Chapter 28 #2
“Not everyone would handle it this well, though,” he murmured, canting his head and examining me. “Why haven’t you freaked out?”
“Oh, trust me.” I scoffed. “Been there. Done that.” I sent a pointed look at the very large, very empty bottle of wine. “At least you didn’t have a robot form. That was a concern.”
“Wait.” He raised his eyebrows. “A robot form? You thought I was an Enil? That’s what you meant earlier?”
I flushed a little, then made a face. “I wasn’t expecting Earth to be teeming with alien life. UFOs, robots—then my bartender cr—um, coworker turns out to be an alien?” I picked at my rice and willed my blush to die down. “Can you blame me for jumping to conclusions?”
I could see him studying me, still wearing a tiny smile. “No, I guess I can’t. No robot form, for the record.”
“I know that now.” I ate a piece of shrimp, sliding him an expectant look. “You were telling me about space.”
“I was. You’re right.” His eyes went hazy.
Faraway. “I don’t know how to describe it, really.
When you’re born there, it’s just a…fact of life.
Like dry land is for you.” He swirled a finger, encompassing the room, then leaned forward and grabbed one of the white takeout boxes.
“But sometimes, when you do remember or think about it too deeply…” He looked down at the food he held, brow furrowing.
“It makes you feel small. Like you’re a single grain in something vast and unknowable. ”
He blinked slowly and raised his head, gaze finding mine.
“It’s the same feeling I imagine you get when you look up at the stars.
Just magnified. There’s something about being among them, standing at the edge of that kind of vastness, that changes you.
It reminds you that you’re part of something much bigger.
” He set the box down again without opening it and folded his hands loosely in his lap.
“Which I am. This whole mission…it’s part of something greater, Rae. ”
I stared at him. That was more profound than I’d expected. Much deeper.
A reminder, too.
About who and what was sitting here beside me, sharing greasy takeout food and slurping drinks like he didn’t understand straws. It was hard to ignore when he spoke like that.
Feeling suddenly vulnerable and more than a little overwhelmed, I looked away.
He was part of something greater. Now so was I. And in a way that wasn’t exactly safe.
Suddenly not hungry, I jabbed my chopsticks into my rice. “You really can’t tell me what your mission is, can you?”
A beat passed. I set the box back on the table. In the silence, a gust of wind rattled the side of the garage, splattering raindrops against the windowpanes.
When Sky answered, it was with a quiet sort of finality. “No. I would tell you if I could. It’d help you understand.”
“But you can’t. Because of your Creed.”
“Right.”
I frowned and bit the inside of my lip. “What is it? The Creed, I mean. Some kind of blood oath or…?”
He laughed. “No, nothing quite so barbaric.” His appetite didn’t appear to be affected.
He gave his attention to his food, digging in with his chopsticks.
He was shockingly efficient with them. “It is one of our ultimate laws, though. Think of it as a collection of the standards Pladians hold themselves to. My race is very…” He brandished the chopsticks, searching for the word. “I guess you’d say straitlaced.”
Straitlaced. Well, that certainly explained a lot.
Although he hadn’t exactly seemed straitlaced when he’d had his tongue in my mouth earlier.
I shifted uncomfortably, watching as he wrangled a single noodle with his utensils. “You’re good with those.”
He glanced up, following my gaze. “Oh. Yeah. I spent a couple years in Asia.”
I sat up straighter, nearly dropping my shrimp fried rice. Duh. I hadn’t even considered that—all the things he’d seen, the places he’d been. He’d only been in this city for two years. He’d been on this planet for a decade, searching for his tablet.
It still blew my mind it’d ended up in One Willow, of all places.
“Searching for the halix?” I asked, examining him closer. “Where did your ancestors originally leave it?”
He halted in his chewing and slid a glance my way, hesitating. Like he was trying to decide if answering violated anything. Apparently not because he went back to eating. “The Middle East.”
That made sense. The cradle of civilization. Those markings had looked close to Sumerian cuneiform, one of the earliest forms of writing.
The implications of Pladian presence at the dawn of humanity were still…staggering.
Hell, Sky’s presence was.
Despite my roiling stomach, I picked up my food and forced down another bite without tasting it. My emotions were a mess tonight. I was full to the brim, and they’d begun to spill out in ways I didn’t intend.
“That brings us full circle,” Sky said, lowering whatever he’d dug into after polishing off the chow mein. “Until we know what the halix did to you, I’d like to stay close. If you’ll let me.”
He didn’t say it, but I knew what he was asking. Again. The rice turned to dust in my mouth. Giving up, I put it on the table and focused instead on the alien.
He’d turned to face me, and he pointed behind him, at the stairwell. “The Enil won’t be stopped by door locks, and they’re not going to wait for an invitation. They’ll tear down any obstacles—or people—to get to what the halix contained.”
To get what he believed my brain contained.
Great.
My stomach heaved, and I hugged myself. Suddenly cold, I wished I’d put the cardigan back on after my shower.
“Don’t sugarcoat it for my sake,” I muttered, tightening my arms against a shiver.
“I want you to understand the risk. Which is why…” Sky paused and waited until I’d looked at him again.
“Which is why I really wish you’d agree to let me stay close.
I wish you’d listen to me about lying low, too.
” He searched my face, eyes soft but filled with conviction.
“If there was another way, one that didn’t upend your life like this, I’d take it, Rae.
But too much is at stake. More than you know. More than I can tell you.”
I worried the inside of my cheek, unable to look away. Beneath the worn tee, his shoulders were tight again. He looked…so very grave. Like life-or-death, world-on-the-brink grave. Worlds, maybe.
“I need you to let me keep you safe.” He leaned in. “If you don’t trust anything else, at least trust me with that.”
And there it was. The problem. Because I wasn’t sure I trusted him. Or myself. Or anything, really.
Because aliens weren’t just real. They’d been here. For years. They were in my life.
And now they were after me.
Exhaustion rolled over me like a wave, threatening to pull me into the undertow. This had all happened so fast. The UFO encounter. The lab explosion. Sky’s big alien reveal. My life had detonated in real time over the past week.
I drew in a deep breath and dragged my hands down my cheeks.
“I need to study,” I said, letting my arms fall back to my lap. “And then I need sleep. It’s been a long day.”
It wasn’t an answer to his unspoken question, his gentle prod about staying. But Sky surprised me by not pushing. He only nodded and set his empty takeout container down. I stared at him while he finished off his soda. Loudly.
Did he not know how to avoid slurping like that?
When he set the cup down by his empty box, I gaped in shock.
Wait. He’d left behind multiple empty boxes.
Somehow, he’d polished off three of them and just as many egg rolls.
While I’d barely managed one bite. Did his alien super-suit come with a built-in metabolism boost? Because if so, that was a load of crap.
Sky stood, and I forgot about the food as he rose to his full height. He brushed his hands off, and I tipped my head back to meet his gaze, trying to ignore the gray sweatpants front and center. Was he doing this on purpose?
He didn’t appear to be. His midnight eyes were serious as they swept over my face. “Are you sure?”
“Sure of what?” I asked. Because the answer was probably no. I wasn’t sure about anything at the moment. Except the fact he shouldn’t look that good in rumpled, comfortable clothing.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
I puffed out my cheeks, turning my head toward the blinds. It was dark out there. The storm had quieted finally. Now, only gentle rain pattered against the roof. The kind that’d be great to fall asleep to…if I didn’t have hours of studying to do.
Sky wanted to stay to make sure I was safe. I forced myself to consider it objectively. Logically.
I wanted space. I needed time to scream into that pillow, cram for my test, and possibly spend two full days in a Tylenol PM-induced coma. I’d always needed alone time to process, and that would be impossible with a Pladian attached to my hip. A Pladian whose hips I wouldn’t mind being attached to…
I tucked my tongue into my cheek. See? Already the thought of having him around was making it difficult to concentrate.
But then I remembered that creature in the lab, and the thought of being alone—truly alone and exposed—made my skin crawl.
The Enil had been frightening before I knew what to call them.
But after talking with Sky, after all he’d had to say, it was infinitely worse.
Now I knew what the monsters were and what they could do…
If he’d wanted me to be afraid, he’d succeeded. If he was right and I was putting off some kind of signal they happened to trace, I had no doubt the Enil would tear this garage apart like tissue paper. And then they’d tear me apart.
Sickness climbed its way up my throat, and I shivered.
Maybe it was that fear. Or maybe it was the fact that I craved something familiar. Or better yet, maybe it was the fact that this entire night felt like a strange, murky dream that, for some reason, I didn’t want to end.
Whatever the why was, I’d come to a decision.
I swallowed and looked up, meeting Sky’s patient gaze. “Okay.”
“Okay?” He blinked a couple times, like he hadn’t expected that. He wasn’t the only one. “You want me to stay?”
“Yeah.” I twisted the hem of my shirt. “Yeah, if that’s okay. Just in case…well, just in case.”
“Sure.” His grin slid into place slowly, devastatingly—one of those real ones that were way too appealing—and my belly fluttered in response. I couldn’t help but smile back, though I turned my head and tucked it into my shoulder, shy suddenly.
Because he was staying here. In my space. My home.
He was the last person I’d ever expect to have a slumber party with. Talk about a descent into the unbelievable.
“Well,” I said, standing and tugging down the baggy shirt. “So do you…” I faltered, flustered.
Oh my God. Sky Acosta was sleeping over my apartment. I was playing Airbnb host to an extraterrestrial.
I nearly giggled, a terrible sign I was getting slap-happy. I stifled the completely inappropriate urge and instead faced him. “Do you need anything? A toothbrush? I’ve got an extra from my last dentist visit, I think. Never opened.”
“Oh.” His smile slid crooked, and he surveyed the coffee table between us. “No—thanks, though. I’ve got my bag. It has everything I need.”
First clothing, now a toothbrush? I narrowed my eyes as he began to gather the empty takeout boxes. “You just happened to bring stuff? What would you have done if I’d said no?”
He paused in stuffing the trash into the to-go bag and gave me a rueful grin. “Slept in my car outside your apartment.”
“What?” I stopped short, staring at him. “Seriously?”
He shrugged and finished cleaning up our dinner, setting the crammed-full bag back on the coffee table. “I wasn’t lying about the danger,” he said as he straightened and slid his hands into his sweatpants pockets. “About how important this is. To the mission, I mean.”
Right. The mysterious mission. Which I was somehow now a part of.
“Okay. Well, thank you?” That sounded lame, but I had no idea what else to say. I pressed my fingers to my forehead. “I’ve got to study for my test tomorrow. Make yourself…comfortable, I guess.”
I turned to leave. Paused.
Then spun back around and spoke in a rush. “I work the lunch shift, too, before the afternoon class. That’s…my schedule. Since you…I mean, if you’re going to be coming along for it. I know I said I didn’t want you to, but…”
Some emotion flashed before he bobbed his head in a single nod. “I would like to, yes.” It was said so politely. Calmly. His bartender voice. That stray curl slid into his eyes, and he pushed it back. I couldn’t read him.
It bothered me now for some reason. Like I could see it for the mask it was.
Sleep deprivation. That had to be it. I needed sleep. So much sleep. My bones were aching for it.
I must’ve said it out loud because Sky made a shooing motion toward the hallway. “I’m fine. Go ahead. You won’t even know I’m here.”
This time, I barely swallowed my snort. Right. Like I could forget there was an alien sleeping twelve feet from my bed.
An alien I’d made out with a mere hour ago.
I flushed and gave him my back. “Night.”
I’d taken one step before he stopped me with a single word. “Rae?”
Pausing with my hand on the wall, I glanced over my shoulder.
“Thank you.”
A blush rose at the way he was looking at me, his small smile. I found my voice. “For what?”
Letting him stay? Not pepper-spraying him? Not calling the FBI on the actual extraterrestrial who’d dropped a cosmic info dump on me over takeout?
He balanced his hands on his hips. “You handled this a lot better than most people would have. Thanks for giving me a chance. Thanks for listening. Telling someone who I am…” He looked away and scratched his nose. “Well, I’m just glad you listened. So thanks.”
Feathery wings fluttered in my midsection. Was I imagining the redness staining his cheekbones? It had to be a trick of the light.
Flustered all over again, I turned and spoke over my shoulder. “Don’t thank me yet. That couch sucks.”
His quiet laugh followed me out of the room. In my bedroom, I fell into the loving arms of my textbooks, hoping that maybe, just maybe, academics could help me forget he was just outside. Maybe also just how much of a tangled mess I was.
And if I was lucky, what an alien’s kiss felt like.