Granola Bars and Spaceships

by Geneva Vand

  "Holy shit," Eric whispered. "How long did it all take?"

  I let my head drop against the cushions and rolled my neck so that I was looking at him. -Very long time. Young ones had to grow up first.-

  He nodded. "But after that it must have gone quickly."

  -We think so. Was very long time ago. Was passed down through stories and writing before someone put it in school book. But we think adults used time that the young ones took to grow to plan it all, communicating through the young ones. And then was only weeks.-

  Eric shook his head. "That's amazing."

  I shrugged. -Suppose it is. To us is just history.- A huge yawn took me by surprise. I covered it with my free hand and blinked sleepily at Eric.

  "You're tired."

  -A little.-

  "You're still recovering. I should let you rest."

  I shook my head. -You have more questions.-

  He shook his head as well. "Yeah, but they can wait."

  Eric stood, pulling his hand slowly from mine. He moved around in front of me. I watched, amused, as he lifted my legs onto the couch, encouraging me to lie down. Eric was right: I actually was quite tired, though I hadn't realized it while we were talking. I let him herd me and curled up on my side on the comfortable couch. He retrieved a blanket from somewhere and draped it over me.

  I blinked in surprise when he leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to my head, just above my ear. He stood back up, blushing, and quickly went into the kitchen. I smiled at the swinging doors dividing the two rooms and let myself doze off.

  *~*~*

  Eric reached up and felt his cheek. He was blushing hard enough he could feel the heat. He shook his head. What had he been thinking? Kissing Keeska on the forehead like a babe?

  Idiot.

  He shook his head and started to put away dishes. He wanted something to do while he poked at what he was feeling.

  What was he feeling? Friendship?

  Eric shook his head. That wasn't quite right. There was way too much adoration for what he would normally consider friendship.

  Could he be falling for an alien?

  No. That would be ridiculous.

  Eric sighed. He shut off the water and dried his hands. Turning to face the kitchen doors, he leaned a hip on the counter and stared in the direction of the couch.

  Okay. Think logically.

  He'd known Keeska all of six days. Except that wasn't really right, was it? He'd started interacting with Keeska weeks ago. He'd been trading food for carefully tidied trash on chairs. He'd been wondering about Keeska since that first day when he'd found the not-feather. Which Keeska's people apparently called veeka. And Keeska had left the bracelet for him two weeks ago.

  Eric groaned, scrubbed his hands over his face, and tried to keep thinking.

  What did long term fascination and the sudden familiarity of the last several days, especially the first two when he was home and Keeska was barely mobile, add up to if he wasn't feeling like a friend?

  Oh, that sounded an awful lot like a crush, didn't it?

  He groaned again and let his head fall back. He stared at the ceiling and thought about Keeska.

  Cute. Fluffy ears and ruffled frowns. A strong dislike for rough fabric that tugged on ta veeka. Vulnerable and sweet while eet slept on Eric's couch. Scared that Eric wouldn't understand about the lab babies thing. Soft, warm palms. Eric chuckled. Purple. Purple skin, shiny veeka, cute ears. Smart. Eric thought that Keeska might be very smart.

  Eric sighed. Yup. He definitely had a crush on his alien houseguest. Great. So. Consequences?

  He turned to lean on the counter with both hands and stared down at nothing. He figured the consequences were pretty obvious. Keeska wasn't going to stay here forever. Eet would leave. If Eric fell for Keeska, he'd loose eet eventually.

  He moved to the door and pushed one side open. He watched as Keeska opened ta eyes, saw him in the doorway, and smiled softly. Keeska's eyes drifted closed again, and Eric cursed quietly.

  Less than a week? So what? He was already screwed.

  COMPANIONSHIP

  "You're in an awful big hurry to get out of here today."

  Eric's head jerked toward the person standing in his office doorway. "What?"

  "Cherise said you're using some more of your vacation time this afternoon," David said. "I came to check in before you leave, and now I find you packing up like a madman."

  Eric blinked and looked at down at his bag. Which he had sort of randomly crammed things into. Oops. "Ah…"

  David grinned and propped himself on the door jamb. "Hot date?"

  Eric groaned. "No." He shrugged into his coat. "What were you checking in about?"

  "Just wanted to see if you needed the night crew to take care of anything. You usually let us know before you go, but I just wanted to make sure. What with the big thing in a few weeks and all."

  Eric scrubbed a hand over his head, rubbing at his short hair. "Yeah, uh… Can you guys start going down the author list? Check the catalog and make a list of titles we can display. If there are some we don't have, go ahead and put in borrow requests."

  David nodded. "Sounds good. It's probably going to be dead tonight anyway. Do you want us to make up posters of book covers or something? Are we allowed to do that? Ally's in tonight and she's really good at that type of thing. It was her idea actually."

  "Cover images only. You can get them from Goodreads or something. If you want to send me PDFs when you're done, I'll run them by the publishers before we print them just in case. It's a good idea. Maybe sort by genre or author?"

  David hummed. "I like the genre idea. I'll find a few cool covers for each author and group them around the event details. We could maybe hang them up by the sections in the library."

  Eric grinned. "That would be excellent. Work on getting those done before you do the other. We'll need them done ASAP if we're going to get them up before the actual event. It's only three weeks out."

  David gave Eric a double thumbs up and started to wander off. "Have fun on your date!" he called over his shoulder.

  Eric sighed and slung his messenger bag across his chest. He did not have a date. He had a houseguest whose company he was enjoying. That he was rushing home to spend more time with because he enjoyed their company so much.

  Crap. He was acting like he had a date.

  Oh well. Nothing to do for it now, and he did have vacation time piled up. Plus, nothing was pending, so there was really no reason he couldn't leave early this once. He was working the weekend, but he had tomorrow off, and he had promised Keeska a movie marathon and popcorn. Eric wanted to get to the rental place down the street before all the good stuff was gone. He wanted a few newer movies that he couldn't get ahold of at work without waiting for ages.

  *~*~*

  I frowned at the stove.

  I had burnt my sandwich again. And by that, I did not mean I had slightly scorched it. One side was raw while the other looked like it had been two seconds away from actually catching fire. I sighed and slid the smoking mess into the trash.

  Eric had been teaching me how to use his kitchen so that I wouldn't have to eat cold food when he was at work. I could warm soup and make tea, but everything else thus far was a complete failure. Thankfully, Eric seemed to have realized this and had filled most of a cupboard with all different kinds of soup.

  I had been eating a lot of soup. For weeks. So much soup. The kinds with little pieces of pasta were my favorite. Those and the pea soup the Eric had fed me that first day.

  Still moping about the sandwich, I grabbed one of my favorites down. The sharp smell of minestrone filled the air. I smiled and dumped it in the pan.

  "Holy shit!"

  I jumped and turned toward the doorway. Eric was standing there, wide eyes taking in the smoke filling the air in the kitchen. I winced.

  "What happened?"

  I shrugged and pointed toward the garbage can.

  Eric went over to look, prodding at the disgu
sting mess that had almost been my lunch. He laughed and looked up at me. "Soup it is, then."

  I grinned at him, shrugging again.

  He shook his head ruefully and held out his hand. I stepped forward and rested my fingers in his palm. It was so warm! My fingers flexed, fingertips rubbing over his skin. The feel of his skin fascinated me. It was very similar to that of an Iska, but slightly rougher, more textured. And he had tiny hairs on the backs of his hands and on his arms. Like his species had begun to grow veeka but given up right after starting.

  He wrapped his long fingers around mine, stepping forward so that our arms were hanging loosely between us.

  "Would you like me to make you a sandwich?" he asked, almost laughing.

  I stuck my tongue out at him, a habit I had picked up from something we had watched last week. He returned the gesture good naturedly.

  -You make toast?- I asked. I actually had managed to set something on fire in the toaster and tended to stay away from it.

  Eric snorted in amusement. "Of course. Would you like jam or just butter?"

  -Butter, please. Thank you.-

  He released my hand to get bread out of the fridge. I hurriedly moved to stir the soup before it decided to go the way of the sandwich.

  Eric clicked the toaster down, then propped his chin on my shoulder so that he could look into the pan. "Doesn't look too bad."

  I elbowed him gently in the stomach and he backed up to lean on the counter.

  "I made it to the rental place. I got three movies, but I don't know if you'll want to watch them all."

  I tilted my head and made the trilling sound that I had taken to using as a question when he wasn't touching me.

  He shrugged. "A funny cartoon, one full of explosions, and a romance."

  Oh. He'd noticed that I'd been rewatching the cute movie about the lonely lady and the mix-up with the brothers. The first two were for us both, but the romance was definitely for me. That was sweet.

  He was watching me, waiting for some sort of reaction. I didn't know what to do, so I smiled and stirred the soup again. I was saved from his scrutiny when the toast popped up and he turned around to put it on a plate.

  Eric handed me one of his heavy bowls, and I busied myself further by transferring the soup into it. He handed me a glass of water, dropped a spoon into my bowl, and carried the toast into the living room.

  I took a sip of the slightly warm water, smiling for real this time. He paid so much attention to what I liked. How did he even know that I hated cold water? But every time he gave me water, it was slightly warm.

  I followed him into the other room and curled up in my corner of the couch. He had set the toast on the table in front of me, but I didn't see him anywhere. The faucet turning on down the hall a moment later let me know where he was.

  Soon, he reappeared in the more worn clothing he liked to wear around the house. "I didn't eat at work, so I'm going to make something."

  I nodded around my bite of toast and he disappeared through the swinging doors.

  I realized for the first time that he was home much earlier than I had expected him to be. I glanced at the clock on the wall. Hours earlier. I had gotten used to his schedule in the past couple weeks, and I knew that when he left for work around nine, like he had this morning, he should have been home around six, not one.

  I crunched on the last of my toast and contemplated the clock some more. That was interesting. Did he come home early for me? So we could watch movies together? We could have done that just as easily if he had come home at his regular time. He hadn't seemed upset, so I thought I could safely assume nothing bad had happened.

  I glanced toward the kitchen to see him practically bouncing his way through the swinging doors. He had a plate with a pile of chips and a perfectly toasted grilled cheese sandwich. My jaw dropped and I stared at him. The nerve!

  He stopped bouncing long enough to perch at the other end of the couch. He crunched noisily on a chip and looked over at me. He grinned. "What? It sounded good."

  I shook my head and slurped my soup loudly, competing with his loud crunching as much as possible. I looked over at him when he started laughing suddenly, but just as suddenly as he had started, he stopped.

  "Sorry." He cleared his throat and pointed to the movie discs laid out on the table. "Which one first?"

  I set my now empty bowl down and leaned forward to look. They were all plain, with no real hints to tell me which one was which. I looked back at Eric.

  "Doesn't matter. Just choose one."

  I shrugged and picked up the bright gold one with big black letters printed on it. I had been much more successful at learning Human tech than I had been at Human cooking. It only took me a moment to turn on the devices and put the movie disc in the player.

  Eric pulled the small black remote from somewhere and started pushing buttons. The usual screen with the option menu came up.

  Ah. I had chosen the one full of explosions, then. Excellent. I grabbed the soft blanket from the center of the couch and curled up under it to watch the good Humans catch the bad Humans.

  *~*~*

  Eric glanced over at the opposite end of the couch. Watching Keeska watch movies was almost better than watching the movies himself. He wasn't sure what type of entertainment was usual for Keeska's culture, but Human movies seemed new to eet.

  A particularly large kaboom on the screen made Keeska jump and Eric grinned. He turned back to the movie before he got caught staring again. Keeska had already seen him watching several times. Eric had always just shrugged and turned back to the movie, not wanting to make eet self-conscious.

  A few more explosions later, and the first movie was done. Eric held up the remaining two, making Keeska choose again. Eet pursed ta lips and pointed to the one in Eric's left hand. He flipped it over to look. Romance next.

  He moved over to the player, switching out the discs but not closing the tray. Instead Eric went back to the couch and grabbed Keeska's hands to pull eet to ta feet. He kept Keeska's left hand and tugged eet into the kitchen.

  -What?-

  "Popcorn!"

  -What?-

  Eric grinned at Keeska's confusion. Oh, this would be fun. They hadn't done popcorn yet. "We're making popcorn. We can't have a movie marathon without popcorn."

  -What is popcorn?-

  "Popcorn is delicious."

  Keeska huffed in annoyance as Eric dropped ta hand so he could get the popcorn tin and a small paper bag from the cupboard above the microwave. He snapped open the bag and set it on the counter. The tin made a metallic pop when he opened it and Keeska came over, curious.

  Eric held out the tin. "One scoop goes in the bag."

  Keeska looked at him, then back into the tin. Eet very carefully picked up the scoop, measured the bright yellow kernels, and dumped them into the bag. When the scoop was back in the tin, Eric sealed it back up and shoved it back into the cupboard.

  "Now we fold the top down." He did it slowly, while Keeska watched him avidly. "Then we put it in the microwave and hit the five-minute button."

  Keeska stood almost entirely still, watching the microwave. Every couple seconds, eet would glance at Eric, frowning. Eric didn't say anything, simply watching Keeska and waiting for the first kernel to pop. He wasn't disappointed.

  The first sharp pop! came from the microwave and Keeska jumped, making a sound that could only be described as a squeak. Eric grinned and stepped back a little, waiting to see what Keeska would do next.

  The popcorn started really doing its thing. Keeska squeaked again and quickly reached out to stop the microwave. But just before eet pressed the button, eet stopped. Keeska put ta hands and ta hips and turned to glare at Eric.

  "What?" he asked, trying to sound innocent. "It's popcorn. It pops."

  Keeska rolled ta eyes and turned back around to watch the microwave. When the popping slowed down, eet reached out and stopped the popcorn without prompting.

  "Hey!" Eric exclaimed as Keeska ginge
rly removed the hot bag from the microwave. "We've found something else you can cook!"

  Keeska ignored him, setting the bag on the counter so eet could open the top and look inside. Eric smiled when Keeska had to tip the bag sideways a little to see in. Ta eyes widened a little and eet trilled, looking at Eric. Eric grinned and pulled down a big bowl to dump the popcorn in.

  "Do you want to try it before we put salt and butter on it?"

  Keeska nodded, reaching out to grab a piece. Eet popped it in his mouth and started to chew. It didn't take long for Keeska to make a funny face and go to the fridge to get the butter. Eet held it out to Eric expectantly.

  "Just put a couple spoonfuls in a mug and put it in the microwave for fifteen seconds."

  Keeska was soon holding the mug of melted butter out to Eric, looking at him expectantly.

  "Just pour it on and mix it up."

  Keeska snorted and thrust the mug out.

  "Oh, come on. You're not that bad." They both looked toward the trash can where Keeska's murdered sandwich was probably still smoldering. "Yeah, okay."

  Eric took the mug and drizzled the butter over the popcorn then salted it. He used his hands to stir the whole thing up a bit, then held the bowl out to Keeska.

  Keeska eagerly grabbed some and tried it. Eet smiled widely, nodding. Then eet grabbed the bowl out of Eric's hands and trotted into the other room, eating the whole time.

  "Hey!" Eric shouted. "You're supposed to share that."

  Keeska's trilling laugh rang out. Eric cursed, grinned, and went to rescue his share of the popcorn.

  *~*~*

  "What do you like about these movies?" Eric asked quietly as the credits rolled on the romance.

  I reached over to rest my fingertips on the back of Eric's hand, thinking. -The story. Find each other. Love. Funny. Many feelings. Sweet. Happy.-

  Eric hummed quietly.

  -You like too.- I pointed to the case that I didn't even bother to put away anymore, I watched it so much. -Case broken when I found. You watched a lot.-