How to Marry an Alien (2 page)

I shrugged. “At least you and mom are
supportive of this whole thing, and I guess Brian is too.”

“Yeah, your step-dad does seem to enjoy Ace…”
Dad let his words trail, taking a sip of whatever brown liquid was
in his crystal rocks glass before looking over at Ace and
Brian.

I didn’t actually think my step-dad liked Ace
that much, but now he always bombarded him every time he saw him
and pretended to be best friends. They were sitting on the leather
sofa and Brian kept getting that stupid donkey laugh and throwing
his head back like Ace was the funniest guy in the world.

Ace looked up from Brian. When his eyes met
mine, I still got the same warm chill that I did the first day I
saw him, the day he saved my life, and now, not just the alien
world, but the human world knew that we planned to spend the rest
of our lives together.

Dad cleared his throat, and I snapped out of
my dream world and back to him.

“I know I’ve known about you and Ace for a
while, but now that it’s out in the open, I just wanted to say
congratulations. You two really are great together.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Dad. It would have been
nice if Nerses came, but I can understand.”

Dad just nodded, his eyes darting to the
ground. I might have been ready to show my alien to the world, but
I guess dad wasn’t ready for that one yet.

I felt the cool breeze from Ace’s body before
I saw him. I wasn’t sure if anyone else could feel the cold that
seemed to radiate off him, but whenever I felt a gust of cold air
it always made me think of him.

“Well, since your fiancé is here, I’ll let
you have some time together.” Dad forced a smile and then headed
for a small group of people.

“Having fun?” he asked.

I turned to Ace who already had his eyebrows
raised in expectance of my answer.

“Ace, this really is too much. I mean first
the car, and this ring had to cost a fortune! You didn’t need to do
all of this.”

I stared down at the giant rock on my hand. I
had no idea how all those celebutantes could walk around with such
a big piece of jewelry on their fingers. I felt like it was going
to fall off and knock out a squirrel.

Ace shook his head. “Alex, you shouldn't
worry about these things. Besides, diamonds are as common as rocks
on Calta, so I have plenty of them. But I saved the best one for
the future princess.” He winked.

I put my hands on my hip. “So you picked up a
rock from the ground to give me? Unacceptable!”

He shook his head and then slinked his arms
around my waist, pulling me into a bear hug and kissing the top of
my head. “Only the best for you.”

"And there is the happy couple now!" I heard
my mom squeal before I saw her.

Ace released the hug, but kept an arm around
me as we turned toward my mom. She stood grinning from ear to ear
with two glasses of champagne in her hands. "A toast to the newly
engaged couple!"

She handed the two glasses to Ace and me,
while I eyed her skeptically. "Uh, ma?"

"Honey, it is a special occasion; we need to
toast!" She threw her arms up in the air, gathering the attention
of the family members assembled throughout the living room and
kitchen.

Ace shrugged his shoulders and looked at me.
"She does have a point."

Mom grabbed her half-empty glass from the
table and everyone raised theirs above their heads before yelling,
"Salute."

The last time I really drank anything was
when I didn't know the egg nog was spiked at Brian's family
Christmas party. I ended up spending the rest of the night lying on
the bathroom floor. Hopefully a little celebration wouldn't make me
end up in the same place.

Even in the dark, the floral wallpaper of the
guest room stood out like a big neon sign.

"Ace? Are you awake?" I whispered, trying to
tip toe into the room, but hitting my foot on the dresser near the
door. I bounced up and down, grabbing my aching foot. I tried not
to yell and bit down on my bottom lip and closed my eyes. As I
finally opened them again, I watched the form of Ace's body stir
under the giant blue quilt.

"Acccce, it's me, your fiannnceeeeeee." I
crawled into the bed, wobbling a bit as I tried to gain my footing
and lay down next to the Ace pile.

Ace poked his head out from under the
blanket. I could just make out the outline of his jaw. He had an
amazing jaw line. It rivaled any statue and even David Boreanaz's
amazing mandible.

"Alex, what are you doing?"

"What? I just came to see you." I tried to
prop my head up on my hand and ended up just falling back onto the
pillow.

He turned his head toward the clock on the
wall and then looked back at me. "It is two in the morning, and
your mother and Brian are right next door."

"Sooooo?" I slinked closer.

His face scrunched. "How much did you have to
drink?"

"What? I'm fine!" I protested, trying to
scoot closer. Truth was I lost count after a few glasses of
champagne, and my counting skills went with my ability to
reason.

Ace sighed. "Princess, understand that I love
you, but I'm not going to do this while your family is in the next
room and especially not when you are inebriated."

"Oh, come on. I know you want to at least
cuddle." I burrowed under the covers and pressed my body to his. I
was hoping he would be sleeping in just his boxers like he did at
Circe, but I could feel the leather-like material of his
temperature control suit against my bare legs.

"Alex." He squirmed, moving his legs out from
between mine and scooting to the other side of the bed. "I know
what you are trying to do, and we cannot."

"But why? We are engaged in both the human
and the alien sense, so why not?"

"For one, you are intoxicated, and for two, I
can literally hear your step father snoring in the next room."

My head was still spinning, so I didn't move
from the pillow. Even though Ace was treating me like a criminal, I
didn't want to move.

He sighed, standing up and reaching his hand
out to me. "Come on, I'll help you back to your room."

"Am I really so bad that you don't want me?"
I sniffled, attempting to lift my head off the pillow, but it felt
too heavy and I had to lay it back down.

Ace groaned, kneeling down on the floor next
to the bed. "Alex, you have to know how much I want you—" His warm
fingers trailed down my jaw line. "—but now isn't the time. Not
only for all the reasons I said before, but we have to be up early.
I'm not going to have you falling asleep at the wheel and wrecking
your new car."

I let out a dejected sigh. He was right, of
course, no matter how much my spinning head was telling me that I
wanted to give all of myself to him, doing it in my mom's guest bed
when I had to be up in a few hours was probably not worth it. No
matter how much I wanted to.

Morning came way too early and the top
spinning in my head turned into a pounding drum of a headache that
was only made worse by the sunlight streaming in from my open
bedroom window.

"Alex, you're awake and still here!" Elijah
threw open the door and jumped on the bed. It took everything I had
to hold back the bile in my mouth.

"Shhh, sissy is hungover," I whispered,
holding my hand over my eyes to shield it from the sunlight.

"How do you plan on surviving at college if
you can't handle a few glasses of champagne?" an all-too-cheery
voice said.

I removed my hand from my eyes and looked
over to see my mom standing in the door way with two steaming
mugs.

"Coffee cures all," I murmured and reached my
arm out for the mug before slowly sitting up.

Mom handed me the mug in her left hand. "Ace
is already up and helping Brian take down the tent in the backyard
from your party."

"Awesome." Aliens probably never got drunk or
hungover. Lucky.

"Which means that you should probably get up
and head for the shower. No reason for him to see you this
disheveled."

I nodded, slowly getting up from the bed. I
didn't want to tell her that Ace had seen me a lot worse from
waking up in the middle of the night with bad dreams or broken ribs
from evil Caltians attacks, and he still loved me no matter what I
did or what I looked like in the morning.

"I'll jump in the shower now." I took a big
chug of coffee and sat it down on my nightstand. "It will be my
last time showering in something that isn't a communal shower, so
I'm going to enjoy it."

"Alright, kiddo, it looks like that is the
last of your things. You should be all prepared for summer
semester." Brian slammed the trunk closed of the SUV. Ace winced,
examining the back to make sure there weren't any scratches.

"Oh, please, Ace, the car is going to have
something bad happen to it sooner or later. It is mine after all."
I rolled my eyes.

"Yes, but I'd rather have it be much later. I
don't want to be riding around in another vehicle like your Pox
again."

I stuck my tongue out. Not the most mature
response, but it was the only comeback I could come up with.

"I can't believe that you two plan on driving
all the way to Arizona." Mom shook her head. I couldn't tell if she
was on the brink of tears from me leaving or just trying to contain
her beliefs that she thought Ace and I were just driving together
so we could have sex. Little did she know that definitely hadn't
happened yet, and the way things were going, it probably wouldn't
for a long time.

"It won't be too bad. We will stop when we
get tired, and this way we can get all my stuff moved without
having to ship it." I forced a smile, adjusting my ponytail.

I could have started school in the fall with
the rest of the freshman class, but since Northern Arizona offered
a summer semester, I couldn't resist knocking out some of my gen
eds early, and of course getting to spend even more time with Ace.
The only problem was, we had to leave the next day after my
graduation if we wanted to make in time for classes to start the
following Monday.

"Alright, I guess you have a point. You were
always the smart one." She looked up at me, the tears welling in
her eyes behind her thick glasses. She might have been petite and
blond, but the only part of my mom's features that I was graced
with was her horrible eye sight.

Seeing her tears made me tear up as well. I'd
lived with my mom for so long, and we had been through so much
together: my parents divorcing, moving from base to base, and even
both of our struggles to settle in small town Winnebago.

"This isn't like it's going to be forever,
Mom. You all will be down for parents' weekend and that is only
four months away. That's just a month longer than my internship was
last summer."

"I know." She sniffled.

"Okay, come here!" I took a step toward her
with my arms outstretched as she pulled me into a hug.

"Just because you are all grown up, going off
to college and getting married doesn't mean you aren't still my
little girl," she blubbered into my shoulder.

"I know, Mom, I know."

I glanced in Ace's direction. He and his mom
definitely didn't have the same relationship as I did with my mom.
My mom might have made me angry sometimes and embarrassed the crap
out of me with her romance writer voice, but at least my mom never
tried to kill us.

"Am I going to have to separate you two or do
I need to push some of these boxes aside so you can ride along,
Wendy?" Brian called while he and Ace came around the SUV.

Mom released her grasp on me, wiped her eyes,
and turned toward Brian. "I already offered that one, remember?
Alex refused."

Guilty as charged. Sure, I loved my mom, but
I didn't think we could spend that long in a car with each other. I
was still hoping that Ace could figure out a way to just beam us to
Arizona. He kept saying that the beaming technology hadn't been
perfected with humans, but I was willing to risk it to not endure a
three-day car ride.

Brian put a burly arm around mom, pulling her
close to his sweat-stained shirt. "She will be fine, Wendy. Ace
will take good care of her. She's a smart girl. You don't need to
worry."

Ace smiled, stepping to my side. "I'm pretty
sure that Alex can take care of herself. I'm just along for the
ride."

He only said that because he knew I'd been
the one to save him, multiple times. Oh, sure, he'd saved my life a
few times as well, but I think I proved myself worthy of running
with the Caltian crowd.

"Well." I clapped my hands together. "I guess
we should get going, so I can drive as far as I can before I pass
out from boredom or tiredness."

"Okay." Mom nodded, the tears poking at her
eyes again. "Be safe and call when you get there."

"We will."

"Have a good trip, kiddo. We will miss having
you around." Brian pulled me in a big bear hug, overwhelming my
nostrils with the scent of sweat and sawdust before he let go. I
might complain about the guy, a lot, but he really was a good
person. He helped to provide for me since I was seven and never
treated me like I was anything but his own daughter.

"Alright Brian, I'll miss you too."

Elijah sat on the sidewalk. He hadn't said a
word to me since he woke me up. I took a few steps over and
crouched down in front of him. "Hey, Buddy, Ace and I are about to
head out. Do you want to give sissy a hug goodbye?"

Elijah looked up, his big blue eyes,
bloodshot with tears. "You aren't too hungover to say goodbye to
me?"

Ace, Mom, and Brian laughed in the
background. I couldn't smile. I genuinely felt bad that I groaned
at him for waking me up and that was the reason he stayed in the
background.