Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

TOBIAS

H elli and I had mutinied and brought the boat in around noon, heading home for lunch. Her friends were blowing up her phone over the photos of me and Halaby, so she was even more distracted than usual. I was not going to have her fall overboard again, regardless of the life jacket, so we were done for the day. But also, I wanted to have Halaby over for dinner tonight and that was probably going to require a face-to-face with my parents first.

I'd had one serious relationship and a couple good ones, but they'd all been guys my parents already knew for whatever reason. Meeting them as an official boyfriend hadn't really been a thing. Having my parents meet Halaby felt like a really big deal, and it took me a minute to realize that was because our relationship was more like an engagement than just dating. I was going to introduce them to my husband.

Having put off saying anything until we were cleaning up from lunch, I cleared my throat and made myself speak before they all scattered. "Um, I'd like to invite someone over for dinner tonight."

"Okay?" Mamma said, eyeing me.

"He's important to me," I explained .

"Oh." She smiled and gave my arm a squeeze. "I didn't realize you were seeing anyone."

"It's not that Agnarsson boy again, is it?" Pabbi asked. "That kid was trouble."

I cringed a little. "No, not him. It's, um…" I glanced at Helli who was holding her phone to her chest with both hands and bouncing on her toes. I had a feeling she was going to show them the photos. "He's the Norlon who saved Helli. Doctor Halaby Revazi?"

Helli squealed and thrust her phone in front of Mamma's face, making her flinch back as she blinked at the screen. "Aren't they adorable together?" Helli said before shoving the phone in Pabbi's face, too.

Mamma chuckled and took the phone back. "I didn't realize Norlons dated. I keep seeing them in the news talking about finding their mates, and it always sounds so perma—" She cut herself off and stared at me with wide eyes.

I gulped and nodded. "Yeah, we're mates, and it's as intense as we've heard."

"Hold on just a minute," Pabbi said as he poked at Helli's phone and his face flushed. "You're saying this giant otter is the equivalent of your husband?"

"Um, yes?"

Pabbi went from red-faced to pale in an instant. "You're going to leave Earth?" he asked on a whisper.

"Oh! No!" I grabbed his shoulders, amazed to have caused him so much concern like that. "Pabbi, I'm not going anywhere. We talked. Halaby's thinking he might live here ."

Pabbi sighed and grabbed me into a hug, clapping me on the back a few times. His color returned as he nodded and let me go. I knew my father loved me, but seeing him afraid of losing me was powerful stuff.

"Sorry, Pabbi," I said, even though I was glad to know he cared like that .

He grumbled and waved me off, dropping into his chair at the table.

"Well," Mamma said, "I'm relieved to hear that, too, but if you get the opportunity to visit Nor, I hope you'll take it. I've heard rumors that they're going to give us interstellar travel technology, but I doubt we'll all be able to hop on a spaceship whenever we want to."

"Oh, that would be so cool," Helli gushed as her thumbs flew across her phone's keyboard.

I tried to snatch her phone away, but even without actually looking up from the screen she was too quick. "You better not be live-tweeting this or something."

"Are you serious? No one does that anymore. You're so old."

"Hey."

"I'm in a group chat."

"Helli…"

"Everyone's very excited for you," she said and showed me the screen that was full of hearts and gifs with heart-eyed characters. "Literally everyone wants a Norlon of their own."

I got the appeal, obviously, but did the Norlons know it was hunting season?

"I'm… Well, I'm very happy to have your acceptance and everything," I said to all of them. "I knew you were okay with Norlons in general, but wasn't sure how you'd feel about me being mated to one."

Oh, that needed a better term. Mated sounded so dirty. And considering what we'd done on the boat that Helli totally knew about… I felt my cheeks heat.

Mamma came close and held my face in her hands before kissing my cheek. "I've wanted you to find the love of your life regardless of who they are."

She'd said something similar when I came out to her, so now I was blushing and getting teary-eyed, too. I pulled her into a hug and held on for a really long time .

"Svein and Petra," Helli said, "want to know if they can come for dinner tonight."

I groaned into Mamma's shoulder as she quietly chuckled. "You're in a group chat with the only girl I ever accidentally dated?" I'd been young, testing the waters, and discovering they were definitely not the ones for me. Petra had been understanding since she'd been doing the same thing.

Helli squinted at me. "Yeah, why?"

Mamma patted me and turned to Helli. "You're not to go out with Svein," she said sternly. "I heard about what he got up to last night. His mother saw the photos."

I cringed right along with Helli. It was one thing to know what he'd done; it was another thing entirely to know our aunt had seen it.

I cleared my throat. "Um, I don't mind if they come for dinner as long as they don't pepper Halaby with questions about how to get their own mates. I already told Svein how anyway." And if he was in a group chat with Helli and her friends, then they knew as well.

"How?" Mamma asked.

Pabbi snorted. "I'm sitting right here."

"Oh, hush," she said and whacked his shoulder before looking expectantly at me.

"Uh, you just have to meet them. They'll know immediately. And then you will."

Repeatedly. In several positions. All over town.

Mamma nodded and pinned Helli with a stare. "You're too young."

Helli groaned. "I also want to be a mother someday, and Norlons aren't compatible that way. I'm not even looking, so don't worry."

"You could always adopt," I suggested. "Can you imagine how cute their babies are? "

Helli's eyes got anime big and she sucked all the air out of the room before dashing away.

Mamma hit my shoulder while Pabbi groaned.

I stepped out of reach of both of them. "Like you wouldn't be all over a grandkid."

"She's too young," they said simultaneously.

Yeah, okay, I agreed. At the same time, though, I wondered how Halaby felt about being a father someday.

Halaby had dressed up for dinner with my parents. All the Norlons wore long-sleeved tunics and skintight pants in a variety of colors, but Halaby's tunic tonight had beadwork emphasizing the dappled pattern stitched on it. He looked like he was under the surface in the turquoise waters of somewhere beautifully sunny.

His clothes literally had me wondering what it might be like to have sex with him in the water. Warm water. Like, mid-Atlantic kind of warm. How much would it cost to get us both to the Caribbean?

Grinning at me in the doorway, Halaby bent close and whispered, "I'll give you whatever you're thinking about later." Which made me laugh, so I was smiling when he kissed me.

I made the introductions.

"Mamma, Pabbi, this is Doctor Halaby Revazi. Halaby these are my parents, Astrid and Eskil Ahlberg."

Halaby took each of their hands and said solemnly, "I apologize for causing Helli to fall off the boat and ask that you consider forgiving me."

Pabbi laughed and patted Halaby's shoulder. "Of course we forgive you! Those fish really helped us. "

I held my breath waiting for Pabbi to say more or ask for Halaby to fill the net again, but Pabbi just smiled.

Petra showed up then, bouncing and squealing because Svein was behind her…with his gray wolf? "They're mates!" she shouted before her and Helli screamed.

"No. Seriously?" I asked Svein once I could hear again.

He nodded, eyes twinkling and face flushed pink. "It turned out that whole public display and all was because I'm irresistible."

I laughed as his fluffy mate scratched at the back of his neck and shrugged. If he hadn't been covered in fur, I bet he would've been blushing, too.

"Totally understandable," Halaby said and put a hand out to the wolf. "Weren't you in my infirmary not too long ago?"

"Yes, sir," he said in a rumbling voice and held out his right hand. "Dyfor Kaspin. Crushed fingers during work in Engineering."

"Ah." Instead of shaking the wolf's hand, Halaby inspected it. "Good to see you're doing so well."

"Your name's Dyfor?" I asked as I took one of Halaby's hands so he'd quit doctoring.

"It is!" Svein exclaimed with a big smile. "And doesn't it just say everything?"

"What do you mean?"

"He's…to die for!"

I groaned even as I laughed. Svein was going to say that as often as possible, I just knew it.

Sitting down to dinner, I had Petra on one side and Svein on the other, our Norlons opposite us. Halaby was talking with Helli and Dyfor, but he'd stretched out one long leg so that his booted foot was resting beside mine. And if he'd known what a few seconds of thinking about sex with him in the water had done to me, he had to know what his foot grazing mine was doing to me. I tried to distract myself, but Svein didn't make it easy.

"He has a knot," Svein said in a low voice .

"A what?" Petra asked as she leaned in on my other side.

I groaned, knowing exactly what he meant. "Don't break the lesbian."

Svein carried on like he hadn't heard me. "A part of his cock swells to lock us together."

"How awful!" Petra looked so concerned. "Can anything be done for him?"

So innocent. I patted her hand. "I'm just guessing here, but I think Svein is bragging."

"Oh." She blinked between us a few times, while Svein snickered. "Oh, god," she said as it clearly dawned on her. "Ew. I didn't need to know that."

I suddenly found myself asking, "Does it happen when you're, um… Like in the photos?"

"It does, but I'm careful."

"You're both horrible," Petra admonished.

"Just wait," Svein said, "until some female Norlon gets you in her sights. You'll have your skirt over your head in two seconds flat."

"Oh, my god ," she moaned. "I'm sure the female Norlons have much better control than to have public orgies."

Svein bumped into me as he leaned in closer to Petra. "Have there been orgies? Where?"

Laughing, I pushed him off me. "You're mated now. No orgies."

"Don't you know?" he said slyly. "Norlon mating ceremonies always end in orgies."

"They do not," I said, aghast. "I thought mating was all about being monogamous."

"That doesn't mean you have to do a group thing. It can just mean that everyone's having fun at the same time."

I blinked at him and then at Petra. She had a spoonful of ice cream halfway to her mouth as her face turned red.

"We're going to have our ceremony at the end of the week," Svein said ever so casually. "Helli's not invited, of course, but your parents can…come."

An involuntary retching noise left me before I could stop it, and Petra's spoon clattered onto the table. Svein giggled maniacally and carried on eating his dessert.

There was no way I could ever attend a Norlish mating ceremony. No way. Right? I looked across the table to find Halaby smirking at me just before his foot traveled up the inside of my leg to my knee and back down again. So, okay, maybe I was a little turned on, but that didn't mean I was up for attending an orgy. Yeah. Totally didn't.