Chapter Six

Lian picked up her coffee and waved at the barista, then turned and headed for the exit. Nancy was right behind her, still chattering on and carrying her own coffee plus Olivia’s. They joined Olivia on the sidewalk out front where she stood with Ed and Zorro, Olivia’s huge black Newfoundland.

“Oh my god, I love your dress,” Nancy said.

“Thank you.” Olivia held out her skirt and did a little side-curtsy as best she could while holding the leashes of two enormous dogs. The pale yellow sundress looked amazing next to her brown skin. Then again, Olivia made everything she wore look amazing.

Nancy was the same way—with her perfectly styled blonde hair that matched her perfect figure for “pantsuits and power shoes,” as she liked to call them. Lian would have felt under-dressed standing next to her besties if she cared about fashion at all.

Comfort was her motto. One of the perks of being an agricultural specialist working in a greenhouse every day was that she could get away with jeans and T-shirts.

Ed woofed as Lian took his leash. Nancy handed Olivia her coffee.

“Remind me again why you have such big dogs,” Nancy said, trying to avoid getting tangled in Zorro’s leash.

“Because if my dog was as small as yours, I’d have to start carrying a purse,” Lian said.

As if she knew Lian was talking about her, Hazel, Nancy’s long-haired, dappled teacup dachshund stuck her head out of Nancy’s bag. Lian reached out and scratched behind the undeniably adorable dog’s ears.

“It’s also reassuring to have a big dog as a roommate when you live alone,” Olivia added.

“I’d rather get myself a Cygnian.” Nancy grinned. “Any advice there, Lian?”

“I advise you to shut up is what,” Lian said.

Nancy laughed as they started down the sidewalk again. “I still can’t believe I missed seeing you ‘welcoming’ the Cygnians.”

“It was only the one,” Lian grumbled, taking a sip of her too-hot coffee.

“I missed it, too,” Olivia said. “And I was right across the street.”

“If I hadn’t had that stupid conference call, I would have met you guys for lunch like usual,” Nancy said. “I hear Rom was in the cafe flirting with all the waitresses. Apparently, Bron is kind of brainy and inquisitive even though he’s like a big, blue tank. Dorn is the ‘strong and silent’ type. He has kind of a more dangerous vibe. He’s supposed to be their head of security. Do you know if he’s their head of security?”

“You sound like you’re talking about a boy band.” Lian raised her voice an octave. “There’s the smart one and the sporty one, but I like the bad boy best.” Lian kicked her foot up behind her and plastered on a cheesy smile, batting her eyelashes for good measure.

“Shut up.” Nancy bumped her shoulder against Lian’s.

Olivia laughed, and said, “You probably wish you had a poster of all of them to hang above your bed.”

“Come on, that’s…” Nancy’s gaze became a little unfocused and she paused in the middle of the sunny sidewalk.

Lian paused with her. “Nancy?”

“Hang on, I’m just visualizing that,” Nancy said. “Oh wow, I think I actually do.”

Lian laughed. “You’re totally crushing on them.”

“Says the girl who was caught making out with one of them in front of like almost every visiting foreign dignitary from another planet,” Olivia said.

Lian felt her cheeks heat. “That was an accident.”

Nancy made a little humming sound, then said, “That’s not how I heard it.”

Lian bumped her shoulder into Nancy’s, a little harder than she anticipated. She also didn’t realize Nancy was about to take a sip. Some of Nancy’s coffee spilled.

“Hey,” Nancy yelled.

“Sorry.” Lian felt awful. “I didn’t know you were about to take a drink.”

“It’s fine.” Nancy wiped at her lip.

Olivia smirked and said, “Maybe Nuar can heal it for you like he did Lian’s hand.”

A wave of…something washed through Lian. Her chest constricted at the thought of Nuar paying attention to another woman’s lips. Any other woman’s lips. Even one of Lian’s best friends.

“I was just kidding,” Olivia said. “You don’t have to give me the death stare.”

“I’m sorry,” Lian said. “Something is seriously wrong with me.”

They had reached the front door of the library. Lian paused, wondering if she should keep going down the sidewalk toward the greenhouse or approach it through the attached building. Which would be less painful?

“Come on,” Nancy said, hooking her elbow through Lian’s.

Olivia leaned close enough that their shoulders brushed. “We’ve got you.”

Lian’s eyes started to burn. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision, then nodded.

“Okay,” she said.

They headed down the sidewalk. Lian’s heart beat faster as more of the greenhouse came into view.

The energy walls were up. They were filled with shimmering opalescence, blocking her view of the inside. Usually, there was only a flickering, semi-transparent fizz filling the spaces between the support structures.

That was new. The Vegans had designed the walls so that people could always see into the greenhouse. What was going on in there?

The side door was open, at least. Ed gave a little ‘woof,’ then pulled her toward the entrance.

“Somebody’s excited,” Olivia said.

“Or maybe there’s someone in there that he likes.” Nancy winked at Lian.

Ed kept pulling. Lian let herself be half-dragged along, even though she didn’t want to see this again.

“You guys should brace yourselves,” Lian said. “This place is a disaster ar…e…a.” Her voice trailed off as she crossed the threshold and stumbled a few steps within.

“Whoa,” Olivia said.

Nancy joined Lian on her other side. “Oh, yeah. This place is a real mess.”

“What is this?” Lian turned in a slow circle, taking everything in.

The plants that had been damaged were back. All of them, as if nothing had ever happened. Except that wasn’t quite right.

The greenhouse looked better than before, mostly courtesy of dozens of crystals hanging from the beams of the roof. They caught the sunshine that came in through the clear energy fields above and broke the light into thousands of rainbows that danced across every surface, lighting up the walls and rippling over their surface.

Her dad’s bench had been replaced with a gorgeous slab of deep blue crystal. Smooth shards grew up behind it to form a back to lean on. It also caught the light, but seemed to hold it within, sparkling like a gigantic precious gem.

“This isn’t possible,” Lian said. “Everything was destroyed.”

“It looks like Nuar fixed it,” Olivia said.

“I’ll say.” Nancy headed straight for the bench. She ran her hand along the blunted edges of its back and said, “Oh my god. Is this sapphire?”

“It is.” Nuar’s voice boomed across the greenhouse. The sound of it reverberated through Lian, all the way to her bones.

Heat immediately flared deep in her belly and her skin rose in goosebumps again. She grumbled as she rubbed her arms, trying to calm herself down. Why did she always react this way to him?

Nuar strode over to them, a huge smile on his stupid, gorgeous face. His eyes were glowing red embers, focused intently on her, even though they were all standing in a magical wonderland.

A wonderland he had created. For her.

Presumably.

“Do you like it?” Nuar asked, still focused on Lian.

She crossed her arms. “It’s okay.”

“Okay?” Nancy said. “This place is a freaking paradise. And is this really sapphire?”

Nuar chuckled. “It’s simple enough to grow. I started the seed crystal as soon as I could yesterday and worked on cultivating it in this form all night.”

“All night, huh?” Olivia bumped her shoulder against Lian’s again. “That was pretty sweet of you.”

“He wouldn’t have had to work on it all night if he hadn’t destroyed the original bench in the first place,” Lian said.

“Technically, Craig destroyed the bench,” Nuar said.

Lian felt her eye twitch. “Only because you threw him at it.”

“You threw Craig?” Nancy said.

Nuar shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Craig the Lyrian.” Nancy finally tore herself away from the bench to give Nuar her attention. “The seven foot tall, four-armed, space Sasquatch?”

He turned to Nancy and said, “I don’t know what a Sasquatch is, but the rest describes Craig fairly well.”

Nancy gave a high laugh and smiled. “I guess you’re about as tall as he is, though.”

She looked Nuar up and down as she approached him. With every step Nancy took drawing closer to the Cygnian, Lian’s goosebumps grew worse. Lian was grinding her teeth together so hard, her jaw hurt.

Why should she care if her friend flirted with the obnoxious blue alien? She hated him.

He wasn’t good enough for Nancy. That was it.

But he had done this to the greenhouse. He’d made it right overnight.

Wait, that wasn’t possible. If the plants could have been grown that quickly, the Vegans would have done it from the start. Azure was very clear that there were limits to what they could do, and speeding the plants’ growth too much wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

“How did you fix the plants?” Lian asked.

“Ah, yes.” Nuar had the decency to look sheepish. “The plants. I actually didn’t fix them. I used imagery collected over the last few weeks to overlay a hologram that makes the greenhouse look as it did before yesterday. That way, people can enjoy it just as much while the plants regrow.”

“You mean this is all an illusion?” Lian asked.

Nuar nodded. “Except the bench. The bench is real.”

“Show me,” Lian said.

Nuar sighed, then struck his wristbands together. They made a sound kind of like a Tibetan signing bowl, drawn out by a low humming sound Nuar made himself.

She felt it like a shockwave, intensifying that weird reaction she always had to his voice. She was just about to tell him to stop when he did so on his own.

“Oh no,” Olivia said.

Lian looked around at what she’d expected to see. Except maybe not as bad.

The plants were definitely different. But they’d been pruned back past the breakage points. The ones that had been trampled were removed, and smooth, loose earth remained in their place, ready for something new to be planted.

A few of the taller plants had been grafted back together where their trunks had been snapped. Sparkling bands held them in place.

“It’s not as easy to heal a plant,” Nuar said. “I was with Azure and Craig most of the night, tending to the flora when I wasn’t making trips back to the Arrow to work on the bench. We all did as much as we could, but Craig and I are both from planets nearly devoid of plant life. Our experience with them is limited.”

“You don’t have plants on your homeworld?” Lian felt the idea of it like a gut-punch. “How do you survive? What do you eat?”

“The plants that we do have are nutritious lichens that grow in cave systems on Cygnus-Prime,” Nuar said. “And we also hunt animals who feed on the crystals that make up much of our homeworld.”

“That sounds so weird,” Nancy said.

“No weirder than our world probably is to them,” Olivia said.

Nuar didn’t comment on their exchange. Instead, he said, “Azure helped us adapt our technologies to assist her with tending the plants. I could do more than Craig, but he helped with the digging and pruning.” Nuar lifted his arms and wiggled his fingers. “He’s handy that way.”

Lian almost snorted. She managed to stifle it.

Nuar cleared his throat. “Craig said you’d find that funny.”

“Too soon,” Olivia said.

“Leave it like this,” Lian said. “I won’t trick people into thinking everything’s okay when it’s not.”

She might have emphasized the last part more than she intended. Nuar winced. Part of her wanted to comfort him.

Dammit.

He had done a lot to make up for the harm he’d caused. He and Craig. She had to remember to be mad at both of them.

It was easier to be mad at Nuar. She didn’t know him as well. Then again, the more she got to know him, the more she was starting to like him.

Double-dammit.

“You really should leave it like this,” Olivia said. “People need to know where things are. It’d be unsettling for them to try to touch a plant and have their hand pass through it. I’m assuming their hand would pass through it?”

Nuar nodded. “Yes. Our holographic technology is the most advanced in the galaxy, but even we can’t add substance to imagery.”

“Can you add AC to it?” Nancy asked. “Because it’s freaking muggy in here.”

Nuar cocked his head to the side. “AC?”

“Air conditioning,” Lian said. “We usually keep the walls open to let in a breeze.”

“I can fix that.” His face lit up with a dazzling smile.

It should be illegal to be that hot.

He struck his wristbands together again. Lian knew it was coming this time and was able to keep her poker face as her belly flooded with heat again.

The walls fizzed and vanished. A breeze immediately swept through the place.

“That’s so much better,” Nancy said, closing her eyes. “But I need to get to work anyway. See you guys later.”

She quickly hugged Olivia and Lian, then headed outside, casting one last smile at Lian, along with a mocking wave over her shoulder.

Olivia patted Zorro’s head. “We need to get the dogs inside where it’s cooler.”

“Allow me.” Nuar hurried to the door to the library and opened it.

Olivia followed him with Zorro at her side. She looked back at Lian and smirked as she entered the building.

Ugh, Lian was never going to hear the end of this.

Nuar was still holding the door open. Ed started pulling Lian toward it. She scowled at the Cygnian as she passed.

Okay, she tried to scowl at him.

He had done a really good job with the greenhouse. And he’d made that stunning bench and added the crystals, making the incredible rainbow display.

Sure, the plants had been messed up, but most had been saved. They would grow back. The damage he’d caused them wasn’t irreversible.

Mostly.

“Thanks,” she mumbled as she passed him.

She wasn’t sure if she was talking about holding the door or everything he’d done to make things right, but the way his expression brightened made her not really care. A fluttery feeling rose in her stomach. One that was nearly impossible to ignore.

Triple-dammit.