would—not for her and David. They might be different now, but they had been born human, and they could never completely leave that identity behind. “Okay,” she said. All her disparate emotions seemed to coalesce. She knew what she wanted, and now that she had made the decision, the words came easily to her—as if they had always been there in the background, waiting. “We’ll talk about it. I want to be with you, and I want to be with her, and I want to try to make it work.” Her legs wobbled as she moved toward him and reached for his hands. “Now can I kiss you?”
She felt the imprint of his smile on her mouth as his hands moved around her waist, the connection opening up between the two of them as she pulled him closer: all of him tangled with all of her, and she wasn’t confused, not one tiny bit.
Amber wasn’t in the bathroom anymore. “Amber?” Reese called.
“I’m in here,” Amber said from the bedroom.
Reese went into Carl Baldwin’s bedroom and saw Amber picking through what appeared to be his sock drawer. “What are you doing?”
Amber pulled out a pair of white tube socks. “I can’t fit into any of his shoes, but I’m not walking around barefoot anymore.” She sat on the edge of the bed and unrolled the socks, giving them a dubious look. “I guess they’re clean enough.”
“You just ran through two dirty fields in bare feet and you’re worried about the cleanliness of these socks?” Reese said, laughing.
Amber arched an eyebrow at her. “You’re in a good mood.” She crossed her right ankle over her left knee and studied the sole of her foot. It was still red and scarred, but the skin no longer appeared to be broken. Amber slid the sock on. “Did you talk to David?”
Reese leaned against the dresser. “Yeah.”
Amber glanced up and then back down at her foot, a faint pink stain on her cheeks. “So?”
“When you first suggested this—last Friday on the ship—you said it wasn’t unusual for Imrians to be in relationships of more than two people.”
Amber seemed surprised that Reese was bringing this up. “Yeah, so?”
“Is it normal?”
Amber pulled on the second tube sock. They came all the way up over her knees, and she tugged the hem of her dress down so that it looked like she was wearing thick white tights. “It’s not uncommon. I have three parents.”
Reese’s jaw dropped. “You mean, Dr. Brand is in a—a—”
“I prefer to not think of my mother too closely in this situation,” Amber said dryly. “But I do have two fathers. They’re back home.”
“Really?”
Amber smiled. “Really. I think you’d like them.”
Curiosity overcame Reese’s self-consciousness. “How does that work with, um, you said the Imria use an artificial womb? Is only one of them your biological father?”
“No, they’re both my biological fathers.” At Reese’s look of confusion, she elaborated. “You always need an egg to begin with, and then genes from all parents involved are added in during conception. It’s like genetic engineering, I guess.”
“So they picked who you would look like and everything?”
“Well, you can’t actually know that for sure, but… sort of. I guess I’d say that Imrian children are deliberately created.” Amber crossed her legs. “But let’s not get off track. You talked about it with David? What did you decide?”
Amber was trying to sound nonchalant, but Reese heard the anxiousness in her voice. Her dress was smudged with dirt and the right cap sleeve had a rip in it. She must have tried to wash off her face in the bathroom, but traces of eyeliner remained, and her hair was wet.
“You said that you liked me because I made you feel human,” Reese said, thinking back to that afternoon on the beach at Angel Island. “But humans… we don’t normally do this. We have a hard enough time being with one other person, much less two. I know there are people who can do it. But I’ve never thought I could be one of them. I never thought about it, period. It’s scary, you know?”
“What scares you the most?” Amber asked.
“I’m scared that we’re going to screw it up,” Reese said frankly. “That I’m going to hurt one of you, or that it’s just going to be too complicated. And if I start thinking about what might happen when other people—the public—find out, I might have a panic attack. I’ve never done anything remotely like this before. Before I met you, I didn’t think I’d ever want to date anyone.”
“Really?” Amber said, surprised. “You never told me that.”
“Would it have mattered if I did? I don’t think you would have paid any attention.”
A wry smile crossed Amber’s face. “Probably not.” A cautious hope seemed to dawn in her eyes. “But does this mean that you want to now? Date people?”
Reese knelt on the floor in front of her and threaded her fingers through Amber’s. “No,” Reese said, and Amber’s eyes sparkled as she sensed Reese’s feelings spilling through her. “I don’t want to date people. I want to date you, and I want to date David.”
Amber looked as if she could hardly believe what Reese had said. “Really?”
Reese smiled. “Really.”
Amber lifted a hand to Reese’s face, her fingertips tracing Reese’s cheek, and Reese felt the joy that rose inside Amber, warm as her skin and sweet as the taste of her mouth. Amber put her arms around Reese’s neck and kissed her, murmuring, “I love you.”
Reese couldn’t resist. She pulled back an inch and said, “I know.”
Amber’s fingers, twined in Reese’s hair, tightened abruptly. “You did not just say that.”
“Ow,” Reese said, laughing. She pulled Amber off the bed and onto her lap, and as they kissed, Reese told her:
CHAPTER 40
They left a note for Carl Baldwin. Amber found a pen in the kitchen’s junk drawer and flipped over the electric bill to write on it.
Amber left the note in the middle of the table, weighted down with a fork, and then scribbled Carl Baldwin’s address on a pizza menu and gave it to Reese. “I don’t have any pockets,” Amber said at Reese’s questioning glance. She had given David’s jacket back to him.
“Oh.” Reese pocketed the address. “Ready to go?”
“Don’t forget your guns,” Amber said as she headed for the back door.
David looked amused. He picked up the agent’s gun from the counter and Reese grabbed Carter’s weapon from the table, and they followed Amber out of the house.
The black triangle was far above them in the sky, but its sharp edges were clearly distinguishable. A small dot emerged from the ship and descended toward the field. As it approached, Reese recognized it as the lander,
