Chapter 26
River”s hands cover my eyes as he walks me slowly and carefully up the sidewalk. ”Okay. Two more minutes. Then I”ll let you look around.”
”This is so ridiculous,” I tell him. But I can”t repress the giant grin on my face as we step into a blast of cool air.
A rush of excited voices washes over me. I can”t quite tell where I am, but it sounds like I”m surrounded by a lot of people. River keeps walking me forward and I strain to listen to the world around me.
A woman yells, ”This is awesome!”
I hear an electronic zap zap zap.
A man”s voice very close to me says, ”Hey, no aliens allowed back here!”
What the what?
”River. Please let me see,” I beg him. “You made me wear a blindfold for half an hour. I got all excited when you said I could take it off, but now you are keeping my eyes closed! It’s killing me.”
He chuckles and pulls his hands away.
I am standing in a giant convention center and there are a thousand booths set up. I look left and the booth is selling a variety of laser toys. I look right and there”s a booth hawking books about alien abductions and UFOs.
I wheel around to River, startled. ”Is this... a space convention?”
River”s grin stretches ear to ear.
”It”s the Intergalactic Believers Encounters from Aliens. IDEA, for short.”
I launch myself at him, throwing my arms around his neck and squealing.
”I can”t believe you actually brought me to a UFO convention!!”
His big hands flatten across my lower back as he holds me close. ”Of course. I looked into bringing you to Roswell, but that would require more coordination and planning with a lot of different people. I can”t swing something like that without telling you about it.”
I kiss River”s lips and grin as I look around. The aisles between the booths are bustling with UFO enthusiasts and skeptics alike.
”God, I”m so surprised! You could about knock me over with a feather.”
He flexes his hands, squeezing me closer for just a moment. Then he lets go and steps back, gesturing at the convention.
”Where do you want to start?”
I pucker my mouth, looking around. ”I have no idea. Should we just pick a direction?”
River nods. ”I am following your lead, darlin’.”
My bones melt just a little at his pet name for me. Darlin’. That name always makes me feel some type of way when he purrs it at me.
Taking his elbow, I pull him straight down the row of booths. The fair seems to be set up with fifteen booths per row, and a seemingly endless number of rows. My attention is pulled in a thousand directions at once.
Alien and UFO themed bars of soap. Leather chaps that are supposedly good at repelling tractor beams. Cute alien dolls with giant heads, huge eyes, and tiny bodies. Alien themed kettle corn in spaceship tins.
It”s a lot to look at.
The first booth that really pulls me in has a bunch of sleek black viewfinders, halfway between binoculars and the really sexy, tiny sunglasses you see on models. The walls of the booth are plastered with colorful galaxies.
”C”mon in! Try the GalaxyFinder3500!” a woman encourages me.
I look over my shoulder at River as I step forward, making a silly face to crack him up. He follows me closely, accepting the wraparound glasses when they”re handed to him. I put on mine and look up, expecting to see cool galactic lights.
But all I see is the cement ceiling far above our heads.
”You can”t see much because we”re inside,” the woman warns. ”But you can look at the galaxies that I”ve picked out here.”
I jerk when I feel her hands on my head. She guides me to look at the same galaxies I saw on the posters hanging on the booth’s wall. Only this time, they seem to be moving. I hear something whirring in the glasses and then a rainbow sheen takes over my view, dancing and bright.
”Okay,” I say, freeing myself from the viewfinder. I blink, trying to focus my eyes. River is doing the same thing, blinking rapidly at his glasses. ”What the hell?”
”A little trouble focusing when removing the viewfinders is normal.”
”God, you could”ve warned me,” River grumbles.
”They”re only ninety-nine ninety-nine each!” the woman chirps, not swayed by his complaint.
River grabs my hand and scowls at the salesperson.
”I”m usually not the first one to say this, but what a complete waste of money.” He glances at me. ”Are you okay?”
I twine my arm with his and nod. I feel a wave of disappointment. This is the booth that caught my eye first. But it turns out to be nothing more than plastic junk. How awful.
”Yup. Ready to go.” I wave to the viewfinders. To the sales lady I say, ”They”re really... uh... different.”
The woman beams at me, but I let myself be pulled along back into the crowd. We walk for a while, stopping to check out silly alien-themed sunglasses and a booth where a ”live” alien autopsy is being conducted. Members of the audience are being called on to remove ”organs” from a quite realistic looking alien corpse. The booth is selling full surgical autopsy kits, “just like the researchers at Roswell used!”.
River gives me a hard look but doesn”t say anything until we”re well away from that booth. ”So do you believe in alien autopsies?”
I bark a laugh. ”No. Thinking that aliens might be out in outer space is one thing. Believing that there is a vast conspiracy to cover up that aliens have been here on multiple occasions is something else entirely.”
He pantomimes wiping sweat from his brow. ”Whew. I wasn”t sure how deep your belief in all things UFO goes.”
I scrunch my nose. ”It”s more of a whimsical belief for me. Like... that famous poster of the flying saucer that says, ‘I want to believe’. I want there to be more to this life than working all day and being exhausted at night. With UFOs, I think the world gets a lot wider.”
He slides me a glance. ”Have you been visited by little green men?”
I elbow him in the ribs. ”No. But just because I haven”t doesn”t mean it doesn”t happen to people every day.”
River scratches his chin. ”I guess that”s true.”
I lean my head against his shoulder for a moment. River”s much taller than almost everyone else here, so the crowd just mills around us as we drift. He plants a kiss on the crown of my head and I smile.
I love the feeling of drifting around with River, lackadaisically examining weird UFO equipment and countless booths of freeze-dried astronaut food. It”s like we are in a bubble, floating here and there, unbothered by the rest of the world.
”Can I tell you a secret?” River asks after a while. ”You have to promise not to tell a soul.”
My heart rate kicks up a notch. Swallowing I nod. ”You can tell me anything, River.”
His smile doesn”t waver, though some of the light leaves his eyes. He takes a moment to compose his thoughts. The moment builds.
Is he... is he going to tell me he loves me?
It”s a silly thought, a fantasy. And yet, I find a teeny tiny part of myself longing for it to be true. It’s a dream: having a man like River, a man who is so vibrant and interesting and worldly, claim to love a diner waitress like me. And yet, it persists.
Damn, am I having feelings with a capital F for River? What a fantastically, spectacularly bad idea.
”I used to watch Star Trek when I was in middle school,” River says.
I am yanked from my thoughts. ”Uhh... what?”
He holds up a hand, shaking his head. ”I know. It doesn”t really sound like me. But I really liked all the drama. Plus, they always had the coolest outfits.”
I squint. ”The uniforms that the crew wore?”
”Yep. I had dreams that I would meet a girl in a Lycra space outfit like that and we would run away together.” He pauses, thoughtful. ”I was going through a lot of puberty right then.”
I laugh. ”I”m sure if you look around, you”ll see at least one sexy girl in a space suit at this convention.”
River nuzzles my shoulder. ”I think I”m all set for sexy girls. Though if you wore one of those Lycra leotards, I would not say no to that under any circumstances.”
I playfully shove his arm. ”Dream on.”
”I will.” He winks. ”Don”t think that I”m not storing away memories of exactly how you sound and taste every time we have sex. I”m preparing for the future.”
That thought makes me sad for some reason. I look away, scanning the booths. ”Hey, look!” I point. ”UFO burgers. I”m starving.”
We get two alien-themed burgers, which are encased in bread formed to look like a flying saucer. We follow that up with out-of-this-world milkshakes, which are just vanilla with little space themed chocolate candies in them.
We sit down at the packed food court and chow down. I didn”t realize how hungry I was until I take my first bite. Then the beefy, cheesy goodness zings my tastebuds. ”Ohmigod,” I say, chewing slowly. ”It”s so good.”
”It”s definitely hot, at least.” He goes for his milkshake and takes long pulls through his straw. ”So there are panels tonight, I think. And a costume party.”
I wolf down half the burger, nodding. ”I saw. I think I”m okay on that. I don”t really want to listen to people tell me about how I should feel. That”s not what UFOs are about to me. Besides, I didn”t even bring a costume.”
He shrugs. ”We can always cobble together costumes from things we find here.”
”Nah.” I sip my milkshake, which is delightfully creamy. ”I”m having a ball just wandering around with you. Thanks for planning this, River.”
”Anything that pleases you is all right by me. I may not believe in this stuff, but it”s fun to see all the wild things that people are selling.”
He stops for a second and a drop of milkshake lands on his lower lip. Without thinking about it, I lean forward, smudging my thumb across his lips. River catches my hand and yanks me closer, sinking a hand in my hair and kissing me so thoroughly that I swear hearts and stars explode like fireworks in my mind.
My heartbeat speeds up. My body craves his kisses, and I can”t stand the thought that one day soon, I will be pregnant... but I won”t have River here to kiss anymore.
Oh. Oh no.
I find myself in a place I never wanted to be in: wondering whether it is too late to change the terms of my contact or not.