by Magan Vernon
"And now you are like your own little married couple, getting breakfast together in the dining hall and knitting each other purses." I nodded my head in the direction of her giant pink purse. Riley told me their new hobby was going to stitch and bitch classes and knitting things for each other. They were too cute.
"Yeah, if society would even let us get married. It sucks, you know? All these things about our way of life ruining the institution of marriage, but really, what could it hurt? Two more people who love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together displaying it for the entire world to see. Man, it just gets me how much people resent us for dating."
I knew exactly what she meant, whether she knew it or not. Dating an alien was hard enough, but that was mostly secluded from the human world. I couldn't imagine what it would be like if everyone was against us.
"Alex, is that you?"
Oh God. I recognized that cocky voice. No, no, please don’t let it be him. I looked away from Riley and saw Monte and Ace walking toward us. Crap, it was that voice.
"Oh, hey, Monte, hey, Ace." I waved until they stopped in front of us.
"Fancy running into you here." Monte put on his cockeyed grin, the one that made every single girl I ever knew fawn over him. I was not impressed and hopefully Lucy wouldn't be either. I knew she played for the other team, but Monte was a persuasive guy when he wanted something. All Caltian men were.
"Huh, well, I did tell Ace I would be here, but I expected he would take that as a chance to do some work." I shot a glare in Ace's direction.
He either didn't notice or didn't care. Instead he stepped next to me and took my hand in his while Monte sauntered to the other side of Lucy.
"Monte and I thought we might just want to get out for a little while and this seemed like the place to be." Ace squeezed my hand. He was going to be in so much trouble. I knew he hated shopping worse than he hated aliens from Venus. This had to be Monte's plan to try and get to Lucy.
"But I don’t believe we have met, beautiful." Monte held out his hand, wrapping his fingers around Lucy's extended one. "I am Monte, Ace's friend."
"I’m Lucy, Alex's roommate," Lucy replied before quickly pulling her hand away and burying it in the pocket of her jean shorts. I wished I would have forced her to wear something more matronly. In her tank top and short shorts, I knew Monte couldn't help but let his dark eyes trail to every part of her. He had the creeper stare down to a science.
"Alex, you never told me your roommate was this gorgeous. Where have you been hiding her all this time?" Monte didn't even look at me, just kept his eyes locked on Lucy.
"I've got to protect the girl somehow," I gritted through my teeth.
Ace bumped my hip with our intertwined hands. "Be nice," he whispered.
I rolled my eyes, but no one even noticed. Lucy was actually looking up and smiling at Monte. This couldn't be good.
"You don't mind if we join you ladies for a bit, do you?" Monte's voice oozed with confidence. He probably thought it was in the bag.
"No, of course not." Lucy shook her head. "I'm sure Alex wouldn't mind spending some with Ace."
"Does this mean you would like to spend some time with me as well?" Monte leaned his head in toward Lucy.
He towered over her. Like every Caltian man he was really tall and well built like a Grecian statue. If I didn't think he was such a jerk I might have actually found him attractive with his spiky black hair and prominent jaw line. But I had my own Caltian, who was even sexier and had the personality to match. Unlike creeper Monte.
Lucy shrugged, pulling two hair ties out of her bag and pulling her hair into two tiny pigtails. "Sure, why not?"
Monte raised his hand up, his fingers sliding through her hair and then down her jaw. "I like these. They suite you."
Ugh, creeper alert. But Lucy just giggled. Not good, not good. I didn't know why I agreed to let Monte put the moves on Lucy. Maybe because I didn't think it would actually work, or because at the time I was desperate to get rid of Riley. Now I realized that Riley wasn't actually as bad as I thought she was and maybe I even judged the former intern badly…even if she did try to kill me.
We picked our path back up through the strip mall. Lucy and Monte went on talking like they were old friends and maybe even a hint of flirting. Lucy kept laughing at Monte's cheesy pick up lines, and on more than one occasion, I saw him put his arm around her shoulders.
"I almost jumped when Ace put his lips to my ear and whispered, "It looks like Monte's plan is going quite smoothly.
"Yeah," I grumbled, looking up at him. "Looks like it."
Ace cocked his head to the side like a confused puppy. "Something wrong? I thought this was what you wanted."
"I never said this was what I wanted. I just said I was worried about having Riley around," I said as quietly as I could, hoping Lucy wouldn't hear me.
She was too enamored in her conversation with Monte to notice anything. We hadn't stopped in a store the entire time we had been there. All we did was walk around while Monte and she flirted, and I stared like a jealous lover.
"Alex." Ace cupped my chin in his hand and turned my face toward him. "There is something that you are not telling me. Are you not pleased with this arrangement?" He dropped his hand back to the side.
I let out a deep puff of air. "I thought I was, but just seeing them together after spending so much time with Riley and Lucy…it just doesn't seem like that good of an idea."
"Maybe you were wrong about Lucy and Riley. Maybe this two women thing you spoke of so highly really isn't real." Ace said it like it was a fact he just read out of a text book.
"I don't understand how you can be so dense about this subject. Lucy and Riley have a relationship that is similar to ours. People don't understand it and so many are against them being together just because it's different than what they are used to."
I looked around before focusing my attention back to Ace. "They are just like us, except for the whole evil people trying to kill us. They have to fight for acceptance and maybe someday they'll be as lucky as we have, and at least, be tolerated."
Ace smiled before it disappeared in my lips, a kiss that reached through me that was much too passionate for a public area. He then pulled back, his endless dark pools of black staring into my eyes. "I love it when you are so passionate about something. It makes me fall for you all over again."
Chapter 19
We got back to the room after finally prying Monte's grabby hands off Lucy. I was so embarrassed I just wanted to run and hide. I couldn't believe that I ever agreed to let Monte go after her. Now all of her passion about being with Riley and giving up her false life of dating boys was gone, and she turned into a giggling school girl with a crush.
"Sorry about Monte and Ace showing up. I told him we were going shopping, but I didn't think he would actually show up there." I threw my purse on the bed. We never actually made it into any stores once the guys arrived, so I didn't have a single bag to show for our three-hour shopping trip.
"You need to stop apologizing. They're cool guys. That Monte guy is really into the same books as me, so we had a nice conversation," Lucy said before she sat down on her bed and pulled her phone out of her purse.
"You aren't thinking of leaving Riley to go after him are you?" I asked.
Lucy burst into a fit of laughter, setting her phone down and grabbing her stomach for a moment until she gasped for air a few times and could speak again. "Are you serious?"
I sat down on my bed, breathing a sigh of relief. "Yeah, it looked like you two were really getting cozy today."
"Obviously you haven't met too many gay people. Just because one guy flirts with me doesn't mean I'm going to leave my girlfriend for him. I care about Riley way too much to just give her up for some guy with a passion for young adult vampire novels." She picked her phone up and typed away at the screen.
"So what you're telling me is that you aren't going to leave Riley and run away with Monte?"
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Lucy rolled her eyes, setting her phone down next to her. "Please. I'm gay. There is no way that I would leave my wonderful girlfriend for something with a penis."
"Well, good, I'm glad. I mean, glad that you're happy with your girlfriend," I stuttered.
Lucy stood back up, tossing her purse over her shoulder. "And on that note, my lovely girlfriend is done with her research, so I'm going to meet her at the Union. Do you want to come with? We could do another triple date."
"Naw." I waved my hand out. "You go ahead. I'll let you two have some girlfriend time without me."
"Trust me; I can use it after being surrounded by two male models all afternoon." She smiled and turned to the door. "I'll see you later tonight. Make sure to put a sock on the door if I shouldn't come in," she called before leaving the room.
***
There was only so much homework a girl can do on a Saturday night before it's time to get away. Since I was lacking a car and the only way I could get to Circe was if someone picked me up, I figured a trip to Circe would be a good reason to spend time with my dad and for him to take me out to dinner.
We pulled into a small diner not far from campus. It looked like something out of the 1950's with a silver awning, and I could make out a checkered floor with red, vinyl booths at each window.
"I thought you might want to try out a place with a little nostalgia," dad said as we walked into the restaurant.
We sat at a booth near the window, watching the sun graze the mountain tops before it made its final decent into nightfall. I might have missed the cornfields of Illinois, but there was something so beautiful about watching the sunset over the mountains. Ace always told me how beautiful it was when the sun set and rose over Calta, but I couldn't imagine anything more beautiful than the desert's.
"You know how I love my vintage." I smiled, thinking that was the same thing I always said about Ace, my vintage alien who came to Earth in the 1940s.
"How is your love life going? I know that Ace and you have been spending more time together since you've moved out here," dad questioned, peering at me over his menu.
"Dad." I rolled my eyes. "That is not something that a girl wants to talk about with her father."
"Come on, Alex. I think we both know this is a different sort of thing. Not every girl is promised to a boy in a written treaty," he said.
"You make it sound so romantic when you put it that way."
"Alex." Dad put my menu down, forcing me to look at the way his forehead wrinkled. "I'm serious. I know that you and Ace are now engaged in every sense of the word, and I just want to make sure that there isn't anything I should be concerned about. A lot has happened this past year and I hope that everything is still alright."
I smiled, putting my hand on my dad's. We could have been twin hands if mine were just a little bit more wrinkled, but they were the same: short, a little stubby, and with a perfect olive complexion.
"Dad, I promise you, everything is great with me and Ace. He really is wonderful, if you must know. I couldn't be happier to know that I am spending the rest of my life with him."
Dad nodded before he patted my hand with his free one and then slid both of them back to his menu.
"Good. You know, when Ace approached me about proposing to you with an actual ring I didn't know what to think. We already had the treaty, but I didn't know he wanted to put the extra commitment forward for you. That boy loves you in every sense of the word."
I could feel the heat rise to my cheeks. "Yeah, I know."
"I'm serious." He took a sip of his water and set it back down on the table. "I've never seen anyone so enamored, especially someone like him."
We were careful never to say the alien word outside of Circe, but we both always knew what we were talking about.
Dad continued. "I never thought I would see the day that someone I worked with would fall head over heels for my daughter. I know you will be in good hands with him."
"Yeah, if every other person like him would get over this whole celebrity status we've somehow built up." I took a sip of my water and set it back down.
"What do you mean by that?"
After the waitress took our order and we made sure she was out of earshot I told him about my professor, the poster salesman, and even the aliens at the canyon. It was good to finally talk to someone about all the weirdness that was surrounding me.
Dad laughed, leaning back against the booth. "That is quite a spectacle. I guess you underestimated how big of a deal this all was."
He was right, of course; he was the one who tried to warn me about it. When Ace and I started dating he did everything in his power to keep us apart and stop any sort of an alien battle. Now we were engaged, officially, and I was finally starting to realize the gravity of an alien and human relationship, and how it propelled me to superstar status as the future princess.
"Is it always going to be like this? I know you've been with Nerses for a while now."
Nerses was the head of Circe. She was from a planet that was destroyed years ago, even before her and dad started a secret relationship.
Dad sighed. "Nerses and I are different. If I could have what you and Ace have, I would be the happiest man in the entire galaxy."
We stopped talking when the waitress brought our burgers. I felt a tinge of guilt. Dad couldn't have the relationship he wanted, but he still stayed with Nerses. He loved her so much that he was willing to keep it hidden from the world. I guess not everyone could have their happily ever after.
***
Dad and I got back to Circe and he didn't even follow me to Ace's hall. I hoped I wouldn't run into anyone else and quickly made a few taps at his door. Ace opened it, grinning from ear to ear. It had been a long time since I had seen him in only his jumpsuit, and the way the material of the suit conformed to the contours of his body automatically sent a rush through my stomach and into my legs while my eyes lingered on his hipbones.
"I thought you wouldn't show up, maybe you had decided to leave me for a night with Lucy and Riley." He pulled me into the room, shutting the door behind us.
"Lucy does look good in a pair of pigtails," I teased.
"I bet you would look better." He put his hands up to my hair, holding two handfuls on either side of my face. "Much better than her, I believe."
"You're just saying that because she isn't here." I reached my arms around to the small of his back and pulled him against me.
"And since she isn't here, what did you have in mind to do tonight?" He leaned down and pressed his forehead to mine.
It was all I needed to crush my lips against his. He reciprocated in full force, his hands running through my hair and down my back. All reason had gone out the window, and I wanted the alien that I loved, all of him.
I broke the kiss for a brief moment, pulling my shirt off and tossing it to the side. He didn't stop me, or say anything. He just pulled my body back against his. The coldness of his body against my bare skin was like a summer breeze, letting goose bumps build up and down my torso. I moved my fingers to the front of his jumpsuit and quickly pulled down the zipper. He moved with lightning-fast speed, peeling his arms out of the suit and shrugging the top of the suit off him, never breaking our kiss.
His body was pressed to mine, skin against skin, dropping my temperature on the outside, but my blood was boiling beneath. This beautiful alien loved me; this beautiful alien was all mine. I led him to the bed, slowly taking steps backward until we fell onto the dark cotton sheets. I pulled him on top of me, his hips meeting mine again. I knew he was anatomically correct, but feeling the hardness of it underneath his suit made me realize that it could actually happen. Boom-booming was a definite possibility.
Ace broke our kiss abruptly, making a suctioning sound when he pulled back. He closed his eyes, scrunching his face as if he was in pain. "We can't do this."
"What do you mean?" I breathed.
He shook his head, standing up and pulling his suit back over his upper body.
"I'm not ready…"
"Oh, okay." I forced myself off the bed and picked up my shirt from the floor, quickly putting it back on. I was completely embarrassed, ashamed as if I had done something wrong.
"No, it's not. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have started something I couldn't finish." Ace took a deep breath. "You just take me to places in my heart that I have never been before and it's hard to control myself around you."
"We don't have to do this. I know I love the feeling of being so close to you emotionally and physically, but I'm not going to force it." I turned so that I was looking at him.
"I do love you. You will always be the only girl that makes my heart beat this fast. Do you feel it?" He grabbed my hand and put it to his chest. His heart beat so rapidly beneath my hand that I thought it might explode. "You are the only one who can do that to me."
"You do the same for me, Ace. I was so afraid that I would lose you after the car accident. Ever since then all I've wanted to do was give myself to you, all of me."
Ace shook his head, taking another step toward me and breaking the space between us. "You don't have to do that to give yourself to me. As long as I know that you will always be there no matter how many alien battles we face or how many obstacles we have to fight."
I moved my hand from his chest and pulled him against me. "The best things in life are always worth fighting for."
Chapter 20
The weekend went by way too fast. One minute I was sitting with Ace and assuring him that I loved him more than Dustin Hoffman and the next I was rushing to biology lab. Between all the homework and nights with little sleep I really needed a break and Lucy offered the perfect one.
"I know it's a school night and the middle of the week, but I have a test in my five o'clock class, so I'll get out early if you and Ace want to grab dinner with me and Riley."
I'd hung out with Riley and Lucy plenty of times since they were practically inseparable, but never with Ace along. Maybe we could use a double date with a set of humans.