeks with different stories.”
“Ohhhh, that’s like full-time! I would love to be able to do this full-time,” I moan—and under my still-patting hand, I feel Bash’s back tense.
Gracie’s eyes dart from my hand on Bash, to me. She grins.
“I mean it,” I say to her, to Bash, to everyone. “This is what I love to do. This… this was wonderful. It was like having my old job back, but better—because I have people here that I love more.” I start rubbing Bash’s back, bumping his deflating spines. “I would absolutely love it if I could do this full time in this place. Next, I want to put on Annie!” I make surreptitious pointing motions to my alien. “I think somebody will want to adopt Miss Hannigan for his spirit animal. ‘Do I hear... HAPPINESS in here?’” I quote, wearing a very Bash-like worktime sneer. “We’ll have him singing a nicely threatening ‘Little Humans,’ in no time.” I hum, “‘Lucky me, lucky me, look at what I’m dealing