How To Break Up With An Alien (20 page)

We smiled for picture after picture, keeping in the awkward dance pose where a guy stands behind the girl, wrapping his arms around the waist, and holding hands. I wouldn't have minded the pose so much if so many people weren't around. With Ace's body still radiating a chill, even through his suit, and his warm hands on mine I was getting an icy-hot sensation all through my body and it was hitting every corner imaginable.

Every time I felt that chill I just wanted to pull Ace closer in a full embrace, but I couldn't very well do that with my mom standing in front of us, yelling, "Smile, come on I know you can smile wider than that! Three years of braces and I'd better see a smile!"

After taking more pictures than I could count, we finally got into the car and headed to dinner. I was glad that we all decided not to ride in the same car and Ace and I could have some alone time.

"So did you find anything more about the mystery sleep creeper?" I asked, still keeping my voice low. We may have pulled out of Brad's driveway, but I still didn't want anyone to hear us or notice what we were talking about.

"I spent most of the night at Circe, researching, but I still found nothing."

"Oh." I sighed, gripping my hands on the steering wheel and then loosening them. Researching? I hope it wasn't that he was actually visiting some alien girlfriend instead.

"Hey." He ran his index finger from my earlobe down to the nape of my neck. The sensation made my whole arm break out in goose bumps and it was hard to stay mad at him.

"Don't worry, we will figure all this out. Let's just enjoy tonight as a normal couple going to the Fall Ball." I glanced over to see him smiling, his dark eyes locked on me.

"I don't think we will ever just be a normal couple."

"Well you might be right about that one. A normal couple doesn't include a girl that looks even more beautiful than Venus de Milo."

I tried to smile, but the name Venus gave me a slight twitch. The girl that Monte mentioned. Another one of Ace's supposed many girls back in Calta.

"Something I said? Not into Roman goddesses?"

"No." I shook my head. "It just got me thinking about what Monte said, about all the girls you dated before."

"Alex, Alex, and how many times must I tell you that I only have eyes for you?" His hand slid down from my neck to pull my hand off the steering wheel and intertwine our fingers.

"So you wouldn't prefer Venus, the princess of Kelari or whatever?"

He sighed. "No, don't get me wrong, Venus was a great girl and it would have been a noble cause to combine our two planets with us getting together. But it wasn't meant to be."

His thumb rubbed against the back of my knuckles before he pulled my hand to his lips, gently kissing at the back of my fingers. "We didn't work because we both knew we were meant for other people. Even the girls I was promised to after her, I somehow always knew that there was something more out there. I didn't know it at first, but when I first saw you, all of that became very clear."

As soon as he finished we sat at a stoplight and we were lucky there was no one behind us because I had been waiting to embrace him and crush my lips against his. The doubt was still there. After the dance I would have to figure out what I wanted. To spend the rest of my life with an alien or to have a normal life. But that decision could wait until after the dance, at that point I was just enjoying the moment.

Chapter 37

A horn honked and I quickly released Ace, turning at the light and pulling down the street toward the restaurant.

Maria's wasn't much to look at and wasn't exactly in one of the best neighborhoods. It used to be surrounded by Italian immigrants, but now it was full of boarded up houses and a lot of stray cats. That being said, it still had some of the best Italian food in town.

I parked mom's car right underneath a streetlight and walked up to the brick building. There were no windows and from the outside it looked like any other building. Then when I walked in I was bathed in a romantic red glow that gleamed off the wine bottles behind the bar and every black, leather booth surrounding the restaurant.

Of course the red glow did nothing to help Gemma's spray tan and in her orange, sequined mini dress not only did she look like a stuffed sausage, but the lights just made her cast appear like it was glowing. She looked like a giant, hobbling cheese ball.

"Welcome to Maria's. Do you have a reservation?" The girl didn't even look up from her phone lying on the hostess podium. She couldn't have been more than a few years older than us with her glossy black hair slicked back into a ponytail that was the same color as her button-down shirt and pants.

"Yes." Brody stepped to the front of the crowd. Aside from Ace he looked like he put the most effort into his look. Even though he had on the same shirt and tie as the rest of the guys, Brody actually shaved his soul patch and trimmed his chicken fuzz to a short buzz. I knew he was really trying to impress because he ditched his usual Carhart jacket for his blue corduroy FFA jacket. That was reserved for special occasions. I knew this because he only wore it to school on days that he had to dress up for band or if there was a funeral.

"Table for six for Birely." He leaned up against the podium.

The girl glanced up from her phone, scanned the sheet of paper and grabbed some menus from behind her.

"Right this way." She didn't look up at us, just kept her head down and sat the menus down at the other the end of a table at the far end of the restaurant under a giant painting of the Last Supper.

Ace took the seat closest to the wall and I took the seat next to him. Awkward as it was with Brody and Ace to begin with, Brody still took the spot on my other side and across from Gemma.

"This is quite a place. I almost feel like I'm back in Italy." Ace looked up at the brick walls, running his hand along their edges.

"Whoa, you've been to Italy?" Rachel asked, spitting chunks of bread out onto the table.

Ace winced slightly and then continued, "Oh, yeah, all over Europe with the Army Air Force."

"Wait!" Brody leaned over, the closer he got to me the more I could smell his cologne and he really slathered it on for the night. "Aren't you only like eighteen? How the hell would you go all over Europe with the Air Force in less than a year?"

"Well, Brody." Ace leaned in, pressing against my side. It was a war of the egos and I was stuck in the middle.

"Well, what? Don't patronize me and treat me like an idiot!" Brody banged his fists on the table, causing the silverware and glasses to rattle.

"Dude, chill. He didn't say anything about you being an idiot." Brad held out his hands.

"Whatever, man." Brody kept his hands in fists, laying them on the table.

"I can't pronounce half this stuff on the menu. It's like in another language or something." Gemma groaned, squinting at the menu.

"Uh, this is an Italian restaurant," Rachel mentioned.

"Don't you think I know that?" Gemma snapped.

"It's not that hard to pronounce," I muttered.

"Here." Ace held up the menu and pointed to the small print under the pasta dishes. "Each item has a description underneath, so if you can't pronounce it at least you can see what is in it."

"Oh, yeah that works." Gemma smiled coyly.

"First you take Alex, now you have to go after my date, too?" Brody stood up, knocking his chair against the wall.

Ace stood up, his hands balled up into tight fists at his side. "I didn't take anyone. Alex IS mine."

Brody snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "Oh, that's awesome. Acting big and bad, saying that Alex is your property."

I looked around, seeing that a few people were staring at our table. I stood up, placing my hands on each of the boys' shoulders. "Listen, if you two are going to stand around and act like two rats fighting over a piece of cheese, then I'm leaving."

I took one step forward, planning not to leave and hoping the boys would sit down, but they just stared at each other with their hands balled into fists.

"I said, I'M LEAVING!"

They didn't move. So, I stomped past all the gawking onlookers and out the front door. The September night air whipped my face, and it took everything I had not to let the tears spring from my face. What the hell was I doing?

"Alex?" I turned to see Ace running out the front door.

"What? Here to argue with more of my friends? Make another scene? This isn't freaking Circe. You can't just go around attacking people!" I spat.

All the anger and frustration that I had built up over the past few weeks came to a head and I had to let it all out.

"Whoa, Alex, what is this about? I thought we were past this." Ace held up his hands, slowly taking a step toward me.

"Maybe I'm not past this. Maybe I don’t know what I want and this is all just too much for me to handle." I stomped my stupid heel on the cement sidewalk.

Ace pulled his phone out of his pocket and started typing at the screen.

"Okay, seriously? You are now going to ignore me for your phone? You really do have another girlfriend, don't you?"

"I just got a text from Monte. Circe is aware that a Caltian ship landed a few months ago with one passenger receiving a visa for this area."

"What does that mean?" I whispered, taking a step toward him.

"That whoever has been sleep creeping is very close. Just keep your eyes open tonight and I'll be on the lookout as well." He looked up, placing his phone back in his pocket and holding his hand out to me. "Maybe once we find this Caltian, then we can talk about everything else that's going on, ok? Tonight can we just try to enjoy each other?"

My head was too jumbled of a mess to think of anything else. I nodded, took his hand, and followed him to the table, trying to ignore the eyes of everyone else in the restaurant.

Ace and I placed our orders and made conversation with the rest of the group. I tried to pay attention, but all I could think about was who the Caltian spy was that was sleep creeping. We did have a new girl at school, which who really transfers their senior year? Maybe she was the Caltian spy. I would definitely have to have Ace check her out at the school and see if he recognized her.

But did it matter? What if it was someone sleep creeping, would it still change how I felt about Ace? Those were things I definitely had to think about.

"Okay, well, we will see you all at the school?" Rachel looked over at me.

The boys paid the bill while I stood outside with Gemma, Rachel, and the other girls. Gemma hadn't even looked at me. I think she was still afraid of me, but that was just fine. I could do without her racist remarks.

"Yeah, sounds good." I looked over at Rachel just as the guys walked out of the front doors. Thank God.

"Alright, see you all in a few minutes." I waved and walked to my car with Ace.

"Well that was an interesting dinner," Ace said, fastening his seatbelt.

I pulled out of my spot and started down the road. "Yeah, I don't remember Brody ever being that weird."

The whole time at dinner, Ace and Brody took turns muttering under their breath. I knew Ace had a jealous side, but seeing it in action was a little too much.

"Sleep creep manipulation can do some crazy things to humans."

I glanced over at Ace. He was just staring down at his intertwined hands.

"I don't get it. All that happened to me was that your mom gave me nightmares, but I didn't act out with any rage or anything."

Ace let out a deep breath. "There are different degrees of sleep creeping. The queen just wanted to scare you. Whoever is doing this wants to control you and everyone around you. I believe the motive is to keep us apart for good."

"I just don't understand why someone would want to do that to us so badly."

Ace sighed. "For lack of a better word, it's a lot of jealousy, ignorance, and racism. My theory is that someone doesn't like our human and alien relationship, for whatever reason, and is doing everything they can to stop it."

"Well, they have certainly done their homework; Brody, the Columbia recruiter, and even Gemma. That takes a lot of control to get all of them and then add me to it. Whoever it is has to know me and the people I associate with.

Ace placed our hands on the console between us. "Whoever it is, we will find them and be done with all this before too long. We have survived enough other people trying to destroy our relationship. One more won't kill it."

I sure hoped not.

Chapter 38

"Must we really stop for coffee before this Fall Ball? We just had all those noodles." Ace pleaded as we turned off highway twenty into Winnebago.

"It won't be for too long. I told my friend we would just stop by."

"Fine." He groaned. "You are lucky that I like you."

I pulled into a parking spot in front of Cuppa Java and put the car in park. "I love you, too." I placed a quick kiss on his cheek and turned off the car. I did still love him, didn't I? If he was right about the sleep creeping, maybe that was what was clouding my judgment. Maybe.