by Gini Koch
Martini caught me and kissed me as the band rolled into “Secret World.” He kissed me all through the song. I heard the band joke that the bride seemed happy with the encore, and I could tell from the way they were laughing and the audience reaction that everyone knew Martini and I were kissing. Didn’t care.
The band said goodnight, screams and thunderous applause were heard, concert was over, and we were still kissing. Best concert of my life.
CHAPTER 65
THE REST OF THE NIGHT WAS A BLUR. Got to meet the band, with Martini keeping a firm hold on me, just in case. How the guys in the band didn’t drop from exhaustion was beyond me—our crowd was pretty well-behaved, but I caught that the Dazzlers felt, particularly after this concert, that musical genius was almost as good as scientific genius, and we had to do some crowd control before we ended up with a mob scene.
Once the band was finally safe, we all went back to the main party. Martini was carrying me around on his hip, which earned us a lot of jokes, all of which he seemed to enjoy. I was just so happy to finally be with him that I didn’t care.
He grinned. “Nice to know you pine for me every time I’m in isolation.”
“Every single time, Jeff.” Had to make out a bit after that, which earned us more ribbing from the various family members.
“So,” I asked after we broke the latest lip-lock, “how long were you watching?”
“Oh, a while before you noticed. I didn’t want you to know I was there until the encore started.”
“And then you did?”
“Then I felt how much you liked it.” He sounded so happy, had to make out again.
“Do you two ever stop?” Christopher was laughing.
“Nope,” Martini said with a satisfied smile.
“Christopher, did you, um, have the wise idea to change viewpoints?”
“You’re trying to be secretive. So not your forté.”
I rolled my eyes. “I had cousins asking me if you guys were Mormons. My sorority sisters seemed clueless. I thought your father and Jeff and Paul’s parents had spilled the beans, so to speak.”
“Oh, you mean the total security breach that could cause untold ramifications?” He sounded as thrilled with it as I was. Thank God someone else saw this as a potentially bad thing. “It’s handled.”
“What did you do?” Martini asked, as he moved the three of us into a quiet corner.
Christopher shrugged. “It dawned on me a few months ago that Kitty was probably right.”
“Wow, I may faint. Right about what?”
“Genetic mutations. Between us and humans.”
“Serene is our poster girl.”
“Right. But Paul’s talents are normal, at least as far as we know. And Michael has no special talents.” Christopher stared at me.
“Um . . . this is a test? You’re testing me at my bachelorette party? Is it just ’cause I talked all smack about this and I’m right or is it because you like to torture?”
“Both.”
Made the exasperation sound. “Fine.” Thought about it. Thought about it some more. “Serene is more powerful . . . Paul and Michael are not . . . oh, wow, really?”
“Yeah.”
“Feeling left out and stupid here,” Martini said dryly.
“I’m guessing that Naomi and Abigail Gower have powers no one’s told anyone else about. Right?”
“Right.” Christopher looked around. I did, too. No one was paying us much attention. “Naomi has Paul’s talent, but it’s different, the way Serene’s an imageer but with expanded powers. Naomi can read dreams and memories, but she can also alter them.”
“Wow. That’s a scary talent.”
“If allowed to go uncontrolled, yes.”
“Does Abigail have a . . . mutation?” Martini sounded worried.
“Jeff, we’re not the X-Men.”
“Starting to sound like it,” Chuckie said as he joined us. “Not that I mind.”
Christopher sighed. “Yeah, we know. This is a great day for the C.I.A.”
“Abigail?” Martini asked, Commander voice on.
“She doesn’t need an implant to affect the gasses. It’s a combo dream-imageer talent, we think. She just moves them around without outside assistance. She can also pick up thoughts, but she feels them as emotions, sort of empathic but not quite. She can pick up if someone is thinking angry thoughts, because she feels angry when she’s near that person, as an example.” Christopher sounded only mildly worried.
“They must have been fun in puberty.”
“They were controlled by then.” Christopher sounded more worried.
“By whom?”
He shook his head. “They have no idea. They just know someone was helping them when they were little girls. They don’t know who, they never met the person, both think it was a man but aren’t sure.” He sounded full-on worried.
“I’m going to bet that when we ask Serene, it’ll be the same for her.”
“Probably.” Martini’s voice was brisk. “So Abigail’s altering what Kitty’s family and friends are seeing and will see?”
Christopher shrugged. “In a way. If she spots people who are afraid, angry, and so on, Naomi will alter their memories. The girls work well together.”
“How long have you been testing them without telling me?” Martini didn’t sound happy.
Christopher shrugged. “A couple of months. Jeff, you were too distracted.”
“With what?”
Christopher coughed. “Marrying Kitty.”
“Oh.”
“We’re going to run some tests on them,” Chuckie said. “Standard emotional and mental stability tests, long-term effects on both of them and those with altered memories.”
“Wait, we don’t know the results? So, what, you’re going to use my family as part of an experiment?”
Chuckie rolled his eyes. “Yes and no. You have a choice: We can let the Gower girls do their thing, or you can allow the security breach the four of us and your mother are all unexcited about. From what White’s told me, the tests they’ve already done are pretty comprehensive; we just want to be more sure.”
“The C.I.A. does not have the right to test any of our people on anything.” Martini sounded like he was heading toward angry with a potential stop at furious.
Chuckie raised his hand. “Look. This was being discussed before I had to assume control of Centaurion. Make a scene, start shouting up the channels? They’ll make sure I keep control of Centaurion. Shut the hell up and let us do the tests of your personnel with your permission, and everyone’s so pleased Centaurion is playing nicely with others that they won’t notice control’s returned back to you.”
Martini shook his head. “We don’t trust you.”
“Jeff, has he lied to you about anything yet? Not trusting the C.I.A. I can agree with. Not trusting Chuckie seems more like kicking the one guy who hasn’t done you wrong just because you can. Of course, if he’s really that evil and my mother and I’ve just missed it for fifteen years, we could just not go on a honeymoon, and you could fight the C.I.A. about this.”
Martini gave a martyred sigh. “I do have a job to do.”
“Yeah, Jeff, you do. And, right now, your job is to marry Kitty and go on your honeymoon. My job is to cover your job when you’re on vacation or out of commission, remember?” Christopher sounded somewhat annoyed, but not overly so.
“Oh, fine,” Martini grumbled. “You could have shared this sometime other than right now.”
“It was relevant right now,” Christopher snapped. He looked at me. “So don’t worry—the friends and family members who need to have a different memory will all have the same one, congratulations, you’re marrying into the Martini and Rossi fortune. The others will have a suggestion implanted that makes them loath to talk about Jeff’s side of the family except in nice, vague, very human terms.”
“Hope it works. Claudia and Lorraine told my sorority sisters I was marrying royalty.”
&n
bsp; Christopher shrugged. “If they buy it and they’re happy with that story, Naomi and Abigail will know. If not, Martini and Rossi.”
“I hate being royalty,” Martini grumbled.
“It’s a better cover than being a space alien,” Chuckie said. “Politically and just from a common sense standpoint.”
Martini glared at him. I heaved my own sigh. “Chuckie’s right. Jeff, you done sulking and stomping and attempting to wreck my cool coed bachelorette party?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
Christopher shook his head. “You get to go have a slumber party. I have to spend the night with him.”
“I’ll trade.”
Christopher snorted. “As if James will allow that.” He looked around. “Where is the drill sergeant, anyway?”
“Managing the photographer.” Chuckie sounded like he was trying not to laugh.
“What photographer?” I hadn’t seen any flashes.
“The one you were too into the concert and far too into making out with each other to notice,” Chuckie said, now openly laughing. “Ah, to be a rock star of any age. Walk on stage with a guitar, watch the women swoon.”
“Did the photographer take pictures of us making out?”
“Yeah,” Christopher said with a grin. “Glad Jeff’s been carrying you the whole time. You’re showing a lot of leg.”
“A lot of everything,” Chuckie added with an exaggerated leer.
Martini shrugged. “My arm’s covering anything you’re not allowed to see.”
“I hope.”
“Truth’ll come out in the darkroom.” Chuckie winked. “I paid for the photographer.”
“Oh, great.” I looked hard at Chuckie’s expression. He was definitely laughing at his own private joke. “Oh. No way. Is the photographer who I think it is?”
He grinned. “Yes. We wanted someone who was good at avoiding your notice while getting your picture at the same time.”
“Are you and James both high?”
Chuckie laughed. “No. We gave the World Weekly News the exclusive on the party. White’s team will alter anything necessary photographically, the rest of the paparazzi are shut out because the WWN people are keeping them out, and nothing’s happening here that would give anyone a reason to believe the A-Cs are anything other than what we’re saying they are.”
“While I can appreciate the brilliance in having one set of paparazzi in place to keep all the others out, Mister Joel Oliver is supposedly a photojournalist. How are we going to ensure the journalistic portion doesn’t get out of control?”
Christopher shrugged. “No one believes him, Kitty. And, frankly, it’s safer to keep him close so we can monitor what he’s photographing and who he’s talking to.” He grimaced. “I’ll take the risk Reynolds and James took with the photographer over the risk our parents took with telling everyone at this wedding who and what we really are.”
“I’m with White. Oliver’s thrilled to be getting the exclusive,” Chuckie added. “Believe me, he has a team of C.I.A. operatives and two A-C field teams assigned to guard him. Every person assisting him is either from my team, your mother’s team, or an A-C. His footage is being altered immediately, and the only conversations he’s catching have more to do with your clothing, or lack thereof, than anything else.” He flashed the exaggerated leer again. “From what Oliver’s already told me, he’s gotten some excellent shots.”
“Let me know if there’s anything really good,” Christopher said. “I’ll probably place a big order. Most of the guys want a shot of Kitty in her lingerie.”
“It’s an outfit. For clubbing. Like this is a club and I’m wearing it here, at a club. At a party at a club. Chuckie made me wear a jacket and everything.”
“Right. So, Reynolds, remember, pull out the good ones, and don’t let Kitty or Jeff see them. I figure we can charge, easy, ten to fifteen dollars a pop.”
“Oh, the shots of her butt? Those’re worth at least twenty-five per eight by ten.” Chuckie and Christopher were really cracking each other up. Of course, I knew my skirt was tucked between my bottom and Martini’s arm, and I hadn’t seen Oliver or a camera flash once this entire time, so I wasn’t overly concerned. If I’d really been showing that much, one of my relatives would have mentioned it.
Aunt Carla showed up, effectively breaking up our meeting. “So, Katherine, nice party. And, young man, you’re fine with her displaying everything she owns all over?”
Then again, maybe they were all just waiting for Aunt Carla to mention it.
Martini grinned. “Yeah. I like showing off what no one else is ever going to get to touch.” He walked us away, leaving Aunt Carla open-mouthed.
“Have I mentioned I love you?”
“More than the guys in Tears for Fears?”
“Yeah.”
“More than the guys in Aerosmith?”
I had to ponder. “Yeah. Even more than Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. Put together.”
“Wow. Guess I’d better marry you, then.”
“Well, only if you want to.”
Martini spent the next hour or so showing me that he really wanted to. It was a great party.
CHAPTER 66
OF COURSE, READER WAS TRUE to his word and dragged the wedding party off at midnight. I made some Cinderella jokes he didn’t laugh at. I was allowed to stay with Martini all the way through the casino and up the elevator. Martini carried me through the casino—some I figured because he enjoyed it, some because I’d whined that we’d been here ages and I hadn’t gotten to gamble once, and he wasn’t taking any chances.
For once I didn’t feel like I was being watched. Apparently the plan Chuckie and Reader had in place was working. Let the one paparazzo in, and the others were miraculously kept out. Worked for me.
Reader actually let us take our own elevator but left Christopher and Chuckie stationed at the top floor and himself at the lobby level.
“James, you’re taking this whole Wedding Planner from Hell thing a little far, aren’t you?”
“Uh-huh. The elevators send off major alarms if you stop them on the way up or down. I’ll be paying attention, but if you try getting off on another floor and hyperspeeding somewhere, we’ll know.”
“It’s the night before our wedding,” Martini grumbled.
“Yeah. You know, in the olden days, I’d have her under lock and key because you still wouldn’t have scored a tongue-kiss, let alone anything else.”
“Thank God for modern times.” Martini carried me into the elevator, waited for the door to close, then pushed every button at hyperspeed. “Let ’em worry.” He put me up against the side of the car, and we proceeded to make out like mad.
The positive on stopping at every floor was that we got to make out a lot longer. The negative was that we couldn’t do anything more because, well, we were stopping at every floor, and this was Vegas—people were up at any and all hours. We knew there were people on some of the floors because we heard them. All but one guy were nice and didn’t try to join us in the elevator. The one guy came in, made a comment, Martini reached out, grabbed him, and threw him out, all while continuing to ravage my mouth and grind against me. I found this so awesome I almost ripped his clothes off.
We finally got to the top floor.
“You know, some of us have to sleep and get up tomorrow,” Christopher snapped.
“I expected you to go up and down a few times,” Chuckie said. “You’re slipping, Martini.”
“Good idea.” Martini moved for the “door close” button, but Christopher was faster and got his body blocking the doors just in time.
“Out.” We didn’t move. “Now.” Still didn’t move. “Or I get Renata.”
We moved.
Martini put me down and walked me to the door. I could hear the girls in there, shrieking with laughter. He leaned against the wall and stroked my face. “I don’t want to sleep apart tonight.”
“Me, either. But James has rules.”
“Humans ha
ve silly rules.”
“And aliens are weird. What’s your point?” I’d unbuttoned his shirt while we were in the elevator. I ran my fingers over his chest.
“You really liked the concert?”
“You know I did. Especially the encore.”
He smiled. “Then it’s all worth it.” He bent and kissed me. “I feel like we’re on a date.”
“And you’re taking me back to my sorority. Yeah.”
“What’re you going to tell the girls when they ask you how the date went?”
“That I just went out with the guy I’m going to marry.”
Martini grinned. “Then it was a good date.”
I leaned up. “The best ever.”
He kissed me again, then opened the door, handed me the key, and walked back to Christopher and the elevators. Chuckie was already in his room. I watched Martini walk away, turn around, and watch me until the elevator came and Christopher dragged him inside it.
Heaved a sigh, closed the door.
“So?” Lorraine shouted. “Did you two do it in the elevator?” All the girls were giggling—it was a slumber party.
“No, but we hit the buttons to stop it on every floor. And made out the whole way.”
“Wow, total restraint,” Claudia said. “I’m impressed.” She looked at Lorraine. “Pay up.”
Lorraine sighed and slapped a bill in Claudia’s hand. My grandmothers had clearly rubbed off on everyone.
A lot more bantering, laughing, and joking went on while I worked my way to the bedroom. Everyone had loved the concert, even Jareen, Renata, Wahoa, and Felicia. Apparently Princess Victoria had been in the audience as well, though I’d missed her. Alexander was also on the premises.
“They left their world unattended? Just to show up for all our wedding stuff?”
Renata nodded. “This is an important diplomatic mission. Earth has shown its power, and our solar system must ensure we remain on friendly terms.”
“Diplomacy and marketing have a lot in common. Both use a lot of fancy words to lie really impressively.”
She laughed. “True. But the result is the same—this will solidify relationships. Victoria said they were most impressed that you asked representatives from each of the loyal worlds to be a part of the prince’s wedding.”