Wrong Alien (TerraMates Book 6) (28 page)

Her eyes were bright as she stopped to check the recipe, and
he snuck glances at her, quickly realizing that in the short amount of time
that he'd know her, he'd already gotten attached.

Reading Abon's book and finding out what he had planned for
them had been shocking, but he couldn't deny that he was.... interested. She
was interesting to say the least, and Asher wanted to get to know her better,
to find out the things that made her tick and made her smile. Her smile was
lovely, and as he watched her grin at the sauce she was making, he realized
that he very much wanted her to smile at him like that.

It didn't really make sense, considering he'd only really
known her for a short time, but Asher had always been good at reading people,
and he wanted to know more about her.

"Why are you staring at me?" she asked, looking up at him
with one eyebrow raised.

"I'm not." But his face was suddenly filled with color at
being caught.

"Uh-huh. You definitely were. Is this some weird alien
culture thing that I don't know about? The staring?"

"No! There was no staring! I don't know what you're talking
about."

Mia rolled her eyes, but she was laughing. "Whatever,
weirdo. Go wash up for dinner, okay? I haven't eaten since this morning, and
neither have you."

Asher nodded and practically fled to the bathroom. This was
so not his element. He'd seen plenty of pretty human girls before, but knowing
that he would have to leave one day and go back to his people (however much was
left of them) had always kept him from making any real connections.

But Abon wanted him to make Mia his queen.

And the more time he spent around her, the more into the
idea he was. She was just so pretty and so smart, and she had this way of
saying exactly what was on her mind that was refreshing and funny and perfect.

Creators, he needed help.

He took his time washing his hands, making sure that they
were clean and then pushing unruly hair out of his face. Asher didn't know what
she thought of him, and he wasn't bold enough to ask, so he was just going to
keep his mouth closed and hope that he could make it through having dinner with
her without making an idiot of himself.

As he walked toward the kitchen, the sound of a phone
ringing interrupted his progress. Asher hung back, not wanting to walk in on
her in the middle of a conversation.

"Hi, Mom."

Asher felt a pang at that. How long had it been since he'd
been able to greet his own mother? But there was a weariness in Mia's voice
that made him frown.

"No, I know. I
know
, Mom. I wasn't going to forget… I
was going to call him! It's in a week, what do you mean you thought I forgot?"

There was a moment of silence, and Asher jumped when it was
broken by the sound of Mia slamming a pot down on the stove.

"You always do this. I didn't even mess up and you just
assume I need a lecture because there was a chance I
might
. You could
try giving me the benefit of the doubt for once."

From the tone of her voice, this was an old argument.

He remembered what Abon had written about this planet being
too small for Mia. Maybe this was an example of that. Maybe this was proof that
she didn't actually belong here. He didn't want to get his hopes up or use her
issues with her family as a way to try and make her be with him, but he
couldn't deny that it was seeming a bit less hopeless than it had before.

Chapter 7: Break

Mia tossed and turned in her bed, finally flopping over onto
her back with a huff. Sleeping during the day always made it hard for her to
fall asleep at night, and even though she and Asher had stayed up for a good
portion of the night, watching and waiting to see if the Shaddoc were going to
make a second appearance, there was a part of her that was too worried to sleep.

Did they know that she knew now?

Did they know that she'd thrown her lot in with Asher and
Abon, wherever the latter happened to be?

She couldn't imagine that they would have found out this
soon since they hadn't taken her, but she also couldn't imagine that they had
given up that easily.

From long years of taking her they had to know her routines
by now. They'd be back, and Mia didn't know what she was supposed to do when
they returned. She had no way of fighting them off or even being in control of
her own body when they had her, so what was she supposed to do to make them
leave her alone?

Asher was asleep on the couch in the living room, and when
she'd last checked, he'd been lying on his back with a device on his chest.
He'd explained in a soft voice that if the Shaddoc came close to her house, the
device would let them know in enough time that they could get out of there.

It was a comfort, and the fact that she knew he was out
there, watching out for her, should have helped her sleep, but for whatever
reason, she was still wide awake, staring at her ceiling and listening to the
sound of Asher's soft breathing from the other room.

It was sort of strange how easily he fit into her life
already. They'd known each other for a very short time (if you didn't count the
couple of years they'd sort of known each other as children, which she sort of
didn't because she'd been more focused on his uncle than him at the time), but
they'd sat down to dinner together easy as anything, and Asher had kept her
laughing with stories about how he used to drive his uncle mad when he was a
boy.

His stories had been welcome after she'd had to deal with
her mother over the phone. Honestly, nothing put her in a black mood like
having to talk to one of her parents unexpectedly. Usually they didn't call her
out of the blue like that, but Mia had learned the hard way that if she didn't
answer when they did, things just got worse.

Talking to her mother had left her stressed and agitated,
but Asher had stepped up admirably, seeming not to give up until he'd gotten a
smile out of her.

She appreciated him for it, and she'd kissed his cheek
before she'd gone to her room to try and get some sleep. The flush on his face
had been gratifying, and she'd been smiling when she laid down and got under
the covers.

Of course, she wasn't smiling
now.
Now she was just
cranky because she wanted to sleep and she couldn't.

The quiet of the house was shattered by a loud beeping sound
from the other room, and Mia sat upright in her bed, heart pounding. She
instinctively looked around to see if there was anyone hiding in her room, even
though that was a silly thought, more than likely.

There was a thump and a curse in a different language from
the living room, and she waited with bated breath.

"It's okay," came Asher's voice a second later, and he
padded his way to her room, glancing at her and then at the floor. "I think
they're taking someone else because they're on the other side of town."

"How do you know they won't come here?" Mia asked, clutching
the covers in her fingers.

"They don't take more than two people a night on average.
Sometimes three, but they wouldn't have time to probe everyone and then get
them back without being noticed. They probably wasted a lot of time looking for
you last night."

"Oh." That made sense, but it didn't do much to relax the
frantic pace of her heart.

Asher seemed to pick up on it because he took another step
into the room and let her have the full force of those golden eyes. "Are you
okay?"

Mia nodded. "Yeah. Yes. I mean. It's kind of stupid to be
afraid of them when they've been taking me my whole life, just about, right?"

He just looked at her for a second and then shook his head.
"I don't think that's stupid. Before, you didn't know what was happening. Now…
Well, now you have an image to put to the experience, and it makes sense to be
afraid of them."

His words were reassuring, and Mia gave him a small smile.
"Thanks. You know, you're weird, but you're good at saying the thing I need to
hear when I need to hear it."

Asher blushed and looked back down at the floor, clearly
pleased to hear her say that. "I'm glad. I… If there were was something I could
do to make this easier for you, I'd do it." From the way he was looking, she
could tell that there was something specific he had in mind.

"What is it?"

Wide eyes snapped up to her face and then away. "N-nothing.
It's nothing. Just tired. You should um. Go back to sleep."

"I wasn't asleep in the first place."

"Oh. Are you okay?" He laughed. "I just asked that, didn't
I?"

His sheepish expression made Mia laugh, too. "You did, but I
appreciate it. It's been a while since someone's been here to worry about if
I'm okay or not." Cass always had, but her parents hadn't really wanted to get
involved in things like that. As long as it wasn't someone else hurting her,
they weren't concerned.

But she shook that off. She didn't really want to go down
that road right then, especially not when she was already feeling grumpy from
lack of sleep.

"I could tell you stories. If you wanted," Asher offered.
"You seemed to fall asleep pretty easily the last time when I was reading to
you."

Mia smiled at that. He was right, of course. She'd passed
right out, laying on him even, when he'd been reading to her, and his voice was
soft and soothing, so she nodded, settling herself in the bed. "That sounds
good. Thank you."

He gave her a sweet smile and then settled himself on the
floor next to her bed. "Okay, so this is a story about my mother."

From the way he started to tell the story, Mia could tell
that his mother was someone who meant a lot to him, and the gentle way he spoke
about her was enough to have her relaxing and then drifting right off as he
talked.

When Mia woke up it was to the sound of someone knocking on
the front door. Asher was nowhere to be found, and the sun was streaming
through her blinds and right into her eyes. She had no idea what time it was,
and she flung an arm over her face to block out the light.

The persistent knocking didn't stop, and then she heard
shuffling from the living room.

"Oh, good," she mumbled. "Asher's getting it."

Maybe she could go back to sleep if he got the door. It was
probably a salesman or the mailman or something like that.

There was the sound of low murmuring and then a familiar
sharp voice ringing out. "And just
who
are you?"

For the second time in an eight hour period, she shot
upright in bed. That was her mother's voice. What in the world was her mother
doing at her house in the middle of the morning? Her parents never came to see
her, and that was how she liked it. 

But that stern, shrill voice definitely belonged to her
mother, and Mia forced herself out of bed and flung open her bedroom door,
padding down the hall just in time to see her father glaring at Asher who
looked confused.

And was definitely shirtless.

Awesome.

"What are you two
doing
here?" She said, and it
sounded more like an accusation than an expression of surprise, but whatever.

"Are we not allowed to come visit our daughter?" Her father
said, voice firm.

Senator Thomas Hatcher was an imposing man by anyone's
standards. He was close to six and a half feet tall and wasn't a thin man at
all. He wasn't fat, but there was no doubt that he got three square meals a
day.

Next to him, her mother looked particularly small, closer to
Mia's height, and naturally thin. She was beautiful in a way that Mia would
never be, and standing there together they made her feel like a failure. It was
clear from the way they were looking at her that they thought she was something
of a failure, too.

Of course, her father's eyes ended up right back on Asher
who was still standing there not wearing a shirt.

"Amelia, who is this? You never mentioned that you had a
boyfriend."

Mia rolled her eyes. "He's not my boyfriend, Dad, and even
if he was, I wasn't aware that I needed your permission for something like
that." Her voice was dry and sarcastic, and she could already feel her parents
getting annoyed with her.

Good. Maybe they'd leave faster. She was a grown woman, and
she wasn't going to have them treating her like a child in her own home. It was
bad enough that when she went to see them for holidays they acted like they
owned her or something, but she wasn't going to stand for it here in the house
that she paid for and called her own.

"There's no need for you to talk to me like that, Amelia.
And if he isn't your boyfriend, then what is he doing here this early in the
morning with only half of his clothes on?"

"He spent the night because he's my friend. I imagine he was
sleeping and then since you two decided to pop over for this little visit
without letting anyone know, he didn't have time to get dressed before you were
hammering the door down."

"That doesn't explain why he's so comfortable here that he
thinks he can just answer the door for you."

Mia rolled her eyes. "Well, since we weren't expecting
anyone, he probably thought it was someone he was going to have to send away.
Honestly, I would have just ignored it."

"Amelia," her mother scolded. "Did you wake up on the wrong
side of the bed?"

It was sort of incredible how they could always make
something her fault. Never mind that they were the ones who had barged into her
house uninvited, clearly she was in the wrong by not being pleased about it.

Asher glanced at her with sympathy in his eyes. She could
tell that he was confused, and she didn't blame him for that. Considering the
things he had told her the night before about his own mother, he probably
wasn't used to parents treating their children like this. Well, maybe it was
good for him to see how lucky he was that he had memories like that of his
mother when all Mia had was this.