How to Marry an Alien (12 page)

"Pretty much," dad responded. "But you knew
that when you got in to all of this. If you would like to back out
now, I'm sure that we could talk to Nerses and see about
renegotiating the treaty."

"Oh, whoa, no. I did not say that at all. I
definitely want to marry Ace." I shook my head, even though I knew
he couldn't see it. "It's just a lot to take in."

Dad let out a deep breath that made a
crackling sound on the other end of the phone. "If there is anyone
that can live with all of this alien attention, it's you. You've
been through more than any other human girl I know, with the alien
world, and you've survived. You will be fine."

"Thanks, Dad." I smiled. "I needed that."

When I got back to my room, Lucy was sitting
on her bed with Riley next to her. Lucy's laptop was on the bed in
front of them and they were staring at it, laughing like two
hyenas.

"What's so funny?" I tilted my head and
dropped my messenger bag on my desk chair before kicking off my
heels.

Riley glanced up at me, and then looked back
to the screen. "There is this group of kids who call themselves the
Alien Alliance of Northern Illinois, and they have all these videos
talking about how aliens invaded their dreams and forced them to do
things."

No. It couldn't be. It had to be someone
else. There was no way it could be. In a few short steps, I walked
from my bed and over to Lucy's. Right there on the computer screen
was Brody, Gemma, and Rachel from my high school.
Crap
.

Gemma's raspy voice carried through the
speakers. "I had a scholarship to University of Illinois. I could
have been the next college rugby star. Then I had this crazy dream
and ended up sleep walking and falling down the stairs. I never
dream or sleep walk."

I could never forget that. Simone had walked
me through that dream. At the time I didn't realize it was because
Simone was actually an evil Caltian who was promised to Ace and was
trying to destroy me by invading people's dreams around me. It
wasn't until she attacked me and Ace at Cuppa Java, where we
worked, that I realized she was the one sleep creeping everyone. I
thought Circe took care of everything when they locked her up.
Obviously they hadn't.

Lucy looked at me. "These kids have a whole
video blog series about how some evil alien woman used to show up
in their dreams and make all of these crazy things happen in their
lives. They say that once she left town they stopped and now they
have been putting out all these stories about what happened and
trying to see if anyone else has had the same experience. It's
hilarious!"

Riley peered over at me. "Can you imagine?
These kids have nothing better to do than make up alien stories.
Don't you think if there was alien life out there that they would
have something better to do than invading the dreams of some
small-town kids?"

"Ha, yeah, hilarious." I forced a nervous
laugh.

Lucy turned off the video and closed her
laptop. "But enough about crazy small town kids, let's just focus
on my small town roommate. How was the Dustin Hoffman speech? Did
you seduce the class with your knowledge of all things
Tootsie
?"

"Er…something like that. I'll be lucky if I
pass this assignment. Hopefully the persuasive speech will go
better," I replied, unbuttoning my blouse and throwing it on the
bed so I only wore the camisole underneath.

"You aren't bothered to have two lesbians
sitting in your bedroom while you undress?" Riley asked, arching
one of her too thin eyebrows.

I shook my head. "No, why would I be?"

"It's just funny. When I came out of the
closet even my sister and best friend didn't want to be near me in
the locker room at the gym for fear I might check them out. But you
just undress in front of us like it's no big deal." Riley
smiled.

I shrugged. "It really isn't a big deal. If
you two want to check me out in all my chubby glory, then go
ahead."

And it was true. I wasn't going to get fully
stripped down in front of them, but I wasn't worried in the
slightest about either one of them hitting on me or checking me
out. If they wanted to do it, more power to them. I could have
bragging rights that lesbians and aliens found me sexy. I didn't
fear that they were going to put the moves on me, and if they did,
I would be more worried about what Ace would do to them than
anything else.

"Can you stop hitting on my roommate now?"
Lucy turned to Riley, pressing her nose against hers and nuzzling
it.

"Jealous? First we have dinner together, and
now she is stripping for me." Riley kept her eyes focused on Lucy.
I'd never heard her so playful.

"Sometimes, I don't know why I like you so
much." Lucy smiled, keeping her nose pressed against Riley's. I had
to quickly turn away, feeling like I was interrupting some private
moment.

Thank God Jen's ringtone rang over my phone,
and I could pick it up to focus on something else. "Hey, lady."

"Hey, are you busy?"

I glanced back to the nuzzling couple on the
bed and then turned fully the other way. "Nope, not at all. What's
up?"

"I thought if you were free you might want to
check out the sights of Arizona and go hiking with me, Malcolm, and
Justin."

I hadn't really hung out with them since the
internship, and even then a lot of my time revolved around Ace. It
couldn't hurt to get off campus for awhile, and I was pretty sure a
sock would soon end up on the door of my room, so it was probably
best to leave.

"Sure, I'd love to. Just let me get changed,"
I said.

"Awesome," Jen replied. "I'll be there to
pick you up soon."

Between the car accident, classes, and
worrying about Ace, I really didn't get to see much of the area
surrounding campus, and it was beautiful. I didn't have the
skyscrapers that I would have walked along and viewed every day
around Columbia, but the mountain range more than made up for
that.

"I didn't take you for much of a hiking
girl." Malcolm looked back at me from his spot in the front
seat.

Instead of taking Jen's small car, they took
out one of the Circe Jeeps. It was better for off-roading and
nothing like the SUV that I crashed. A lot more durable. Surely we
would survive a deer and a guardrail, and maybe even an alien
attack. I was sure Circe vehicles were made to protect people from
those.

"There are a lot of things that I do that you
don't know about. Like that I love to dissect aliens while they are
sleeping." I adjusted my glasses and let out a hint of a smile.

"Oh, so, that's your real interest in Ace."
Justin playfully batted my arm from the seat next to me.

"Why else would I hang out with him so much?
It's obviously not about how well we get along or that he proposed.
It's all about the research." I laughed.

"Sure it is." Jen glanced at me in the
rearview mirror. "Research in his pants."

"Hey now!" I laughed and the rest of the car
joined in.

We headed east toward Walnut Canyon. To the
locals and humans it was known for its hundreds of years of geology
and beautiful cliff dwellings. To aliens it was one of their
favorite locations to land, undetected, and explore Earth.

"So is this a work trip that you all are
taking me on or do you actually want to hang out with me?" I asked,
making my way up a very steep trail.

Justin took my hand and helped to pull me
closer to the top where Jen and Malcolm were busy talking in a
language I could not understand to three giant purple aliens, who
had just landed a few minutes before.

"You aren't the only one that is more
comfortable hanging around aliens than humans," Justin responded
letting go of my hand as we walked over to the rest of the
group.

Jen put an arm around me, pulling me into the
circle she had made with Malcolm and the aliens. "Hobbes, Locke,
Tao, this is Alex, the future princess of Calta."

The purple creatures' giant bug-like eyes
grew at least twice their size while a collective 'oh' escaped
their mouths.

"It is a pleasure to meet you. Will you sign
my gleep?" One of the creatures said in a voice that sounded like a
cartoon mouse. It stepped forward and unzipped its black suit,
revealing purple, scaly skin.

"Uh, sure I guess I can do that." I looked up
at Jen who just shrugged.

The alien pulled a green blob that looked
like Play-Doh out of the suit and thrust it at me.

"Uh, is this your gleep?" I looked back up at
the alien.

It shook its head up and down
enthusiastically. "Yes, yes, please make it out to Locke from the
princess of Calta."

"Okay then." Jen handed me a pen and I
managed to carve the message into the gleep.

I handed it back to Locke and it squealed
with delight. "Thank you, thank you! You are the kindest future
princess I have ever met!"

"Have you ever actually met another princess
or future one at that?" one of the other aliens asked.

"No…" Locke put its head down.

"It's alright." I put my hand on Locke's
shoulder. Its skin felt like sand paper beneath my fingers. "You
are the first Locke I've ever met, and I will always remember
that."

He looked back up and beamed at me with tiny,
pointed teeth. "You really are the kindest future princess!"

"Okay, Locke, come on. We need to get back to
our exploration and leave these humans alone." One of the other
aliens came and put its hand on Locke's back. I took that as my cue
to remove my hand and step back.

"Okay, mummy." He waved his tiny hand in the
air. "Bye, Princess, thanks!"

I waved back before they disappeared through
the tiny trees that dotted the landscape.

"Man, what am I going to do now that I have
to compete with the celebrity of a future princess? Aliens used to
always come up to me and ask if they could touch my brown skin, but
now, I've got some competition!" Malcolm laughed, crossing his arms
over his chest.

"You all are too much! It's really not that
big of a deal." I looked down, kicking a rock with my boot.

"Not a big deal?" Justin took a step forward
so he was closer to me. "This is the first time a human and alien
have publicly announced they were together. In the alien world,
this is the biggest deal possible."

I made a circle in the rocks with my foot. I
never thought of it that way. I knew it was a big step when we took
the plunge and started dating and even more so when we got engaged,
but I never imagined I'd have people asking for my autograph.

"Hey, leave her be." Jen put an arm around my
shoulder, pulling me against her Amazon body, her long blond hair
brushed at my arms. "She's not a princess yet, so she can just
enjoy whatever life throws at her until then."

Yeah, whatever life threw at me: attempts on
my life by humans and aliens alike, sleep creeping, and now
celebrity status. My life would never be normal again.

Saturday, a day for freedom. I didn't have to
wake up early for classes and could finally just relax. Or so I
thought.

"Wake up, sleepy head!"

A jolt of pressure pushed down on my stomach
until I opened my eyes to see Riley and Lucy staring down at me.
When I did my internship with Riley, she was anything but a morning
person. She always slept with a face mask on and headphones in her
ears. Now she was already dressed with her makeup on and hair done,
just smiling away at me.

"What time is it?" I asked, sliding my
glasses on from their spot near the nightstand I shared with Lucy.
If you could call it a nightstand; it was more of an old wooden
bench between our beds that Lucy found and painted purple to put
our lamps and other nighttime essentials on.

"Eight, which means we still have time to go
and get some vegan French toast from downstairs." Lucy beamed and
climbed off my bed, while Riley still sat on the edge.

"How about you just bring me one back?" I
asked, rolling over to my side.

"Come on, Alex. It will be a roommate date,"
Lucy begged.

"Roommate-and-her-crazy-girlfriend-who-wake-me-up-early date," I
retorted.

Riley crept up the bed and turned me back
over. "Come on, just this one time. I told Lucy we had to include
you in our Saturday morning ritual."

I sat up, adjusting my glasses. Could this be
true? The old Riley would have never said that. She usually tried
to avoid hanging out with me at all costs. When I started dating
Ace she even kicked me off our usual intern lunch table.

"I think you've become my girlfriend's other
girlfriend." Lucy laughed. She was definitely not the jealous
type.

"Ugh, fine," I moaned, tossing the comforter
off me and stepping out of bed.

"Success!" Riley pumped her fists in the
air.

If someone would have told me at the
beginning of that summer that I would be spending my Saturday
mornings having breakfast with my roommate and her girlfriend, I
would have never believed them. But my summers had a way of doing
that, teaching me things that I never thought possible.

"So what's on the agenda for this weekend,
are we going bowling or what?" Riley asked between mouthfuls of
French toast. How the heck anyone could even make vegan French
toast was still beyond me. The whole recipe of French toast
included all things dairy and egg-like.

The dining hall was pretty empty, save for
the three of us sitting in a corner booth. I was still in my
pajamas and while the other girls waited forever for their
specialty made food I just chowed down on my usual cereal and mug
of coffee.

"We could go bowling. I'm down with that."
Lucy looked over at me. "Unless there is something you would rather
do, Alex. Or do you have plans with Ace?"