Catching Stardust (21 page)

“I won’t be anyone’s discovery, Zander. Not even yours.” Her words hurt as she said them, vicious but true.

Zander slid his hands off her arms to wrap around her back instead. “Hey,” he said, his voice gentle and comforting, instantly calming her. “I couldn’t never look at you like a discovery. I told you that you could trust me with your secret, and I meant it. I’m not going to tell anyone about who you are or where you’re from.” He laughed. “Hell, people would think I was crazier than Jude if I tried. I like my apartment too much to risk telling and spending the rest of my life in a padded room somewhere.”

She studied his face. Could she really trust him not to tell anyone? She barely even knew him. How could she put her safety in his hands?

He had soft, caring eyes and a gentle smile. And when he wrapped his arms around her, she felt protected.

Sure she didn’t have any reason to trust him, but did she have any reason to distrust him?

“Okay, I believe you. But so help me Gaia, if you screw me over and rat me out to anyone, I’ll send shooting stars after you.” She waggled her finger, making the meanest face she could muster to accompany her threat.

“Can you really do that?” he challenged.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Try me and find out.”

“I’m going to take that as a no.” Zander pulled her back to the bed and tucked them both in. “Now let me have a better look at those eyes of yours.”

***

The sun broke through the curtains of Zander’s bedroom windows far too early. Zander had asked her a million questions about where she came from and what it was like up in the universe. She’d answered each and every one.

Being able to talk openly with Zander felt freeing and relaxing. Finally, she could be herself, unguarded in her answers and questions about everything. She could connect with him on an intellectual level as well as a physical and personal level.

They’d stayed up talking well into the early morning hours and had only been asleep a little while when Zander’s cell phone buzzed on the bedside table. She groaned and rolled away from the noise, covering her head with the blanket as if that would make the noise stop.

“Hello,” she heard Zander say. “What’s wrong?”

Maia was just drifting back off into dreamland when Zander spoke again. “Don’t do anything yet. I’ll meet you there in fifteen.”

The bed bounced as Zander got up and started making noise around the small room. “Where are you going?” she asked without opening her eyes. “Come back to bed and cuddle a little longer.”

“I can’t.” His voice sounded frantic.

Maia forced herself up into a sitting position and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

Zander zipped his jeans and slipped his feet into shoes. As he buttoned his shirt, his words sent a shiver down Maia’s spine. “That was Jude. He’s figured out who you are for real this time. And he says he has proof.”

Chapter Seventeen

Zander fidgeted in the backseat of the taxi as it wove through midtown in the midst of the morning rush hour. He had to get to the coffee shop down on Bleecker before Jude did something stupid with his newfound discovery—like tell someone else who might actually believe him. Depending on his “evidence,” of course.

Zander couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let his buddy do or say anything that could in turn harm Maia in any way.

And he had to accomplish that without Jude figuring out what he’d discovered was true.

Easy-peasy, right?

“Come on,” Zander said, tapping his fingers against the cracked-leather seat as the taxi slowed to a halt and honked at the mess of traffic ahead of them. The street was blocked with cars as far as Zander could see. He cursed under his breath. This wasn’t going to help him get to Jude, but getting out and hoofing it on foot to the nearest subway entrance then boarding a crowded train probably wasn’t going to get him there very quickly either.

He leaned his head back against the seat and stared out the window into the sky, the brightness stinging his sleep-deprived eyes. His thoughts spiraled, desperately trying to make sense of this new information Maia had told him last night. Information that was too strange to believe, yet he knew had to be true.

There really was life out there.

Just like he’d always believed but could never prove. Just like he’d been trying to discover for so long. Now here it was, the proof—the
living, breathing, talking
proof—that there was life on other planets. And it was currently lying naked in his bed.

Holy shit. I banged an alien last night.

It sounded like a bad sci-fi movie.

In the last few hours, he’d learned there wasn’t just life on other planets, but throughout the entire cosmos. The magnitude of this discovery was almost too much to process. And now, not only did he have to process this information himself, he also had to attempt to convince his best friend his discovery was bogus. How? How could he possibly do that without giving away the fact he already knew everything Jude suspected was true?

Zander thought about what this knowledge could do for his career, for Jude’s career… Hell, what it could do for the human race as a whole. The fallout from this one discovery could launch a change in the world so huge, the outreaching possibilities of it couldn’t even be imagined right now.

Could he really sit on this information knowing it could change everything for everyone on the entire planet?

Sure, Maia was great. And he’d really enjoyed his time with her. But was spending a little more time with her—however much she gave him before she left to go home, back to the stars—worth giving up this life-changing information?

Did he even have a right to make this kind of choice knowing it affected everyone?

Zander suddenly felt like Atlas with the weight of the world resting squarely on his shoulders. If he told the world about Maia, he’d be breaking her trust and probably signing her up for a lifetime of being studied like a lab rat. But, sacrificing her would give the world so much they never had before. It was the action that would result in the most positive outcome for the most people.

And yet the thought of looking into those beautiful green, star-filled eyes of hers and telling her that he’d spilled her secret made him feel like a part of himself might die.

Damn it. What the hell was he going to do?

The cab jerked to a stop in front of the café. Somehow he’d made it all the way downtown without realizing it, almost as if he’d teleported himself there. Not that it was possible to teleport.

Or was it?

Zander bit his lip to hold back a smile. Was teleportation impossible? Yesterday he would have said yes, but today—today everything was different. If Maia could get here from a planet he didn’t even know existed in a cluster of stars, anything was possible.

Throwing a few bills at the driver, he left the taxi and entered the café. Zander spotted Jude sitting in a booth in the back corner, hunched over a pile of papers, a pencil hanging out of his mouth and a half-eaten muffin pushed to the side. Perfect location for having a conversation Zander really didn’t want overheard.

Stopping quickly at the counter, he ordered a double espresso. He would need the shot of energy to get through this conversation without giving anything away. When the barista handed him the tiny cup, he wove his way through the crowded café and slid into the seat across from his friend. Jude startled, looking up from his papers.

“Oh good, you’re finally here,” Jude said, shuffling papers around on the table. He thrust a few sheets at Zander. “Look at this.”

Zander scanned the papers. Graphs and star charts, comparisons and multiple calculations scrawled across the pages in every direction. Anyone else looking at them would have seen nonsense. But not Zander. Years of straining to make sense of Jude’s chicken scratch and crazy hypotheses paid off. Zander read it all in an instant, a spike of excitement shooting through him.

Evidence. He really did have solid, data-driven evidence.

And Zander had Maia to make all that data real.

Zander took a gulp of his espresso, the heat burning on the way down. Suddenly, this all felt very real. He’d waited his whole life to have a discovery like this. This is what he’d gone to school for, what he’d spent countless hours of studying for and working toward. And now here it was, right in front of him and if he just told Jude what Maia had told him only a few hours ago, the two of them could have it made.

“So what do you think?” Jude asked. Hope filled his tired eyes. “It’s all right there, isn’t it? I figured it out, didn’t I? Finally.”

Zander didn’t know what to do. Tell his friend that he knew he was right and sacrifice his new relationship with Maia, an alien by any other name—an extra-freaking-terrestrial. Or pretend Jude had finally gone off his nut and convince him that what he thought was evidence was actually nothing more than a desperate man’s illusion.

“I need a minute to look it all over,” Zander said, buying a little more time.

The truth was, he’d only known Maia for a week. And she was an alien. Even if he wanted to protect her, even if he wanted a relationship with her, was that a possibility?

Jude, on the other hand, had been his friend for years. They’d gone through school together, they spent countless hours researching, learning and fantasizing about what this exact moment would be like. Could he really turn his back on all of that—turn his back on his friend?

“If you look at this chart I drew up of the constellation Pleiades the night before you met Maia in the park, and compare it with this one that I made the night after, and even this other chart from just last night, you’ll see it’s all there. The sky changed the night you met Maia and it hasn’t been the same since.”

Zander just nodded but stayed silent. Jude was right. The data was there. It might still be hard to convince others that they weren’t totally crazy with this information. That is unless they included the real-live Maia in the mix.

“And this,” Jude forced more papers into his line of sight. “You just can’t deny this, right?”

Zander scanned the new pages and couldn’t stop the thrill of excitement shooting through him. It was all right here at their fingertips. All they had to do was share the information.

“I don’t know what to say,” Zander said, his mind whirling with the information and the decision of what to do with it. He could be famous—finally get the real recognition he’d always wanted.

“You can tell Maia you want another date with her and then when she gets there, we can have cameras waiting and get her reaction to us spilling the beans about who she really is.”

An image of Maia standing on a street somewhere, surrounded by a barrage of cameras shoved in her face while Jude announced her deepest secrets to a live audience sent a chill through him. He could already imagine the fear and betrayal in her eyes. Eyes that hours ago had looked at him with trust as she’d told her secret. Eyes that filled with passion as they moved together as one in his bed.

He shook his head, forcing the scene from his mind.

The thought of Maia’s hurt stung him like a hot iron. She would hate him and how could he blame her if after they’d been together, after she’d trusted him with her secret, he turned around and shared it with the world.

Zander’s chest tightened making it hard to take a full breath.

“So what do you think,” Jude asked.

Zander put his hands up to stop his friend from demanding an answer from him again. “Just give me a minute. This is a lot to take in. It’s a lot of information to sort through.”

“I’m going to grab us another couple of coffees while you look.” Jude popped up from the booth, obviously thrilled with himself and his discovery as he strode to the counter with more confidence than Zander could ever remember seeing him have.

If he turned against Jude and made him believe he was crazy, he’d possibly lose the best friend he’d ever had. And he’d have to keep Maia’s real identity so well hidden that Jude could never figure out the truth. Well, figure it out again. There would forever be a wall between them if Zander was going to keep this secret. And if Jude ever found out what Zander had done, there simply wouldn’t be a friendship left. There’d probably be a lawsuit.

But if he ratted out Maia and her secret, he’d lose the first girl who turned him on with her body and her mind. He wouldn’t hear her laugh at his stupid jokes. He wouldn’t have her next to him on the rooftop as they gazed up at the stars. He wouldn’t see the spark of something more than friendship in her eyes when she looked at him.

He’d see hatred looking back at him if he exposed her secret.

He’d never get the chance to hold her again. To discuss the world, the universe, her home—she’d never tell him another thing. But she’d be forced to tell the world everything. And if she resisted, the authorities would do whatever they deemed necessary to extract the information. Anything.

Damn.

Maybe he and Maia would never have a real, lasting relationship, but was he willing to risk any hope of a future with her—even if it was short-term—for the sake of finding fame and fortune with his friend?