May 7, 2440 6:00 pm
Matt pushed through the topical foliage of the arboretum and roaring at the five young kids only to be flattened by a damned cat landing in the middle of his back.
“Damn it Salvador! That hurt. MJ when are you going to take your cat home?”
“She’s not and neither is Sam,” Angelina snapped. I still can’t believe you bought the girls ocelots.”
“I once tried to get you one,” he said, stretching out his back muscles.
“My mom was right not to let me have one.”
“Did I hear you say your mom was right,” Floyd asked pushing the cart loaded with barbeque.
“Do not start that, or you will be sleeping on the couch, Floyd Meriwether Reyes!”
“Uh oh mom’s using full names,” Elliot said walking hand in hand with a V’ren girl, then quickly tried to hide it, but not her.
“Are you going to introduce your friend or not?” Matt asked.
“Mom, Dad, Matt,” Elliot blushed, “This is Teli Son.”
“Nice to meet you, my dear,” Angelina said in V’ren, smiling at the girl, wondering how her fat son ended up with such a petite first girlfriend.
“Are you Kalir’s daughter?” Matt asked running through his mental rolodex.
“You know my father?” Teli asked in amazement.
“Yes, and your mother, too. Is your family settling in alright.”
“We are. Mother appreciates your machine shop being so close.”
“We just got back from taking them food, Lola Rhea too. Lola was pleased she had learned mano po,” Elliot said proudly having taught her that, wondering if she was the first V’ren to properly greet her.
“Elliot has taught me many things I needed to know. I am so grateful to have him as a friend.”
“I can’t believe you let him drive the golf cart,” MJ sighed, pushing the lechon cart out with some girl he thought was a Marshall girl and wondered if she had been here the whole time or if they had ended the travel ban today without him noticing.
Matt turned at the sound of the wheelchair and looked for that fat ocelot. Being pounced on by a chonky cat would be bad for her broken leg, being pounced on by a lard ass like Salvador would bring the night to a bad end. He was glad to see Dave pushing it and M’rak carrying his son. Matt had felt guilty about pulling M’rak away from his fatherly duties earlier, as there were few higher duties among the V’ren. Matt excused himself.
“S’rala, how is the leg?”
“You don’t want the honest answer,” she chuckled. Annie convinced me that coming down for food would be worth the effort of getting out of bed.”
“I remember breaking mine,” Matt said with shared sympathy of a snapped femur. He had not been a good patient and should still be apologizing for that to Angelina and Amy. He tried not to let the pain of that name bring him down. “Well eat up and enjoy, watch for cats falling from the sky.”
“Salvador likes me,” S’baj said proudly looking for the cat, which was being fawned over by several young girls.
“Stay out of trouble,” M’rak said letting the squirming boy down.
“How is the class going, Annie?” Matt asked fishing out bottles of beer from the ice bucket for everyone.
“Oh that is nice,” S’rala said with a smile.
“Well enjoy them. Dave, I’ll catch you later. I need to go talk to K’rem,” he said pulling out more beers for the other guests.
“Matthew,” K’rem said taking the beer with one hand shaking with other. “I spoke with W’ren and he agrees that it is a good idea if you want to make the announcement tonight.
“She will be thrilled and the rest will give the world something new to talk about.”
Matt mingled and ate, ate and mingled, but when he saw MJ ready to sneak off he knew the time had come.
“MJ Reyes don’t you dare think of leaving my party without proper introduction of guests or even goodbyes,” Matt said climbing on top of the stone bench. “I won’t have you flogged this time though, or ever since you might like it and I don’t need that in my head. I do want to announce that after consultation with K’rem, W’ren and a few pilots you have been accepted as the first cadet in our pilot training program.”
