How to Marry an Alien (8 page)

I slid the phone up to my ear. "Couldn't call
at a worse time, could you?"

Ace smiled, probably remembering our first
almost kiss. The one that Jen interrupted by walking in on us. I
think she enjoyed constantly interrupting us.

"What's up, girly? Just checking to see how
school is going. Hopefully you weren't doing anything too
important." Her all too perky voice chirped over the phone.

"If you call finding out that my roommate is
dating Riley and then freaking out to Ace something important, then
yes it is."

"Hold up." Jen's high voice lowered a bit.
"Your roommate is dating Riley? Circe Riley?"

"Uh, yeah. I don't really know any other
Rileys. How come no one told me that she was going to grad school
here? Or the fact that she was a lesbian who was dating my
roommate?"

"The grad school thing I didn't know about.
As for the lesbian thing, I thought that was obvious. Obviously,
not obvious that she would date your roommate, but I really thought
you knew she liked girls," Jen said without missing a beat.

"Well, what am I supposed to do?"

I looked up at Ace. He just stood there,
watching me intently. He never forced me to get off the phone, yet
I always felt bad when I ignored him for a phone conversation. Ever
since earlier in the year when Simone controlled me and tried to
keep me from Ace, I always felt the need to spend more time with
him instead of the phone when he was around.

Jen let out a big sigh on the other end of
the phone. "You know, just because I am a scientist doesn't mean
I'm going to have all the answers."

"Well, is there anything that you can do?" I
asked.

"If you want to talk about it, why don't you
and Ace come back to Circe?"

"Uh." I quickly glanced up at Ace and then
looked back down. "Yeah, I guess we can. Want to come pick us
up?"

After cramming Ace into the back of Jen's
little red convertible we were back to the familiar realms of
Circe, where we could freely talk about all the alien
weirdness.

Since Jen was officially a Circe employee,
she no longer had to live in the intern's quarters or even in a
dorm-style room like Ace. She led us down the scientist corridor
and into her plush suite.

"A prince gets to stay in a closet and you
get this place?" I looked over Jen's apartment while she hung her
keys up on a hook by the door. The room was as stark white as the
rest of Circe, with a large living room opening up to a stainless
steel kitchen. A door lay just beyond the living room, partially
opened to reveal the tile of a bathroom floor, and another door
swung to the left of it, which must have been the bedroom.

"It's alright, I guess." Jen shrugged. "Once
you and Ace move in together you will probably have a place at
least twice this size."

Moving in together at Circe? I hadn't thought
about that one. For some reason I always thought that we would be
able to have our own house, away from base, and not in the same
building as my dad.

"There are a lot of pictures of you and the
brown one around," Ace commented, holding up a framed picture of
Jen and Malcolm on one of the many end tables.

"Well, yeah, they are best friends." I looked
over at the picture. They were sitting on a beach somewhere with
their arms wrapped around each other. I guess it could be a
friendly pose.

"Best friends, boyfriend and girlfriend,
partners, whatever you want to call it." Jen smiled, plopping down
on a white chaise.

"Boyfriend?" I asked. Crickey, were all my
friends dating each other now?

"Yeah, I figured you would have guessed that
one." She shrugged. "It didn't really work out with me and Oliver.
My dreams were to move to Circe and work here, and his was an
attempt at the draft."

Ugh, my head was spinning. I plopped down on
the plush, white sofa opposite Jen, and Ace took the seat next to
me.

"So now you're with Malcolm? When did you
plan on telling me this?" I asked.

"I thought it would have been obvious that we
had some major chemistry outside of the lab, but I figured I would
tell you sooner or later." Jen shrugged and pulled her long legs
up, hugging her knees to her chest.

"Okay, now that we have figured out Jen's
love life, can we figure out this homosexual debacle?" Ace piped
up.

Jen and I both turned toward Ace. His limited
knowledge of human relationships was getting on my nerves. I
couldn't understand how he just didn't understand homosexuality.
Jen told him at one point to just look it up on the internet and
all he could find was really disturbing pictures.

"I really don't think it's that big of a
deal," Jen said. "Yeah, she was a witch with a capital B here at
Circe, but now she is a completely different person. They wiped her
memory of all things alien. She knows nothing about what happened
last summer."

"Yeah, but they didn't erase my memory or
Ace's!" I turned back to Jen, pointing my thumb in Ace's
direction.

Jen put her feet back down on the ground.
"People can change, Alex, especially people who have had their
memory erased. Maybe you should try to get to know her as your
roommate's girlfriend and not Riley, the former evil intern."

"Jen is right," Ace spoke up. "I may still
resent Riley for all of the things she did to you, and to us, while
she was here, but in the end everything turned out for the best.
And she doesn't remember any of what happened, so we should try and
put that behind us as well."

I turned toward Ace, slowly blinking. "You're
serious? You want me to just forget that the girl put a gun to my
head or turned us in to the Circe guys so you ended up locked in a
cell?" I threw my hands up in the air. "Maybe while we are at it I
should go and forgive Magpie for trying to kill me for doing the
thumbs up sign. Oh! Or how about I write a friendly letter to
Simone?"

"Alex," Ace said, pulling my hands down. "You
are being unreasonable."

"Yeah," Jen added. "We aren't saying that you
have to completely forget about all of those things, but do
remember that Riley doesn't have any recollection that she ever met
either of you, or interned at Circe."

I hated to admit it, but they were both
right. I hated when they were right. Even worse I hated that I
would still have to face Riley no matter how much I complained or
tried to fight it.

After we left Jen's room, I figured I should
visit my dad. Not only had I not seen him since I'd been in town,
but I figured he should be made aware of the Riley situation as
well.

There was quite a bit of distance between
Jen's suite and the officer's quarters, where my dad lived. All the
hallways looked the same with the plain white walls, white tile
floor, and blinding fluorescent lights. It really couldn't have
killed Circe to spring for a coat of new paint or even to put some
pictures on the wall.

"The future royal prince and princess of
Calta, right here in my hallway!"

Ugh, I was hoping we wouldn't run into Monte.
Circe was a huge place, and we really shouldn't have, but I guess
we just had to go through his wing to get to the officer's
quarters.

"Hey, Monte." Ace smiled and stopped near the
door that Monte was propped up against.

Once upon a time, Ace and I would have never
been able to roam the halls freely and holding hands. Some of the
older aliens that we passed still gave us dirty looks, but once it
was out in the open that we were engaged, people were a little bit
more accepting.

"I expected you and the princess to still be
in one of your bedrooms, commencing in activities that require a
bed." Monte smiled an all-too-smug smile.

If Monte wasn't such an arrogant a-hole he
would actually be attractive. The curse of the Caltian men; they
were all super attractive with their high cheekbones and builds of
Greek gods. Too bad a lot of them were just as much of jerks as
Monte. I still shuddered when I thought about the queen's
right-hand man, Marsilo, who still treated me like I was just Ace's
pet.

"We just came to talk to my dad and Jen. No
bedroom commencing needed." I smirked, gripping Ace's hand tighter.
They may be best friends, but that didn't mean I had to like the
guy.

"Hey, maybe he can help with our problem."
Ace motioned his free hand in Monte's direction.

"Really, how?" I looked from Monte and back
to Ace. I knew Monte was pretty good with Circe intelligence, so he
would possibly have a way to figure out how I could erase my Riley
memory, or even just give her some weird alien disease so she would
go away.

"We can set your roommate up with Monte and
then she will forget all about her homosexual tendencies and no
more Riley!" Ace smiled, obviously proud of himself and his stupid
idea.

"Seriously? That is your big plan? Set up my
lesbian roommate with an alien dude?" I rolled my eyes. Why did I
even think that Ace would have a better idea?

Monte stepped away from the doorway. "I read
about this lesbian thing you speak of." He put his fingers up for
air quotes when he said lesbian.

"It isn't a thing," I said.

"Whatever," Monte replied quickly. "I still
don't understand the mechanics of how two human girls would be
together, but maybe this roommate of yours could teach me a thing
or two."

Gag. I didn't know what he meant by that, but
it sounded sexual.

Ace tapped my hip with our intertwined hands.
"What do you say, Alex? That sounds like it could solve our
problems. Just get rid of Riley as Lucy's lover, and we won't have
to worry about seeing her."

I sighed, defeated. If these two were stupid
enough to think that Lucy was just going to magically stop liking
girls because of a beautiful alien, then I would let them try.
After all, stranger things have happened.

After we were finally able to escape Monte,
we went to my dad's suite. Luckily, Ace knew where we were going
because I didn't think I would have found it on my own. The
officer's quarters looked no different than Jen's area, and the
only difference from where Ace's hall was and my dad's was that Ace
and Monte's area was only about thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, the
normal temperature on Calta.

I tapped two quick knocks on dad's door
before he answered. I guess I forgot what time it was since dad was
in an old Air Force t-shirt and plaid pajama pants.

"Alex?" he questioned, his voice rising
slightly. "Is everything alright?"

"Oh, yeah, it's fine. Sorry did we wake you?"
I asked.

"No, no." He shook his head before opening
the door the rest of the way. "I was just watching some
television."

He moved to the side so that Ace and I could
walk past him.

Dad's apartment was basically the same layout
as Jen's except for a little bigger and even though dad had lived
there for over ten years there was barely a trace of anything
personal. He only had one framed picture of me when I was a baby
that stood next to a Circe-issued lamp on an end table.

"So what can I help you two with?" Dad shut
the door and walked toward us, picking up the remote and turning
off whatever sport he was watching on TV.

"Well, mister security alien somehow didn't
find in his research that my roommate is dating Riley." I motioned
my head in Ace's direction.

"Riley?" dad asked. "As in the Riley that
interned here with you last summer?"

I nodded. "The same."

"She surely had her memory erased before we
released her, right? There is no way that she would remember you or
Ace or anything about Circe." Dad stood stiffly in front of the
TV.

"Yeah, she had her memory erased, but that
doesn't erase my memory of her! How can this be possible? Now she
is dating my roommate and I'm going to have to deal with seeing a
girl that pointed a gun to my head," I whined plopping down on the
sofa.

"Wait a second." Dad held up his hand. "Did
you just say that your roommate is dating her? I thought you were
assigned to an all-girl's floor?"

Oh great. Not him too.

"It is an all-girl's dorm, sir," Ace piped
in. "Alex tells me that these two girls are actually each other's
mates. I told her it was preposterous, but she seems pretty adamant
about it."

I rolled my eyes. How many times was I going
to have to go through this with Ace?

"Okay." Dad nodded his head slowly, taking
the seat next to me on the couch and Ace took the chaise next to
us. "Why don't you go to the resident assistant and see if you can
move rooms?"

"Ugh, I wish it were that simple." I leaned
back on the couch, resting my head against the overly stuffed,
white cushions. "My dorm is one of the only ones opened for the
summer, and we are housing all the kids for band camp."

Dad rubbed his chin. "I'm all out of other
ideas. I really don't think it will be that big of a deal. She
doesn't remember you, so you won't have to worry about her
bothering you. Besides you might not see her that much anyway."

I looked from Ace to my dad. Neither of them
were much help, nor was Jen. I guess I would just have to figure
out what to do on my own.

I sighed. "Okay, I guess I can try to live
with it for now."

I sat back up and then pulled myself up to my
feet. Ace followed suit and stood next to me.

"Is that all you needed?" dad asked.

All I needed? He really didn't actually help
with anything. "Yeah, I guess."

"You sure?" He pulled himself up from the
couch. "You don't need anything else? Your classes are going
okay?"

"It's only been a day, Dad. There really
isn't much to talk about."

"Oh." He nodded. The awkwardness was so thick
it would have to be cut with a knife. We both had nothing else to
say, and I think both of us knew that the problem had not been
solved.