Layla and Her Alien: MFM Alien Shifter Romance

by Andrea Allen

  It came to Leo first, then, that this might be the last time they got to do any such thing; Nate would have to return to the city eventually, if only temporarily, and Barb herself was only here on vacation. She would leave with the most permanence of any of them, and if they didn’t get some form of concrete contact with her before she did, she might just be gone for good. Actually opening his mouth to ask, however, was harder than he thought it would be, as though he were admitting to some difficult thing, some nascent emotional tie that, in the shadow of their first threesome, had been tenuously forged and could just as easily be broken.

  “So, I’ve been thinking,” Barb injected into that silence, stopping Leo before he could say even one word. “This place, Remlow Creek? Maybe it’s a good place to raise a kid.”

  “Why is that the first place you go after we just fucked your brains out, girl?” Nate pulled himself up onto one elbow, though not without effort, his body still tired from what they had just done. When Barb moved to reply, she did so by sitting almost completely upright, leaning in to kiss first Nate, then Leo, on the mouth, tenderness flowing from the gesture at such an intensity that, when she pulled away, both men were blushing. She kept one hand on each of the recumbent men, tousling their hair fondly.

  “Because,” she said, with the air of someone coming to a decision that would influence a large part of her life going forward. “Right now, I just can’t stop thinking about the people in it, Mister Hawke. Maybe I come back out, once I’ve, you know, stopped being pregnant.”

  Nate and Leo looked at each another, and then back to Barb. They both nodded, solemnly, the common receivers of a shared understanding.

  After all, Remlow Creek did have a habit of keeping the people who came there.

  THE END

  Bonus 14 of 30

  Mary’s Virgin

  Description

  Mary works as a writer for Fisch Media, a communications and media news company based in Manhattan, New York. The morning of her divorce changes her life forever. Her family doesn’t accept her, her ex-husband lingers around her neighborhood and her boss is always on her case much more adamantly than he is her co-workers. Having Chels as her best and only friend, Mary accepts her friend’s invitation to attend a speed dating event on Broadway.

  Just when Mary seemed to become despondent about her love life, Artimus, a hazel-eyed, broad-shouldered bachelor, meets Mary and shows her what it’s like to be loved and accepted by someone. They have great conversations, dinner and Artimus welcomes her into his home at any time she wishes. But before Mary can see herself with Artimus and move on from her divorce, she learns that Artimus is not just a man, rather, something from myth and legend. Artimus is a vampire with odd tastes. Not to mention that the one person Mary thought she could trust, Chels, tries to come between them.

  Chapter 1

  So, he decided to show up. I kind of hoped he wouldn’t, but perhaps he’s just as impatient as I am to get this done and over with.

  “Alright, Mary,” my lawyer says, looking through the glass doors of the office. “He’s here and his lawyer is with him. Are you sure you want to go through with this? We can walk out right now. Nothing is finalized.”

  I nod my head as I watch Scott and his lawyer speak to each other outside the door.

  “No, I’m sure,” I say. “It’s time I let go of what’s been holding me back.”

  She nods her head. “I understand.”

  The office doors open and Scott walks in. This has been the first time I’ve seen him dress up in years. Perhaps, since the beginning of our marriage. Of course, he doesn’t keep that hair intact. That black mess, curling everywhere along his scalp, hanging loose above his stupid eyebrows, and ugly, boring, brown-eyes. He’s a child.

  “Mrs. Lankin, I’m Scott’s lawyer, Tim Brown,” the man shakes her hand.

  “Yes, yes,” Trina says. “I remember. Been here a few times already. Please, have a seat and we can get these papers signed right over.”

  As our lawyers speak to one another, Scott sits across from me and has yet said a word. He stares off into the window and here and there scratches his five ‘o clock shadow face. I don’t regret the decision to leave him, but our fights have gone on long enough. My conscious is clear and this will be good for the both of us, I hope.

  “Okay, Mary, all I need is your signature in a couple places. I need you to sign here,” Trina says, placing her finger on a line.

  I take her pen and sign. “And here.” I sign another. She flips over a few pages. “And here.” I place the ball of the pen along the line and before I can write my final signature, Scott plants his hand across the table.

  “Mary,” he says. I shake my head.

  “He speaks.”

  “I know why you’re doing this, but just know, your life before me…was nothing. You are making a grave mistake.”

  “Mary,” my lawyer says, ushering me to stay focused. I nod my head and sign my name on the last line. As I flip the pages back to the front, I peer into Scott’s eyes.

  “Guess you don’t have to worry about that now do you?”

  Our lawyers stand their feet and shake hands. “Pleasure. Thank you,” is what they say, and without another word, Scott leaves the office before any of us. A small cry within me builds, my stomach balls into a fist. It’s really over, and though I initiated it, why am I the most upset about it? Perhaps because Scott is right. Before I met him. My life was nothing, but I couldn’t let him leave believing there is an ounce of regret, and truth, to his words.

  Traffic here in Manhattan’s Times Square is without mention, busy. This morning, it feels much busier. It’s as though the world has gotten bigger, and I’ve became a slug, moving about the rest of my morning routine as slow as one.

  I pull into the garage of Fisch Media, a media outlet company that focuses on mass media news and entertainment. I check my watch. Almost 10:00 a.m. I usually must be at my cubicle by 7:00 a.m., and writing by 7:30, but unfortunately, I had to sit across from my hus—ex-husband, signing divorce papers.

  I get to the 32nd floor of the silver skyscraper, and as the doors of the elevator open, my co-workers are moving about the blue-carpeted, white-walled cubicles talking on phones, making copies and printing, holding up marketing posters and receiving opinions on them, and yelling across the room, “I got a story! I got a story! Get this!”

  It’s going to be quite a long day, I say to myself, approaching my cubicle. I power on the computer, place my purse on the floor and my coat over my cubicle wall. I take a seat and stare out the window into the snow white covered Times Square. Horns blare, fire trucks and ambulances race down the street, and people keep warm, bundled in fur coats, hats and gloves.

  “Ahem!”

  I turn to find my boss placing himself against my cubicle. His eyebrows are pressed to a wrinkle and his arms are crossed.

  “Good morning,” I say. He checks his watch then exhales.

  “Mary, it’s just past ten.”

  “Yes…”

  “And, someone decided to take their time getting to work?”

  “Mr. Gause, I had my appointment this morning. I told you last week and reminded you just yesterday that I’d be in late and you approved.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says. “But it takes three hours to sign your name on a dotted line?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Does it take you three hours to sign your name on a dotted line?”

  “No, but—”

  “But it did. It did Mary.”

  “I’m sorry… I’m just going through a rough time and I got here as fast as I could. There was traffic and—“

  “Mary,” he says, interrupting once more. “This is New York. There is always traffic.”

  I nod my head and refrain from defending myself.

  “You’re a writer. I’m sure you could’ve thought of an excuse much more creative than that, which is what I hired you for. To write and be creative. Not sign divorce p
apers and be late.”

  “But you said—” He raises his hand.

  “Though I approved, I wasn’t expecting you to come three,” he raises three fingers as the Nazi did, “hours late.”

  “I’ll try better,” I say, giving in.

  He scoffs and shakes his head.

  “If you tried your best, you wouldn’t need to try better. Perhaps you wouldn’t have had a divorce to deal with at all and would have been on time.”

  A lump sits in my throat. It chokes.

  “Get to work, Mary. Keep all of your personal issues outside of the workplace.”

  He turns and walks away and as he passes, Chels is stands there.

  “Did he just say that?”

  “Yeah,” I say, taking a seat at my desk. “He just did. Seems like the news of my divorce has spread around quite quickly. I think that’s quite a record for getting the news out there.”

  “But still. What an asshole. Someone should really shove their foot up his ass.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. He’s the least of my problems.”

  Chels places her hands atop my cubicle and rests her chin on her arms.

  “Aw, Mary…How’d everything go this morning?”

  “As I wanted it to, I think. Scott barely looked my way until it was just about over.”

  “You think he resents you for this?”

  “Why should he? He wasn’t the one sitting at home with a wine bottle until almost four in the morning, then waking up and seeing no one there. He also wasn’t the one who cooked, cleaned, did laundry, washed dishes and works a full-time job. He doesn’t do anything. He’s never wrong, he always has an excuse, and I was just fed up with his disloyalty. It had to happen.”

  Chels nods her head and I take a deep breath. I shouldn’t get myself stressed out over all this. I should feel much more relaxed now that I let go of one of the major problems in my life that I unfortunately made my number one priority. Chels places her hand on my shoulder.

  “You’ll find better. You will.”

  “I don’t know, Chels. After what he has put me through, you’d practically have to be inhuman to reel me in. While I’m in bed, he’s out fishing, swimming in sheets with adulterous, money-digging women. MY money.”

  Chels nods her head practically forever.

  “You should probably write that down. It was poetic,” she smiles. I try to hold my laughter but it comes out.

  “And that is why you are my best friend,” I say. “I can always rely on you to make me feel better.”

  “Uh, oh, someone going a little lesbian there on me?” she says, faking a blush.

  “I’ll put it this way, if you were a guy, I’d marry you.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  We join in laughter and then here Mr. Gause clear his throat. He is at the other end of the room, glaring at us.

  “It’s great to see that everyone in this office knows the definition of work, people!” he yells, capturing the attention of every worker.

  “Jeez,” Chels says. “This guy sees and hears everything. Anyway, any plans for tonight?”

  “I’m supposed to be having dinner with the family,”

  “OH,” Chels says, making a face as though she feels my pain.

  “Right. I’m sure after what happened today, it will be a very interesting dinner.”

  “Well, be careful out there. Plenty of women been going missing lately. It’s weird. We don’t have any kind of lead besides that.”

  “Strange…Will do. Thanks.”

  Chapter 2

  We sit at the white-clothed dinner table before the aroma of pasta, meatballs, garlic bread and tall glasses of wine. My mother and father haven’t said much since I came. My grandma sits at the table in her wheelchair and all she’s kept asking every five seconds is when will she meet Scott. She’s known him for years. An empty seat sits before me with a prepared plate.

  DING-DONG! DING-DONG!

  “Ahhh,” my mother says, standing to her feet excited. She takes a gulp of wine, and this has been the loudest I’ve heard her speak in years—which was also the last time my brother was in town.

  “He’s here!” she says.

  Mother hurries to the door and father wipes his mouth from some of the red tomato sauce. “Don’t leave me at the table, Carol, I want to welcome my son too.” Father rushes behind her, and grandma looks up from a doze she had.

  “Who’d they say is here?” she asks.

  “Brian, Grandma.”

  “What?”

  “BRIAN,” I say again.

  “Speak up, dear. That man Scott ain’t teach you how to talk?”

  “I said BRIAN, Grandma!”

  “OH, BRIAN!” she exclaims, with hardly any teeth. “That boy is barely at my waist, but is as strong as an ox, that boy.”

  I hear Mother and Father welcome Brian inside with heys and hellos that destroy any welcome I’ve ever received from them. Momentarily, they meet us back into the dining room, and Brian stands in the doorway, dressed in his Marine uniform. His buzz-cut head sits above his blue garments and pins, his hand, holding his hat to his heart.

  “Grandma!” he says, outstretching his arms. He wraps his arms around her.

  “Brian?”

  “Yes, Grandma. It’s me.” He takes a knee before her.

  “How’d you get so big and handsome? Just like your grandad.”

  “Thanks, Grandma,” he says, smiling. Brian stands to his feet as Mother and Father take a seat at the table. Brian respectively does the same.

  “Hi, Mary.”

  “Hi, Brian.”

  “Was surprised I didn’t see you at the door. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “I’m sorry. Just had a rough morning, and rough day at work this past evening.”

  “I see that sorry is still your favorite word.”

  I quirk a brow.

  “I see the army hasn’t made you a man. Can’t treat ‘asshole’.”

  He laughs and Mother and Father look over at me as though I should be quiet, yet, I didn’t start anything. Just as it was when Brian and I were kids.

  “Seems like Scott’s been up yours. And it’s not the army. It’s the marines.”

  “Whatever.”

  “So, what’s going on between you two anyway now?”

  And that quick, as always, he’s crossed the line.

  “That isn’t any of your business. More than enough people know enough already.”

  “Mary.”

  “No, Mother. Teach your son how to be respectful as you should have when we were younger.”

  Father places his utensils down.

  “Can we not do this tonight? Mary, he’s just got home. Please.”

  “And he hasn’t grown up one bit. I have over a decade on him and he doesn’t know how to show me any respect.”

  “What, you think you’re better than me or something?”

  “Brian…I’m a grown woman. Such thoughts of being BETTER than the person next to me is on the least of any thought process.”

  “And how much thought did you give your divorce?”

  I shatter into fragments as I beam into his eyes.

  “Alright. I must go,” I say, gathering my purse.

  “Mary,” Mother says.

  “No, I ‘ve heard enough. Apparently, you and Father share everything with him that isn’t your business to share. If you’ll excuse me, please.”

  I kiss Grandma on the cheek. “Bye, Grandma.”

  “Oh, bye Brian,” she says, smiling yet looking about the ceiling. “See you again sometime.”

  I exhale and head for the front door. “Careful out there, Mary! Many women have been going missing lately” I hear Brian call from the dining room. I shake my head and shut the front door behind myself. I rush to my car, throw my purse and the passenger seat, and sit quietly with my hands on the steering wheel. I bang into the steering to release the tension in my chest. I sit quiet a moment, start the car, and my pho
ne begins to ring. I answer it with my car’s Bluetooth.

  “Hello.”

  I hear a few muffles and wind in the phone.

  “Hello?” Chels says. “Mary?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m so sorry. Butt-dial.”

  “No, no, it’s okay. I was just about to leave my parents.”

  I begin to pull from the curb and head down the road.

  “Looking at the time, I see it didn’t last long,” she says.

  “Not at all.”

  “How’s Brian?”

  “Brian is Brian. Brought up my divorce.”

  “I’m sorry,” she pities. “Listen, since you’re leaving so soon, did you get a chance to eat?”

  “No more than a forkful.”

  “Pick me up. We’ll get food.”

  “I don’t know, Chels. It’s been a long day and I kind of feel like going home and watching my soaps until I doze.”

  “Mary. I’ll see you in ten. I’ll cheer you up.”

  Without further discussion, she hangs up.

  ***

  We sit at a table in a small restaurant. The waiters and waitresses walk down the aisles, carrying food on trays and beverages. Our waitress comes over with our food.

  “Black-bean burger and fries?”

  “Thank you,” Chels says. The waitress sets the food in front of Chels.

  “And the chicken caesar sandwich and soup.” She sets it down in front of me.

  “Thank you.”

  “Enjoy,” she smiles.

  We begin to dig into our food.

  “First time I’ve seen you get anything besides the pasta from here,” she says.

  “I’d rather not eat anything that reminds me of what happened not too long ago.”

  “So, Brian,” Chels says. And that fast she forgets what I just said. “What’d he say about your marriage?”

  “He asked about Scott and ‘what’s going on'.’ He shouldn’t have known, but that’s what I get for being ‘less successful’ than my younger brother.”