by Lili Zander
“Your car is in perfect working condition,” Bob said, and I could tell he was taking refuge in the details as a way to avoid emotion. “Your bank account has two million dollars in it, carefully invested in a variety of mutual funds, in order to avoid questions about why you have so much money in your checking account.” I knew that; we did have Internet access on the ship. He’d helped me set up my finances one day, another bit of kindness. There were hundreds of little gestures, dotted through the last year and a half. Small kindnesses for a girl desperate to flee her life, unused to generosity without an attendant price tag.
I clung to him. “I don’t want to go,” I said softly.
He looked at me, and his eyes were clear. “You have to, little human,” he said softly, brushing a finger on my lower lip. “You will hate yourself if you don’t.”
“And I’ll hate myself if I leave as well,” I replied morosely.
“This too shall pass, Suzie,” he said. He reached for my palm and kissed it softly. “Thank you for travelling with me, little human,” he said. “You’ve brightened my days.”
And that was it. That was the end. I cried all the way into the city.
34
Normally, after being away for almost two years, you’d be presumed dead, and you would have to file all kinds of paperwork to prove that in fact, you are still alive.
Thankfully, Bob had taken steps to make sure this didn’t happen to me. (Ah, my alien cared enough to save me from the endless, mind-numbing New Mexico bureaucracy. I missed him already.) Three months after I’d first started travelling with Bob, we had used some of my newly acquired money to buy me a house on a hundred-acre lot, halfway outside of Santa Fe, far enough away that I’d be left in peace. The realtor was told that the buyer was a reclusive author who preferred to keep all her communication electronic.
I didn’t know it was possible to buy property from a space ship, many worlds away from Earth, but evidently, it was. Everything was set up to be electronic. The power bill, the water bill, the heating bill, all of these were auto-deducted from my checking account. And I was active online due to the magic Internet connection available in Bob’s spaceship.
It had been an excellent cover. New Mexico attracted plenty of people who just wanted to be left alone. I was simply one more.
And so, in many ways, returning was a lot more straightforward than it should have been.
And in many other ways, it wasn’t.
There was no getting around it. I missed Bob. I even missed that machine from hell.
Eventually, I stopped moping, at least a little, and applied to the University of New Mexico. I had the financial means to go to college, and after my travels, I wanted to study anthropology and sociology. Two million dollars was enough money to last the rest of my life, if I didn’t do anything crazy like buy a Ferrari. I didn’t. I’d always been used to living with very little, and my frugal habits didn’t disappear.
The first basket of mangoes arrived on my doorstep a month after I left Bob’s ship. No note. No smug, two-dicked alien anywhere in sight. Just a basket of mangoes.
The second basket showed up exactly a month after that. The third basket, a month after the second. And so on for five months.
On the sixth month, my sexy, two-dicked alien held the basket in his hand as I opened the door. “You look beautiful, little human,” Bob said with a smile when he saw me.
“You never say that to me,” I said automatically. He was here. My heart was beating in my chest, and my gaze automatically went to my wrist. Yes, I was wearing my bracelet.
“The sun rises in the east, and sets in the west on your world, Suzie, and when you are faced with it every day, you take it for granted. Until it isn’t there anymore. Then, when you are confronted once more with the true magnificence of the morning’s rays peeking over the horizon, you remember how beautiful it really is. And so it is with you, little human.”
I just stared at him. Six months away, and Bob had become a poet. And his compliment. Like the rays of the sun, his compliment warmed my core.
I twiddled with the bracelet on my wrist. “Why are you here now?” I asked. “It’s been so long.”
“Six months, in Earth time,” he replied. “I had to give you time to adjust back to your life. You wanted to return to your home.”
“I missed you,” I said. I had cried myself to sleep for the first month, missing everything about Bob, his amused good humor, the caress in his voice when he called me little human, the way he rolled his eyes at me in mild exasperation when I did something stupid.
“I missed you too,” he replied. Characteristically, he sounded uncomfortable. “And to answer the other part of your question, I came to find out if you wanted to go away for the weekend.”
I raised my eyebrow. For Bob, who was taciturn with his emotions, this was as good as a shouted-from-the-rooftop declaration of love. “Won’t you risk damaging your soul crystal still further?” I asked him.
“A premature discussion,” he said, rolling his eyes in a way that was achingly familiar. “But I find, to my surprise, that it’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
“I still have a life here,” I replied. “I can’t travel with you for years on end.”
He nodded. “We’ll make it work,” he said. “I don’t know how yet, but we will figure a way out.”
He extended his hand towards me, and I looked at him for a long second. Then I smiled and removed my bracelet, and did what I wanted to do from the moment I saw him again. I put my arms around him and kissed him, and he groaned slightly, and his lips parted, and he kissed me back.
“We could go to Edrem to see Tamora, if you’d like? Or George, or even Cerisu or Liet?” he asked me.
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “I do have to be back in class Monday,” I said. That was part of it, but the other part was that at least for two days, I just wanted Bob. We could invite other players to our little games after, but for a little bit, I just wanted him.
Well, I also wanted his machine from hell.
Mirth rose in his eyes as he read my thoughts, and he reached his hand out to me again. This time, I took it, linking my fingers in his.
“Let’s go see the universe, little human.”
My adventures were just beginning.
About Lili Zander
Lili Zander is the sci-fi romance loving alter-ego of Tara Crescent. She lives in Toronto. She enjoys reading sci-fi and fantasy, and thinks a great romance makes every book better.
Find Lili at:
www.lilizander.com
www.facebook.com/authorlilizander
Email her at [email protected]
Books by Lili Zander
The Dragons in Exile Series (Dragon shifters in space, menage)
Draekon Mate
Draekon Fire
Draekon Heart
Draekon Abduction
Draekon Destiny
Daughter of Draekons
Draekon Fever
Draekon Rogue
Draekon Holiday - coming soon!
The Alien Vampires of Shayde (Vampires in space, reverse harem)
Night of the Shayde
Blood of the Shayde - coming Winter 2018
Blood Prophecy (Dragon shifters, reverse harem)
Dragon’s Thief
Dragon’s Curse
Dragon’s Hope
Dragon’s Ruin
Dragon’s Treasure
or
Dragon’s Fire (the omnibus edition, containing all the Blood Prophecy episodes) and a bonus story, Dragon’s Ghost.
Suzie and the Alien
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