Alien Mate

by Gloria Martin

  It was nearly eleven o’clock that night when Michelle got the call.

  She had been fretting all day, constantly checking her phone. He’d promised to text. The fact that he hadn’t told her that the worst might have happened. He might have been kicked off the team.

  Then she thought that maybe something worse than that had happened to him. Maybe something had prevented him from calling her.

  She tried, as best she could, not to imagine him bleeding out on the highway. She tried not to jump and tremble every time an ambulance passed, but she couldn’t help it.

  He always called her when he promised to. The fact that he’d broken his long-held standard told her that something was terribly wrong.

  When she finally heard his voice on the other end of the phone. His words slurred and slow, telling her he was in a holding cell, she knew she’d been right.

  “Michelle, just call Harry,” he said. “He’ll wire the money. Then he'll come and pick me up.”

  “Fuck that,” she spat back at him over the phone. “I’m coming.”

  “You don’t have to-” he started.

  “Look,” she said cutting him off instantly. “You called me. Not Harry. I’ll be there in half an hour and I don’t want to hear another word.”

  She ended the call before he could put in a protest or even say goodbye. She did call his agent to ask for the bond money. She couldn’t spare two thousand dollars, after all.

  When he assured her that the money had been wired to the jail, she drove herself to the police station. She knew she didn’t owe him that. She didn’t owe him anything really.

  She shouldn’t want to see him again. Not after this. Not after he’d broken the one and only promise she had asked him for. But, she had to. She couldn’t leave him without a word. He still meant too much to her.

  None the less, a wave of fury came over her when the police escorted him out of the holding cell and into her custody.

  “Michelle, I’m-”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” she said grabbing his arm. She all but dragged him to her car and shoved him into the passenger seat.

  They drove in silence for what seemed like hours even though the drive between the station and Chris’s mansion was only a matter of minutes.

  The tears in her eyes began to cloud Michelle’s vision and she wiped them away furiously. She tried her best not to think about the man sitting beside her. She tried not to think that this had to be the last time she would ever see him.

  She pulled up in front of his driveway and turned off the car.

  “Get out,” she said. She tried to make her voice sound hard and cold. She heard it crack as a single traitorous tear fell down her cheek.

  “Michelle, I’m-”

  “No, Chris,” she said, turning to him at last. “It doesn’t matter how sorry you are. I told you this was a deal breaker for me. I won’t be the girlfriend who sits up all night wondering if you’re going to come home drunk. Wondering if you’re going to get picked up by the police.”

  “It won’t happen again,” he said desperately. “I swear!”

  “Like you swore to me that you wouldn’t get drunk again?” she asked.

  Chris looked away from her and bit his lip. He looked as though he had something that he wanted to say to her but didn’t know how. She stared at him with as hard a glare as she could muster until he finally spoke.

  “I’m off the team,” he said quietly. “They brought in a new quarterback for training camp.”

  Her heart fell a bit at the news and she felt her glare soften. Of course, they knew that this was a possibility. Chris had been waiting to hear for weeks. Why hadn’t he told her?

  “Harry says he’s trying to find a new team for me but, I don’t think anyone will take me,” he told her. “I might be done with the NFL.”

  She turned away from him and looked out her window. She could see the lights shining through a thick haze of fog. The chill in the air had suddenly turned June into winter. The car seemed to provide no shelter from the cold.

  “When did you find out?” she asked quietly.

  “This morning,” he said. “Harry texted.”

  Then those were the texts he’d gotten. She’d had a feeling there was more to them than he was telling her. But she never could have imagined that he would lie to her about something this big.

  “So,” she said softly, “you think that’s it? For the NFL, I mean?”

  “Maybe,” he answered.

  “That could be a good thing,” she said. She saw him turn quickly to her with a shocked expression. It was as though she had slapped him.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice rising defensively.

  “I mean,” she began slowly, “you obviously need help. And this lifestyle with the money, the cars, the clubs . . . it’s not good for you.”

  “I can handle it,” he said. She couldn’t help but think that he sounded like a petulant child.

  “So, this is handling it?” she asked him fiercely.

  “Jesus, Michelle!” he exclaimed. “It was one time in two months!”

  “Chris!” she said her voice raising back at him. “When you got this news you didn’t talk to me about it. You didn’t scream or yell or cry. The first thing you did was go to a bar.”

  His face colored and he looked away from her again. Clearly he had no argument for that.

  “You need help,” she said. “And, until you decide to get some . . . we can’t be together.”

  “Michelle-,” he started. But, she reached over and opened his door before he could finish.

  “Goodbye, Chris,” she said sadly.

  She didn’t look at him when he got out the car. She knew if she did, she would change her mind. That she would call him back and beg him to stay.

  She couldn’t do that. Not this time.

  So, as soon as she heard the passenger door slam behind him, she started the car and began to drive away.

  The fog was still thick when she looked out the passenger window. Even so, she could see Chris standing just in front of his front gate, watching her drive away.

  *****

  Chris sat at his kitchen table, holding his phone as he listened to SportsCenter play in the background.

  He didn’t know why he still had it on. There was only one thing the talking heads were going to discuss. It was the same thing they’d been discussing for the past two days.

  The Chris Watson press conference.

  They announced that they would be showing the relevant bit again “for those who haven’t seen it yet”. Even though he’d seen it a million times already, Chris turned to the large screen and saw himself.

  He remembered what it had been like, sitting at that table for the last time. The cornucopia of microphones pressed close to his face as he told them what they never thought they would hear.

  “Thank you all for being here today,” he watched himself say on the television screen. “These past two years with the 49ers have been really eye opening for me. Especially these last few months. In that time, I’ve realized that I have a drinking problem. After talking with my team manager, my agent and to those closest to me, I’ve decided to take a year off from professional football so that I can get the treatment I so desperately need.”

  Chris found that he could not help but smile when he recalled his agent’s face when he’d told him what he planned to do. Harry had looked at him as though he had lobsters crawling out of his ears.

  Everyone had tried to talk him out of it, of course. Harry, his trainer, his teammates. They all said he had too much talent to waste. They said no team was going to wait an entire season for him. They said he could do rehab and play at the same time.

  But, deep down, he knew this was what he had to do. Football didn’t mean anything if he couldn’t play it well. And when he was drunk half the time, he was far from his best.

  He’d discovered, especially over the past week, that nothing else in his life meant anything
if he couldn’t have Michelle.

  He knew this might not bring her back. After all, she’d yet to respond to any of his multiple voicemails or texts. Even after the press conference had aired, she had not reached out.

  And though he still kept his phone close at hand just in case, he discovered that it didn’t matter to him as much as he thought it would. He discovered that as much as he needed Michelle, he loved her more.

  He loved her too much to try and force her to be with him when he didn’t deserve her. And this, getting help and going to meetings and getting treatments, was the first step to becoming worthy of her.

  Even if it didn’t work, it was a step he had to take for himself.

  When one last glance at his phone told him that Michelle had not called or texted within the last thirty seconds, he finally set it on the kitchen table and moved towards the refrigerator.

  With the sports commentary still blaring in the background, he looked at his calendar and carefully wrote down a note on the date of his first AA meeting. It would take place at a small church on the next Wednesday.

  Just as he had finished writing the note, he heard the doorbell ring and jumped.

  His heart pounding, he rushed to the front door. He knew who he wanted to see standing there, but he told himself not to get his hopes up. It was, more likely, a journalist looking for an exclusive interview.

  All the same, his hands shook when he pulled the door open. As soon as he did, his heart stopped.

  On the other side of the door, wearing a bright blue top and a cautious smile, stood Michelle.

  “Can I come in?” she asked tentatively.

  “Yeah . . . yes,” he stuttered, moving out of the doorway so that she could make her way inside.

  He showed her into the kitchen where they sat across from each other at the table.

  He stared at her for a long while. He felt as though he was trying to memorize her face: the way her blue eyes sparkled, the way her nose curved downward, the way her jaw line moved smoothly to her chin. He had no idea when he would see her again. He had to take everything in.

  “So,” she said finally, “I saw your press conference.”

  “You did?” he asked stupidly.

  “Kind of hard to miss it,” she answered with an eye roll.

  “True enough,” he answered. A small smile came to his lips.

  “Anyway,” she said looking down and beginning to fidget with her sleeve, “I was wondering. Did you really mean that? What you said about needing help?”

  She looked up and her eyes met his. Those blue eyes looked hopeful but guarded. As though she was still not quite sure whether or not she could trust him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I meant that. You were right. I’ve got a problem. I need to sort it out before I do anything else.”

  She nodded and moved her eyes back down to the table.

  “Because, I was thinking,” she said. “If you’re really going to get sober you’re going to need a lot of support and . . . I was wondering if I could help.”

  She looked up at him again. This time, her guard was down and he saw a question light her eyes. She was asking him to take her back.

  Chris blinked twice to make sure he understood correctly. After everything he’d done, after the promise that he’d broken, she wanted his forgiveness.

  Chris broke out into a smile when he realized there was no question in his mind at all.

  “I’d like that,” he said. “I’d love it really.”

  He reached across the table and took her hands. As soon as he did, she looked up at him. When she caught his grateful smile, she rewarded him with one of her own.

  “I love you,” he said honestly. Her smile widened as she looked back at him.

  “That’s lucky,” she said. “Because I love you too.”

  As he leaned over to meet his lips with hers, Chris realized that having Michelle was far better than any football career.

  THE END

  Bonus Story 24 of 40

  Taming the Billionaire’s Heart

  The wind whipped through Brody’s tousled blond hair as his best friend Aiden sped down route 27 in the red top convertible that just hours ago had three gorgeous supermodels baring all in the back seat. Now it just had two hung over best friends who were speeding down the end of a glorious alcohol and sex infused summer in the Hamptons, back to sixteen-hour work days in their fathers’ Manhattan offices. Aiden was a Sinclair and Brody was a Montgomery-West, which meant billions of dollars in old family real estate money, and fun was limited to summers lest their fathers threatened to disinherit them. The massive, manicured evergreen trees were slowly transforming to handsomely erected, silvery skyscrapers with the fingerprints of the Sinclairs’ and the Montgomery-Wests’ all over them. Aiden and Brody had been conjoined at the hip since their mothers met in an exclusive Mommy-and-Me class on the Upper East Side. They went to the same preparatory schools, same Ivy League University, and their fathers’ brokered a deal that essentially gave their families ownership of almost all of the prime real estate in not only New York, but New Jersey and Connecticut as well. Both of their fathers were aging and their sons, who in their early thirties, were expected to give up summers in the Hamptons for full-time workaholism on Manhattan island.

  “Jesus, man, do you have to hit every fucking speed bump?” Brody asked, putting on black Ray Ban sunglasses.

  “It’s New York; the streets are crap. We’re almost to the Palace,” Aiden said, shoving him playfully.

  “God, I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

  “Well, lean out of the window. You need a haircut too, man.”

  “I don’t have anything left to throw up. We might be getting to old for this bullshit.”

  Aiden shook his head. His dark hair was always cropped short matching his dark, five o’clock shadow. He had a square jaw and broad shoulders making him look more like an off-duty marine. Brody’s boy-next-door look made him look more like Aiden’s little brother.

  “Brody, we are getting to old for these summers, man,” Aiden said, flashing Brody a cheeky grin.

  “How the hell else am I supposed to stand all the long meetings and my dad glowering over me?”

  Aiden shrugged his massive shoulders and stared forward. Brody saw the slight tick of a muscle in his neck, telling him that his best friend had more than a fleeting thought in his square head.

  “Spill it, man. You look like my mom when she’s trying to give me advice.”

  “Look, I think these summers are getting old. We’ve been doing it for ten years—”

  “Fourteen,” Brody corrected, rubbing his temples.

  “Whatever. That makes it worse. We’re thirty-two now and I think it’s time we settle down in New York.”

  “Settle down?” Brody shrieked.

  Brody winced as the raised pitch in his own voice sent a shooting pain across his forehead.

  “I don’t mean stop partying. I mean party like adults instead of frat boys.”

  “You were never a frat boy.”

  “Not my scene. I mean I feel like I need to card girls nowadays at the Hamptons. I’m not wanting to get screwed over by some wannabe social media star.”

  “Alright, dad,” Brody scoffed, and pulled a bottle of water from the floor of the car.

  He chugged the bottle, letting the first non-alcoholic beverage he’d drank in days settle in his tumultuous stomach. The effect was instantaneous, but it was quickly ousted by the shock of Aiden giving him an Oprah-esque pep talk about growing up and settling down.

  “What do you suggest then? Meeting up with our dads at the country club for squash?”

  Brody winced as the pitch of his own voice made his head spin again.

  “Your dad plays squash?” Aiden asked, laughing a deep throaty laugh.

  “Yes. I don’t want to be that guy for another thirty years—maybe more if Viagra is still doing its job in three decades.”

  “You take Viagra?”

 
“No—what? That’s not what I meant. Whatever. What are you even talking about?”

  “Well, my dad is giving me the Excalibur,” Aiden said in a low voice, pursing his lips.

  Brody was sure his eyeballs would fall out of his head. The Excalibur was the first luxury apartment building that Aiden’s father, Gerald, purchased. It was Mr. Sinclair’s pride and joy and he handled it with gloved hands and took care of every detail from the elaborate crystal chandeliers imported from France to the hand woven rugs imported from the Middle East.

  “Holy shit. Congrats, man. What are you going to do with it? You know he’ll be looking over your shoulders like a hawk.”

  Aiden laughed as he parked the car at valet in front of their building. Phil the doorman tipped his hat and Brody waved his hand half-heartedly, likely because his brain felt like a distribution center for pain in his face. Aiden tipped Phil and Brody dragged his exhausted, hung over body to the bronze double door elevator.

  “So, when will you get it?” Brody asked, shoving his thumb in the ‘P’ button on the elevator panel.

  “In three months. Dad is doing some remodeling on the ground floors so only the penthouse is livable,” Aiden said, staring at his watch.

  Brody stiffened and stared off in space. When he looked up at Aiden, he was grinning like a Cheshire cat. The penthouse at the E, as Brody, Aiden and their friends called it, was a thing of legend. The Sinclair’s hosted incredible, lavish, celebrity-invested parties in the late 1990’s. Though today the only evidence of the hay day of the E were black and white photos at the Sinclair mansion. The reason for the grinding cogs in Brody’s mind was simple, Brody and Aiden were never allowed to attend, and by the time they were deemed old enough, the market crashed and the E was closed down for more profitable, less lascivious, projects.

  “We have to bring the E back, man,” Brody said, nodding his head like it was the most important decision he had ever made.

  “Way ahead of you, man. That’s why I want to abandon this childish, summer Hampton bull. I want people to come to our parties year round not us waiting once a year to get stuck in traffic and come back worse off than when we left.”