Date: 6/9/2440 Time: 7:05 AM
It seemed like a long time ago and in a galaxy far away, the last time Matt slept on the couch, having fallen asleep during the end credits of Empire. They could get to RTJ later. He was not surprised to find T’mari already awake and moving around in just his t-shirt. He watched when she bent over and realized it was just his t-shirt and not the one he had worn last night. She was claiming his clothes, and he liked it. He watched for a while longer, even when his back started saying, ‘Stop this foolish nonsense. ‘
“Oh, good, you are awake. I ordered groceries, but I am not really sure how to make anything or where things go,” she said.
“You ordered groceries, just on a whim?” he asked, stretching his back.
“Not completely. I woke up early and saw Angelina had texted asking about how the meetings went. We started chatting, and she scolded you for not having enough food in the place to keep me fed. She told me I should just order groceries, so I used your phone to order groceries on Instacart. I had seen enough advertising for it to figure things out. Now we have groceries,” she said, knowing she was rambling, but not knowing why. “Wentworth brought them up, and I didn’t know if I should tip her or not, so I asked. She laughed, thinking it was funny.”
Matt chuckled before moving. He wondered if she’d unlocked his phone using a palm scan, a peeled eyelid, or some other ingenious trick. Answers could wait; he needed to kiss her and pee. Being over forty sucked sometimes because he had to do those in the reverse order he actually wanted to do them in.
“Alright, food, what do you want to eat?” he said, hugging her from behind so she would stop moving. “How much coffee did you put in that thing?” he asked, pointing at the French press that was so full the plunger would only go down halfway. Then looked to the joke mug someone in college gave him for finals week, which was larger than a standard coffee pot. There was a huge block of chocolate ice cream melting away in it. “How many of those have you had?”
“I need cheese,” she said, avoiding the question of how many huge mugs of coffee she had drunk in the last two hours.
“Alright,” he said, gently pushing her into the chair. He took a drink of the giant mocha horror show and decided it wasn’t that bad. Even with the ice cream, it was still strong enough for him, and maybe just a bit too much for her. He started wiping down the counter and pulled an ancient cast-iron griddle pan out, and looked at the nine kinds of bread she had ordered and twenty-two kinds of cheese. It only took him a minute to start a pair of grilled cheese.
“Can I have my coffee back?”
“No,” he said, pouring her some leftover grapefruit juice instead, glad he hadn’t mixed the palomas in the bottle. He proceeded to use both hands in lifting the giant mug to his face. He left the mess on his face and kissed her to share it around.
“You taste good,” she purred, and kissed the bit of chocolate ice cream off the tip of his nose. She was torn from licking the rest of mess off his face and experiencing her first grilled cheese. She decided the mess could wait.
“You always taste good,” he said seductively, licking his lips.
“I am trying very hard not to chemically seduce you,” she said, a little worried, knowing he said he didn’t want that from her, with all there was to do. In truth, she liked his careful attentiveness she thought might get lost in the haze of lust. Also, chemical seduction would surely not get her the coffee back or more grilled cheese.
“And you are doing remarkably well, you still taste good,” he said a little throatily. “Now eat,” he said with a grin. “You’ll need the strength for later.” Then he got fancy—extras, layers, whatever made use of all the cheese.” He began expanding on the grilled cheese by adding extras. He took the time to get fancy since she had gotten fancy bread with fancy cheese. He decided to flip through to the Amazon App and find out if he could get another refrigerator this morning. They couldn’t, but the local appliance store had two ready to go. Sitting down with a platter of grilled cheese, he smiled at her. “Should I teach you to make these yourself or leave you in my continual culinary debt?”
“I didn’t spend too much, did I?” she asked a little pensively and then savoring the crunch of the bread and the bliss of warm, melty cheese.
“I would give my entire fortune to see you smile,” he said, and was properly rewarded, and his heart melted, but not his sense of timing. “You might have bought more than the fridge had room for, but don’t worry, I just bought another,” he laughed as she realized he wasn’t teasing. “I have a feeling that we will be spending a lot of time here in the near future. I want you to pick out new furniture and decorate it so that it makes you happy. I also want you to decorate our bedroom at home.”
“I thought you liked the way it was,” she asked, looking over her fifth sandwich at him.
“I like it because of who designed it. I will always love Amy for what she brought to my life, but it is time for me to move on and not be trapped by my past. I need to make my future with you. I want you to make my house our home.”
“I should tell you Angelina told me to pick out new colors for sheets and stuff, she doesn’t like the way my sister smells.”
“I’m not surprised,” he chuckled. “I read an article once that suggested human women once had stronger pheromones, and it suggested they used them in ways to assert dominance. This is actually common in the animal kingdom here. It might have something to do with the way the progenitors seeded this world. It came up when I spoke with Carwai Twen. She is a geneticist on one of the other ships.”
“She isn’t highborn based on her name; I don’t know her. What brought about the conversation?”
“She wanted to talk to a botanist, so they put her through to me. She has some interesting theories. I am going to try and get her a research fellowship at one of our universities.”
“You really don’t care about making waves in our social classes, do you?”
“No, I think things need to be shaken up. You are now the V’ren of Earth who eat Keft Chomparodo.”
“Good, I don’t get to mix with a lot of people who aren’t highborn, but I have learned a lot through the lower-ranked people I work with directly, and it has changed how I see the world. I think seeing how things are on earth, we could change things for the better. I want to be part of that.”
“Do you want to be part of it just for the V’ren or for everyone?”
“I haven’t really thought about how I could be more.”
“Like it or not, T’mari, you are the Alien Princess. We can leverage that in a way that helps with other projects I support. I am stepping back from some of my direct management roles. This is something Leonard helped me put into perspective. I went from being CEO and Freeholder to the role of World Leader in a matter of a few days. I can’t devote time to things that ultimately don’t make a huge impact. I am no longer the captain running a supply depot; I am the general planning the entire war. Part of my new war is raising everyone off the bottom I possibly can.”
“The more you speak, the deeper I fall in love with you, Matthew, high Lord of my heart.” She glanced at the empty platter and smiled softly. “So… where do we begin?”
“Dishes.”
