by Magan Vernon
I quickly signed off Facebook before he could respond. I didn't care that he had a new girlfriend, but I did care what his interest was in me and Riley. I did a quick scan of his profile and saw that he was still living in Boston, so wasn't like he was going to pop in for a visit.
Besides, he never really posed a threat to me. He never tried to hurt me. I just would need to make sure to make good use of my Facebook block button to not deal with any more messages and to keep the past in the past.
And hopefully he would be doing the same.
***
As soon as Lucy left for class, Ace beamed into my room. The brilliant blue light faded from the ceiling, and he was left standing there in a pair of seersucker dress pants and a blue gingham button-down shirt. He may look exceptionally good in the preppy gear, but I was going to have to take him shopping in something a little more down-to-earth, literally.
"Is there something wrong?" He tilted his head, approaching my bed and taking the spot next to me.
"Uh, yeah, something is definitely wrong."
He shook his head, leaning his back against the wall behind my headboard. "Every time you tell me that it's never as bad as what you think it is."
"It may not be all the time, but a lot of the time it is, like when Simone was sleep creeping."
"But it didn't turn out to be that bad with Lucy dating Riley. You three have turned into an inseparable trio."
I rolled my eyes. "Can we move on?"
He held his hands up with his palms out toward me. "Okay, I surrender, what is the problem now?"
"Gavin added me as a friend on Facebook and then messaged me to see how I was doing."
"Gavin?" Ace arched an eyebrow. "The little Boston one from last summer?"
I nodded. "Yeah, but that isn't the worst part. I also found that he is still Facebook friends with Riley. He even had the gall to bring it up and ask how we were doing."
Ace swallowed, his eyes blank and staring off in front of me as if he was looking right through me.
"Well? Say something. Don't just go off somewhere else in your head." I tapped his knee.
Ace shook his head and sat up. "I don't think it could hurt anything," he said like each word was a struggle. "He did have to sign a contract that he wouldn't reveal any of the secrets of Circe, so it's not like he could bring up anything alien."
He put his hand down on top of mine. "Besides, it's not like Riley remembers him anyway. We should be fine. Nothing to worry about." He held a tight-lipped smile.
"You are a terrible liar," I said.
He shook his head as if he were trying to shake whatever thoughts he had out of it. "I'm really not too worried about it, but if you are that worried, I can do some research and see what I can find through the internet. Maybe even block it so that the two of them cannot communicate through any online networks. I can do the same block for you as well"
I perked up, sitting on my knees. "Are you serious? You can do that?"
Ace returned the smile, moving his hands out from behind his head and placing them on the small of my back. He pulled me closer until I was able to sit on his lap.
"I know you had to learn at least a little something while we were working together," he said. "I can do just about anything with a few flicks of my wrist and typing in some code."
I slid farther up his lap, pressing my chest against his. His heart beat wildly against mine, and his hands pulsated heat throughout my back. "I'm sure you can do more with your hands than just some research about humans."
His smile widened as his hands slid under my shirt, his palms making small circles on my back. "Well, you could say that the internet is where I first did the research to meet the love of my life."
I remembered the first time I actually spoke with him, when he was training me to be his assistant in alien security at Circe. He was telling me how he trolled different internet sites to look for any alien wrongdoings, and I saw it right there on the screen: He frequented my own blog. He loved my personality before he even met me, and I could never resist a guy that liked me for my brains.
I pressed my forehead to his, looking deep into his dark eyes. The first time I saw them they frightened and intrigued me at the same time, and now, I wanted to do nothing more than get lost in them forever. "It's good to know that you'll always be on my side."
He breathed onto my lips, his breath smelled like peppermint tea. "I will always be here for you, Alex. Even if it turns out that there is a problem with Riley and Gavin, we can work through it together. We've survived just about everything else and I know we can fight this together."
That was all the talking that I needed. I crushed my lips to his, letting my tongue dance along his. Before I knew it, our clothes were on the floor below us and I was as close to him as we possibly could be.
Chapter 25
My worries went away as soon as I got lost in Ace's arms. Once he left, I felt like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders and I could relax again. I finished my homework and went to bed early. Finally, I could wake up early enough to be ready for class and get there at a decent time to look over my notes for my persuasive speech.
"Blogging should be used by every teenager…no that sounds stupid," I mumbled to myself, scribbling in my notebook. After talking with Ace, I wanted to do something with social media or blogging for my persuasive speech. I just had to figure out what exactly to focus on, and I needed more than a few minutes to throw a speech together, even though I was sure Professor Johnson would give me an 'A' anyway. I thought I could at least show the class I was worth my 'A'.
"You, Alex Bianchi?" A very tall girl with tanned skin and mile-high legs stood in front of my desk. I knew she sat on the other side of the room, but for the life of me I couldn't remember her name.
"Uh, yes, that would be me." I put down my pen and gave the girl my attention. I hoped she wasn't there to start a fight. From what Ace told me about the research he did on my professor, she was actually a former warrior on her planet. He said she knew her way around the armory. If someone did come after me, the professor would probably be there in an instant.
"So you're the future princess of Calta?" She arched her eyebrows high on her forehead.
I almost choked on my own spit and had to cough and pound my chest with a closed fist to get it out. When I got through with my coughing fit, the girl was still standing there and staring.
"Um, well, you know, funny you should ask that…"
"Listen." The girl raised her hand, palm outward toward me. "I don't want to hear your excuses or whatever cover story that Circe gave you. I heard Proji talking to you and a lot of us aliens talk on this campus." She took another step toward me, and I saw that this tall girl was definitely not human. Her eyes were way too blue to be anything other than an alien…or a hobbit and she was too tall for that.
"I just want to know if it's true."
I swallowed, this time not going through the coughing fit. "Yes, yes I am marrying Ace, or I guess you call him Machiavelli."
She stood there staring at me for what seemed like forever until finally a ghostly smile crossed her thin face. "I can't believe I'm really standing before royalty. This must be how all those kids felt in England when Will and Kate were going to school!" she gushed, turning from the staunch woman to a giddy school girl.
Was that really how it was? Was I supposed to be a royal figurehead? I wasn't much for being any sort of figurehead; I had my own issues with my figure to worry about being a figurehead.
"Uh, well, I'm not exactly royalty yet. I still have to finish school," I muttered.
The girl shook her head. "I don't think you have any idea how big of intergalactic news this is. There have never been any reports of someone of a royal alien family actually marrying a human. In fact, you are probably one of the first human and alien any sort of relationships that I've actually heard of. Even aliens pretending to be humans still stick to their own kind."
"Oh." I bit down on my bo
ttom lip. Why did everything always have to come back to my and Ace's differences in species? No one could ever get past our genetic make-up and look at the fact that maybe we had a lot in common, or that we both felt like outcasts from our own planets.
The girl looked over her shoulder at the other kids entering the classroom, and then turned back to me. "Okay, I guess I'll get to my seat. I hope to see more of you around," she said and shot a wink before walking to her desk.
Why couldn't I just be a normal college student?
***
I got back to my dorm and a big brown package sat on my bed. Lucy must have gotten the mail. I hadn't received much since I arrived at school, so was a little surprised to see the box with the return label from my mom.
I put my messenger bag on my desk chair and sat on the bed. Lucy must have gone to class early or was hanging out with Riley since her bed was already made and she was nowhere in the small room.
I ripped back the brown paper and tore the tape off the package. On top of a bunch of Bubble Wrap sat a small purple card with my name scrawled across it in my mom's handwriting. She took a calligraphy class at the local community college to make her signature look prettier for book signings and used it whenever she could.
I pulled the envelope from the package and slid out a card with a white kitten hanging from a tree and the words Good luck written at the top.
I shook my head and opened the card with mom's handwriting filling most of the inside.
Hello, Alexandra!
I hope everything at school is going well. Just been busy finishing up final notes from my editor on the latest Fiona O'Hera piece, and Elijah is missing you like crazy. We went to the store earlier this week and picked up a few supplies we thought you might need. We also stopped at grandma's and she found a few pictures she wanted you to have. She said you should show them to Ace and see if maybe he recognizes one of the guys in the pictures. I'd have to say I do see quite a resemblance; this man grandpa fought with in the war could be Ace's twin! Well enough about that. I hope you are doing well and will talk to you soon!
Love,
Mom
A strong resemblance to Ace, ey? I took the Bubble Wrap out and on top of a stack of bridal magazines was a manila envelope. I undid the clasps and a few small photos slid out and onto my lap. They all looked faded and in sepia tone, which was probably just the black and white texture from the cameras of the time.
I held up the first picture where a younger version of my grandpa sat on a log in a white t-shirt and jeans. The sleeves were rolled up on his t-shirt and a pack of Camel cigarettes were stuffed in the sleeve. I didn't know grandpa smoked. I thought it was just grandma. But that wasn't the shocking part. There were two other guys sitting next to him on the log and the other one had an uncanny resemblance to Ace: same spiky black hair, fingerless gloves, and eyes that looked like he wore eyeliner and…HOLY CRAP IT WAS ACE!
At first I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, but there was no way it couldn't have been him. I had seen a lot of Ace, and just about every inch of him more recently. I knew my alien when I saw him. I looked through the other pictures and it was the same thing: groups of people in grandpa's unit and in every single picture there was Ace with his trademark white smile and black circled, dark eyes. Ace told me he might have fought with grandpa in the war, but now it seemed as if everyone else was putting the pieces together.
I got up and rummaged through my messenger bag until I found my phone and quickly dialed Ace's number. Please pick up, please pick up.
"Hello?" After what seemed like forever, Ace finally answered.
"Ace, I think you need to come over here," I said, trying to hide the panic in my voice. Did grandma and grandpa know it was Ace in the pictures? What would they think?
"Why? Is something the matter?" he asked, cool as a cucumber.
"Can you just please come here?" I begged. I hated begging, but this was a situation that needed it.
He let out an exasperated sigh into the phone. "Fine, I'll beam in after I finish working this file, is that okay?"
"Fine, but hurry!" I said before hanging up and tossing the phone on my bed. I sat back down, looking through each picture. I might have been freaking out a tad, but that didn't stop me from admiring how good Ace looked in a World War II Army Air Force uniform.
The bright blue light streamed in near the window and knocked me from my thoughts of wondering if Ace still had the uniform and would possibly wear it for me.
The light disappeared and Ace stood in the middle of my bedroom. I could tell he hastily threw on clothes over his temperature control suit because a few of the buttons on his shirt were mis-buttoned.
"Is everything alright?" He sat on the bed next to me, his eyes wide with concern.
I passed him the pictures in my hand, and he looked at them. A wide smile crossed his face. Not shock or panic, but a genuine smile.
"Alex, where did you get these? Did Monte Photoshop them for you?" he asked.
I shook my head as Ace thumbed through each picture. "No, my mom sent them and said she got them from my grandma. They thought you looked like one of the guys in the picture, asked if he was related."
"Oh." The smile quickly disappeared from Ace's face. "I take it your grandfather is the curly haired man in these photos? Funny how different he looks now. I barely recognized him when we saw him at the football game," Ace said.
Ace and I ran into my grandfather at a football game, and I saw the recognition on grandma's face when she came for pictures before the Fall Ball.
"Yeah, well, you happen to look exactly the same as you did decades ago in these pictures." I pointed at his smiling face next to my grandpa in the picture Ace was holding.
Ace shrugged. "What do you want me to do about it?"
"I don't know! What is there that we can do?" I asked.
Ace let out a small puff of air. "We can always talk to some of the people in charge of memory modification and delete me from your grandparent's memories."
I raised an eyebrow. "But couldn't that be dangerous for two older people? Would it harm them in any other way?"
Ace shook his head. "It shouldn't harm them, but if you want to do something noninvasive just tell them this was my grandfather in the pictures."
He stood up, looking at one of the pictures he held in his hand. "At that time, I went by Michael Prince, the best name they could think of using something similar enough to Machiavelli and my royal title."
My mind drifted off to a daydream of Ace as a military man in the forties. I had a thing for nostalgia and would have loved to see him walking down the street in his uniform, stopping in the local diners, and maybe even questioning the music selection they had in the juke box.
"I came to this planet with the hopes of learning something more and getting to see grass for the first time. We always heard such horror stories about how underdeveloped Earth was, but to me, it was one of the most beautiful places in the world," he said, smiling at the photograph.
"After the trouble I had in Germany, when I was accused of killing those women…"
I knew the story all too well. The way people would find any way to blame him if someone died just because he was around and he was alien. The reason he was marked as dangerous and sent to live and work at Circe. Thank God that all got cleared up. Circe should have done its research in the first place.
"I believe Circe put in place some sort of a cover story that I was a prisoner of war or something and that was what happened to me. We could always see if they could put some obituaries in place and kill of the old Michael Prince," he said sharply.
"Do you want to kill him off?" I asked.
Ace looked up from the pictures, placing them on the bed before he sat next to me. "That was a different life for me. I'm happy to be Ace, Circe resident and future husband of Alex Bianchi."
I smiled."I think I like this Ace as well."
"Good," he said.
"But, we never really talked t
oo much about your past. Does this mean you are immortal? Am I just going to shrivel up into an old woman while you stay young and beautiful forever?" I asked.
Ace laughed. "I don't think I've ever heard someone call a male beautiful."
I rolled my eyes. "You are ignoring the question."
He sighed. "I'm not ignoring it. It's just sort of complicated."
I raised an eyebrow. "Really? More complicated than the fact that I'm engaged to an alien who I saved from an intergalactic war because his mother didn't approve of our relationship?"
"Touché," he said looking straight at me. "I guess I can try to explain it the best I can."
"That will work."
"Okay." He took in a deep breath and then let it back out. "There weren't too many Caltians that actually volunteered to come down to Earth, so none of us knew how our bodies would react to the warmer climate. The temperature control suits helped to regulate us, but what it did to our aging process was a different story."
I stared at Ace, unsure what to think. I tried to inspect each line on his face, searching for any sort of a wrinkle or smile line that might have landed there after decades on Earth, but there was nothing to find.
"Caltians age very gracefully anyway; you've seen the queen. We have a longer life span than humans and Calta doesn't have that same pollution or diseases as Earth, so it is easier for us to live longer. And, of course, our bodies are different. But as far as how that all works, you'll have to ask Jen; she's the scientist and I'm just the security guy."
"So would you still look the same if you went back to Calta?" I asked.
Ace shrugged, leaning back against the wall. "I actually thought I would start to age like a normal human when I got here. Imagine the surprise to all of the scientists at Circe when I didn't! I think that is part of the reason they've let me stay here so long. I'm Circe's own little guinea pig. As long as I can keep my body temperature regulated, I seem to do fine."