Tammy #2
For one perfect night, under the vast Kansas sky, my problems seemed as distant as the stars above us.
Tomorrow would come with all its complications—the bank, the farm, the fact that I was harboring three aliens who’d soon be leaving Earth forever.
But tonight? Tonight was for celebrating small victories with cold beer and warm company.
The fire had burned down to glowing embers, casting a warm orange glow across the porch that made everything seem dreamlike and soft-edged.
Four empty six-packs were scattered around our feet—evidence of the night’s celebration.
I’d lost count of my own drinks somewhere around beer number five, but a pleasant buzz hummed through my body, making the night air feel like velvet against my skin.
I leaned back in my chair, tipping my face toward the star-scattered sky, when a strange blue-green shimmer caught my eye.
At first, I thought it was a trick of the firelight, but then I realized the glow was coming from Cyro’s forearm where his sleeve had rolled up.
“You’re... glowing,” I said, my tongue feeling pleasantly heavy in my mouth.
Cyro glanced down, his eyes widening slightly before he tugged his sleeve down. “A minor lapse in concentration,” he explained, his formal tone undercut by the slight slurring of his words. “The beer appears to be affecting our ability to maintain molecular stability.”
“In human words, please,” I laughed, reaching for another bottle.
“We’re drunk,” Kalith supplied helpfully, his grin slightly lopsided. “And it’s making it hard to keep looking human.”
As if to prove his point, Cyro burst into laughter at a particularly ridiculous lyric from the current song, and his entire neck lit up with undulating patterns of soft pastel light.
It was like watching the aurora borealis play across his skin—shimmering waves of turquoise and lavender that pulsed with his laughter.
The colors seemed to flow in rhythm with the music, intensifying with each burst of mirth.
“That’s beautiful,” I murmured, leaning closer without even realizing I was moving. The alcohol had stripped away my inhibitions, leaving only wonder in its place.
Cyro’s laughter faded as he noticed my stare, but the lights continued to ripple under his skin. “This is... embarrassing,” he admitted. “We are trained to maintain our disguises at all times while on foreign planets.”
“Don’t be embarrassed,” I said, still mesmerized by the play of colors. “It’s like having your own personal light show.”
Before he could respond, the song I’d been half-listening to hit its chorus with a sudden increase in volume.
Vantor, who had been scanning the tree line while nursing his beer, startled visibly.
A dark cloud erupted from somewhere beneath his shirt collar, spraying into the air like a fountain of midnight ink.
The substance arced gracefully before splattering directly onto the fire pit, extinguishing a third of our carefully tended flames with a hissing sound.
“Defensive ink release,” Vantor stated flatly, looking mortified as dark droplets dripped from his chin onto his shirt. “My apologies.” He reached for a napkin, but the damage was already done—his light blue button-down now splattered with irregular black stains.
I blinked in surprise, then dissolved into giggles. “Did you just... ink yourself? Like an octopus?”
“A cephalopod-like defense mechanism,” he corrected stiffly, though the corners of his mouth twitched. “Typically deployed against deep-sea predators, not... Brooks and Dunn.”
My laughter doubled, tears streaming down my face as Cyro’s skin flashed brighter in response to his own amusement. Even Vantor eventually cracked a smile, his usually stern features softening in the firelight.
Kalith, meanwhile, was having his own disguise issues. As he raised his bottle to his lips, his shorter tentacle slipped out from his shirt collar, waving in the air like a curious snake. He cursed under his breath, shoving it back down and adjusting his collar with exaggerated casualness.
“Let it breathe,” I joked, pointing toward his neck.
“I do not like it when my appendages rebel,” he admitted sheepishly.
“And the shorter one is often harder to control.” He took another swig of beer.
As if on cue, the small tentacle popped out again, this time from his sleeve.
“Oh, for the love of the deep trenches,” he muttered, stuffing it back out of sight.
My curiosity finally overwhelmed my restraint. I scooted my chair closer to Kalith, whose skin was still shimmering. “Can I...” I hesitated, then reached out slowly. “Can I touch it?”
Kalith’s marvelous eyes widened, their double lenses flicking across with surprise. “You wish to make physical contact with my tentacle?”
“Yes,” I said simply, the beer making me bolder than I might otherwise have been. “If that’s okay?”
After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded once.
He did not offer me the shorter tentacle, instead slowly extending his arm.
His glow intensified as he allowed the human disguise to fade, revealing what lay beneath—a tentacle that shimmered with iridescent patterns, tapering to a delicate point where a human hand was only seconds before.