It’s got long black hinges that swirl and loop like Rakhii horns—they’re the coolest hinges ever and add a huge smack of whimsy to the whole spot. “Okay, thank you for showing me my new place. You’re going to have to find your own and I wish you all the luck with that, but this is mine now. I’m moving in.”
“Are you,” he drawls, thankfully sounding amused rather than stomp-happy.
I pat myself on the shoulder, enjoying the way that, when I glance back at him, Bash watches me do it with some consternation. “Totally. You better hurry on finding your new home because it feels like the temperature has dropped some. I’d hate for you to get stuck outside in the cold.”
His eyes shift from my shoulder to my face, and he’s wearing a nonplussed sort of expression. “You’re bold. I’ll give you that.”
“And you’ll give me a couple of lumps?” I say with a wince.
Again, my idiom throws him but he only needs a second before he dips his chin. “You should be thankful I’m not beating you. Impertinence is not an attractive trait.”
“Says who? Friends can be impertinent with friends.”
“Hm,” is all Bash grunts, sounding noncommittal.
I don't ask to see the inside of his cave, because Bash never hints at an offer. Bash strikes me as a forthright kinda guy. If he wanted to show me his space he’d just take me inside, I think. So I figure we’re not that kind of friends. Which is fine. It’d be weird if I invited him to my room at the preserve.
Which he walks me to like a gentleman after I’ve had my fill of looking around the old quarry. It’s a healthy hike back, and it's well dark when he drops me off at my door with a gruff, “Fair eve, Isla.”
“...Fair eve back,” I test out, and decide it’s a nice parting.
To my delight, Bash doesn’t freeze me out the next day. Oh, he’s not bounding over to me handing out monogrammed Besties Forever bracelets or anything, but he basically picks right up where we left off by working somewhat close to me, putting me on more tool-polishing duty, letting me chatter to him until he gets called away to see to other things. Sometimes he takes me with him to be his gopher, running back and forth. But then he brings me wood.
I go dead still, polishing rag and a greased wrench in my hand. I gape at the box Bash has in his arms. “You brought me alien balsa!”
“I brought you Txheebo tree blocks,” Bash more or less agrees. “Here. Take them.” He thrusts the box at me, setting it on the table I’m using as a polishing station.
With that, he leaves.
“THANK YOU!” I holler after him. “ARE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE WITH DISPLAYS OF APPRECIATION OR SOMETHING?” I turn and cough into my short arm. “Ouch. I need to work on my bullhorn technique. I think I pulled a throat muscle.”
“Why’d he give you wood?”
I glance over and find Mandi. She’s parked in a wagon piled high with clay roof tiles. Her cat alien is leaning against the wagon side by the stairs, arms folded. Unlike her, he only looks mildly curious about Bash’s gift to me.
Mandi though is openly fascinated.
“Because,” I tell her. “I used to be a theatre stage carpenter. And designer.”
“A carpenter?” Mandi repeats carefully, watching me out of the side of her eye like she doesn’t want to offend me if I’m serious.
“No joke,” I confirm. I shrug my short arm’s shoulder and dig through the box, pinching a piece of wood under my armpit. “When teachers tell their kids they can be anything they want to be, they aren’t kidding around.”
“Wow. Well that’s cool,” Mandi says.
I nod. “It’s awesome. But there is a downside.” I wave my short arm. “With one arm basically doing no-weight workouts while the other one pulls double-duty, I look like Popeye without my clothes. Like seriously more information than you wanted to know, but even my boobs look weird because one pectoral gets more of an intensive workout than the other.”
“Pop… eye?” Mandi questions, completely confused.
I have to step out of the blacksmith and craft area so we can converse without two tables and a load of craft crap in our way. “You don’t know who Popeye is?”
“She doesn’t know anyone!” Gracie moans from not far away. “She’s a baby!”
The feline-looking alien has his attention on his girl but at Gracie’s exclamation, his brows knit. His gaze