Love Galaxy (The Intergalactic Dating Show #1)

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

COMMENTATOR CHLOE:

As the Human specialist on LOVE GALAXY, I feel it’s my duty to inform our listeners that Briar here isn’t typical of our species. Usually, by thirty years, a Human Female is mated and breeding. That Briar has focused exclusively on her failed career for the last decade means that LOVE GALAXY is her last hope of finding a family.

CITY SINGLE brIAR:

I can hear you, you know?

Briar

I glare at Chloe, who’s holding what I can only presume is the alien version of a microphone and talking into the camera trained on her face.

“Cut!” Turning to face me, Mr. Smith glares. He’s not the Human I’d first thought him to be when we’d initially met on Earth. Back then, there’d been something a little fishy about the way he looked, with all that loose skin sagging around his neck, but I hadn’t given it too much thought. Now, he’s dropped his Human-shaped disguise and is rocking full alien, complete with some sort of bony armor encircling his throat and a pitchforked tail that flicks whenever he’s irritated.

What he hasn’t dropped is his Earth-style name. Mr. John Smith doesn’t suit him, and I don’t doubt it’s a pseudonym, but why the secrecy?

If working in politics has taught me anything, it’s that when you don’t have clear sight of the corporate ladder, there’s always another higher-up boss hiding in the shadows. Mr. Smith is only the show’s director. The real question is: who is he reporting to?

“What are you doing?” he demands of me, his tail flicking back and forth so much it’s beginning to look like a rattlesnake.

Is he ever not irritated? I doubt it.

Resolutely refusing to show how weirded out I am by his alien-ness, I press my hands to my hips. “I’m trying to walk down these stairs without being insulted.”

I can hardly be blamed for every retake we’ve had to shoot this afternoon. Maybe you’re thinking that walking down the stairs into the kitchen would be a relatively simple scene to film. Well, it’s not, and I don’t even have any lines to memorize. Still, I must have walked down these stairs a dozen times, yet I’ve never reached the halfway point before Poopy McPoopface has called cut.

Evidently, he’s got a very particular idea of how I’m supposed to make my big first entrance into the film set and onto the screens of LOVE GALAXY viewers, and it’s an idea I’m failing to create, despite my best efforts to get this over and done with.

Harlee and Lydia were woken up last night, but no matter how much I complain, Mr. Smith hasn’t let me see them yet. Probably because he doesn’t want me stirring up trouble with talk of escaping.

They can’t keep us away from each other for much longer, though. I know the two of them are downstairs in the kitchen with Sorin and the other eligible alien bachelors. Which means the sooner I can get down these stairs, the sooner I can find a moment to have a private let’s escape conversation with the other Humans.

But the stairs have so far defeated me.

The stairs and Chloe’s crap commentary.

I shoot her a glare. She readjusts her glasses, pushing them up the bridge of her nose with her middle finger. I’m not above returning the gesture, but residual pain makes me wince, and I rub my neck, at the spot behind my right ear. I’m still not entirely sure how it happened, but when I was getting ready to start filming this morning, Mr. Smith injected what he’d called a translator into me. He’d done it before I’d been able to stop him, and I hadn’t gotten a good look at the needle he’d used. Even now, I can feel the translator sitting under my skin. It’s circular and about the size of my smallest nail.

A translator? Is that how Chloe could understand Sorin yesterday when I couldn’t? Does she also have one of these injectables in her neck?

“Take it from the beginning!” Mr. Smith screams.

I retreat to the top of the staircase, trying not to trip over the hem of the ridiculous floor-length cocktail dress I’m wearing. Green, for my red hair.

I can’t even see the kitchen from up here or the others waiting for me because there’s a small landing halfway down where the stairs turn a corner. I can hear them though, talking quietly amongst themselves, although their voices are too soft for me to decipher.

“Get ready!” Mr. Smith screams. “And action!”

Taking a deep breath, I start downward, trying to remember everything I’m supposed to do. Down three steps, dramatic pause. Down four more steps, angling toward the right-side handrail but avoiding looking directly into the lens of the second GoPro. Another dramatic pause, another deep breath. It’s like a choreographed dance; nothing could’ve been more staged. This time, though, I actually make it all the way to the landing without being interrupted.

“ … thirty, single and pathetic… ” Chloe is saying into her mic somewhere behind me, but I resolutely ignore her as I turn the corner and finally see the kitchen.

The others are gathered around the old, scarred table, the one Sorin had me sit on when he’d tended to my head wound. Harlee and Lydia are dressed similarly to me, in cocktail dresses that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a Michelin-star restaurant. Harlee in blue. Lydia in pink, to match her dyed hair.

Everyone’s seated, everyone except for Sorin. He’s leaning against the back wall like he’s hoping the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ saying is true and everyone will forget about him. He crosses his four arms over his chest and then uncrosses them again. Straightening, then slouching, before straightening again.

Is he… nervous?

My breath catches in my throat. My heart’s beating a mile a minute.

Yes, I know this isn’t actually my first time seeing him, but it is my first time really seeing him, if that makes sense.

Let me explain. The first and last time I was mainly under the impression he was a nerd dressed in a lizard costume. Now, knowing he’s a real alien, it’s honestly like I’m looking at him with fresh eyes.

He’s tall. Really tall. His shoulders are broader than I remember. And his green scales glisten in the artificial lighting.

He takes a step toward me and seemingly doesn’t remember there’s a table between us until he’s bumped straight into it. The legs scrape against the floor, and everyone else jumps, glancing around the kitchen like they don’t know where the noise came from, betraying their nervousness.

I can’t stop myself from following the lines of his muscular chest with my gaze, following them down, down, down to there. You know where. There!

Huh…

There’s not much down there.

A slight bulge perhaps but nothing to write home about. Certainly nothing to suggest that Sorin is, well, biologically male.

But he’s got to be, right? Isn’t the whole purpose of this TV show to film three women prancing around in their bikinis (or cocktail dresses), having their asses goggled at by their testosterone-fueled male contenders, then a couple of hot make-out sessions filmed by a cameraman hiding conspicuously in the bushes, followed by declarations of so-called love and the rolling of the credits?

Then again, I’m judging alien TV by Earth standards. What if their concept of reality dating shows is completely different to ours? What if they’re all about watching people have meaningful conversations and getting to know each other on a purely intellectual level?

I hate that there’s so much I don’t know about my situation. I wipe sweaty palms on my satin gown and glance behind me, but of course I can’t see Mr. Smith and Chloe, who are at the top of the stairs, around the corner. Why aren’t they yelling cut when I need them to? Why didn’t they properly explain what I was supposed to do next?

It feels like I’ve been standing on the landing for a hundred years, doing nothing but staring and panicking. Hurriedly, I continue downwards, stumbling over my hem. One of the guys jumps out of his chair to catch me, setting me on my feet.

“Thanks.” I pat his arm. Then wave to Sorin. “Hi, again.”