Or, maybe you do.
I wake up slowly, unsure of why it feels like the insides of my head are leaking out through my ears and why I’m wearing shoes in bed. A raging headache welcomes me to consciousness, and I sit up with a loud groan. The hotel is entirely too bright, and the inside of my mouth is so dry that I almost gag.
How much champagne did I have?
And where are Griffin and Devon?
Memories of the night before flicker in tiny flashes. We’d opened the champagne bottle in the car. Griffin was so cold when we returned to the hotel that Devon had wrapped him up in a bunch of blankets, which only made both of them laugh hysterically. I think I laughed hysterically, too. I told Griffin that the dresses he got me were very nice, but I needed fresh underwear to go with them. I think I actually talked about underwear with him. Oh God, yes, I did. I talked about underwear with him. And Griffin had done something with his hands that made the room go completely dark. Or maybe it made the whole hotel go dark. He’d apologized profusely, and the lights had switched back on.
At some point in the night, I’d decided I should climb onto the bed.
“Hello?” I call, but I find that my vocal chords are on strike. My throat hurts, too, but I barely notice over the pain in my head. After gathering a great deal of stamina, I croak out, “Where is everyone?”
No answer.
They’ve abandoned me! They’ve left me hung-over and helpless on the zillionth floor of a massive, swanky hotel, with nothing to my name other than whatever’s in my purse and a couple of new dresses.
With the rest of the strength in my body, I stumble across the room. At this point, the first goal is to throw up, possibly multiple times, and then to drink as much water as I can. And then maybe I’ll throw up again.
But then Griffin bursts into the room, with Devon at his heels, and all the bodyguards in tow. Griffin’s chattering up a storm in his language, swinging several department store bags from his skinny wrists. He’s dressed cheerfully in a T-shirt with the Union Jack logo printed across the chest, tight white jeans, and oversized yellow-framed sunglasses. Even with the sunglasses, I can tell by his body language that he’s not about to throw up and die from alcohol over-consumption. He looks annoyingly good, in fact.
“Ah, Wanda!” he says. “How did you sleep?” Before I can answer, he approaches, holding out the bags. “I went to Victoria’s Secret for you. I tried to buy a pair of wings, but they told me they’re not for sale. Damn it, I really wanted to wear them!”
I wince at how loud his voice is.
“These should fit you. The shopkeepers were a bit cross and quite unhelpful. Apparently, none of them have heard my music yet. Oh well, they will soon.” He unloads several sparkly bras and a handful of lacy underwear from the pink bag, holding them out to me in offering. “On the way there, I bought a real hot dog from one of the hot dog stands. Disgusting! But delicious. I want another one.”
“You’re not having another one,” Devon says, walking toward his room.
Griffin has become utterly entranced by one of the sparkly bras. “I think this will decorate your breasts quite nicely. I hope you like it.”
“Griffin.”
“What will you wear with this? A long skirt? Is that the current style?”
“Griffin,” I hiss. “Shut up. Please.”
He raises his gaze from the expensive undergarments, stares at me for a few seconds, and then narrows his eyes. “Are you ill, Wanda?”
“Do you remember how much we drank last night? My head is killing me, my throat hurts, and my mouth feels like I ate a teddy bear!”
Griffin takes off his sunglasses and drops everything. Well, everything except for the Versace bag, which he places very delicately on the ground. He steps closer until I can feel his warm breath against my face. He snaps his fingers.
All at once, my headache vanishes, chased away by the general pulsing unhappiness in my body, and even the gross taste in my mouth. It’s as if I never had any alcohol at all, and I got a really great night of sleep. And maybe took part in a killer make-out session.
For a long time, we just stand together.
“Is that better?” he whispers, tilting his face to the side so our lips are almost touching.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? Is there still something wrong?”
New memories of the night before leak in, bit by bit, including a flash of Griffin pulling the covers up over me. “What happened last night?” I ask, though a bit fearful to know the details. “We didn’t do anything, uh, intimate, did we…?”
“Of course not!” He stares directly into my eyes. “It’s nothing if not dishonorable to engage someone in an important activity when they’re heavily intoxicated, Wanda.”
I let out a heavy breath. “Well, you’d be surprised at how many guys on this planet wouldn’t agree about that.”
“Perhaps they could use a lesson in war and peace, then. Only the evil seek pleasure in taking advantage of weakness,” he says, his voice particularly husky and thick and his eyes glowing a much darker blue than usual.
I feel warm all over, content to just stare at him. I want to close the scant space between our lips, want to drag more of those words out of his mouth with my tongue, but a noise from Devon’s room startles both of us and breaks the spell we’ve put over each other.
Griffin walks away from me, throwing open the door to Devon’s room. “I’m starving! Let’s go get something delicious and dodgy. Maybe another hot dog!”
I wander into Devon’s room, curious about this new territory. It’s as clean as Griffin’s is disorganized, with a few clothes hung neatly in the closet space and the bed wrinkle free.
“No more hot dogs, Griff. You vomited,” Devon says from his station at the window, sipping from a coffee cup.
“I did not!”
“You were sick all over your shoes. You bought new shoes. No more hot dogs.”
Griffin stalks over to Devon, taking his coffee cup away and drawing a long, long sip from it. “What’s this? It’s hot. Is this coffee?”
“Yes. I like it a lot.”
Griffin jabs one finger into Devon’s ribs and then looks at me. “He’s had about ten of those since we arrived. He thought he’d hate it here, but we’d barely landed and he was already in love with your coffee. Ha! Aren’t you glad you came now, Dev?”
Devon’s lips twitch into a half smile. “Not as happy as you are, of course, you pompous little idiot. But I suppose it’s not so bad.”
“You love it.”
“I don’t love it. I still want to go home as soon as we can,” Devon says, the last part so quiet I can barely hear it.
“I have my very first musical performance scheduled this evening,” Griffin says, flinging himself on his back across the top of Devon’s bed. He looks at me. “I’ll be performing for your people for the first time ever. I must look smashing. I want everyone to melt at my feet. I want them crying and shouting my name and waving signs and throwing their clothes at me. That’s the proper way to do it.”
I roll my eyes, but I can’t help laughing. “If I remember right, last night, you were the one throwing your clothes around. But who knows, maybe you were just trying to figure out how to take your jacket off.”
Devon snickers, and Griffin shoots him a murderous look.
“Anyway, Wanda, you will help us prepare for that.” Griffin props himself up on his elbows. “How does your head feel now?”
“Much better than when I woke up.”
Griffin’s smile stretches across his face. “Ah-ha! I still have my touch. I have the strongest healing sensitivity of anyone in the capital city. It’s so strong that they don’t even have a name for my category. It puzzles them. They tested me six times to make sure they weren’t wrong.”
“He’s not exaggerating for once,” Devon says, taking another sip of his coffee.
With a little hesitation, I settle on the edge of Devon’s bed. “So you guys have magic—�
�
“It’s not magic!”
“Okay, okay, whatever. But do you each have specific kinds? Like Griffin, you have healing and magic for making music play in random stores, and Devon has… I dunno, cleaning magic that makes his room look amazing?”
Griffin casts a heavy glance at Devon, and the two of them stare at each other for a few long seconds.
“Errr, no, Daisy. I don’t really have any of the sensitivities. My talent lies more in diplomacy and translation, I suppose,” Devon says.
“Translating me to everyone else.” Griffin shifts around a bit on the bed. “But he’s also really smart about science and whatnot. He’s working on these plants that might help the environment by sucking bad things out of the ground. And this other thing, too. I can’t explain it; he’ll have to. Dev’s the smartest person I know.”
“Well, considering all the issues you guys had in the past, it’s good you two can do the stuff you do. Dev working on science stuff and you healing,” I say. “Right? Plus, you can make people like you and give you free drinks and listen to your music.”
They exchange another glance, and Devon speaks up. “For a leader who understands war as famously as Griff’s dad does, healing isn’t a popular option for an heir. Military strategist might have been more useful, in his father’s opinion.” Devon turns away and stares out the window. Without the sound of his voice, the room falls too silent.
For the first time, I see them as something very different than I have up until this point. They’re a team, alone, brothers and best friends, but also outcasts in some twisted sense that goes far beyond being visitors from another planet.
“Can’t you just snap your fingers and make everyone love you at home?”
Griffin laughs. “I can do that to your people because your minds aren’t as sharp as ours.”
“Wow, thanks, Griffin.”
He smiles at me. “No offense intended.”
“You make people here fall in love with you pretty easily,” I say. “Wouldn’t it be easier to stay here?”
Devon turns back from his station at the window. “Daisy, Griffin and I have a very specific mission on your planet, and then we return home. The longer we stay here, the more complications arise.” He hesitates. “For us and also for everyone back home.”
“What exactly… uh… is that mission? Besides becoming a famous pop star?”
Devon starts to say something, but Griffin cuts him off. “I need to make contact with the Origin Collective and prove to my father that your planet has some sort of worth or value and isn’t just a lot of frivolous stupidity.”
“Hey! We have… well, we have this sauce that’s so hot that people have actually almost died from eating it,” I say, hoping to get a laugh. Neither of them seems to find it amusing. “Really, though, we’ve done a lot of good things. We’ve made some great music, we’ve walked on the moon, and we… well, we haven’t taken very good care of our oceans or natural resources, I guess, but we’re working on solar power and better cars.”
The more I think about it, the worse it all seems. We’ve actually been pretty irresponsible, haven’t we?
“What happens if you can’t prove it to your father?”
“I’ll be executed,” Griffin casually says.
I jump clear off the bed. “What!”
“I’m joking, Wanda. Don’t be daft; my father wouldn’t execute his only heir.” Griffin sits up and stretches his arms over his head. “I’m hungry, Devon. Let’s go get something to eat.”
“What will happen to you if you can’t prove to your dad that my planet has some kind of worth? You can’t just leave me hanging like this.”
“I’ll have to marry someone I completely despise. She’s evil.”
“Why would your dad want you to marry her, then?”
“Oh, she’s the daughter of—well, she’s—she’s perfect, you know? She’s perfect. She’s good at everything he wishes I were good at, he’s blind to anything negative about her, and she’s beautiful. I’m beginning to think he’ll just make her the next Emperor President, instead of me.”
“Empress, Griff,” Devon says.
“Nah, Emperor. She’d choke anyone who called her otherwise.”
Devon sighs and stares down at his coffee cup. “She’s very unpleasant, you see. And she’s got a lot of bad ideas that she thinks she’ll carry out once she’s married to Griffin.”
“She told me as much! Last time we met, she told me that I ought to feel lucky to have been matched with her—else we’d all be in danger from my stupidity. Well, she’ll lead us right back into a war. Everyone’s already struggling as it is, between the regulations, the new recycling laws, the terrorists, and those bloody awful gray uniforms and…” All at once, Griffin stops, his pale face tingeing red. “Errr, Wanda, you should get ready. I need to eat and then prepare for my performance.”
Griffin walks back to his room without another word, leaving me with Devon.
“You have to understand, they think you’re very frivolous here,” Devon says to me in a near whisper. “Griffin keeps telling his father about things you do… concerts, dancing, and colorful clothes, charity things for the poor. It’s become a point of contention between them.”
“Great. His dad sounds like a grump.”
“Someone from your planet, the Origin Collective, sent a lot of messages out, offering peace and friendship to citizens of other worlds. They sent a lot of them directly to us, but the Emperor President believes they’re only morbidly curious, or maybe acting out of selfish motives.” Dev sighs. “Griffin offered to talk to them, but the Emperor President believes they’d only meet with us because of our heritage. Griffin made a wager with his father that he could secure a meeting with them without revealing his identity. Once we secure the meeting, however, and this is the bit Griff’s father added, we have to discover something worthwhile or helpful for our planet. Otherwise, Griffin has to give up his obsession with Earth and do what he’s told.”
I think of last night, standing in the rain. Maybe I should have run away while I had the chance, escaped back to my ordinary life, worrying only about paying bills and attempting to talk to cute guys on the subway. Maybe I should have untangled myself from all of this strange, universe-wide political intrigue.
But maybe it’s for the better that I didn’t.
“Griff thinks bringing some color and fun to everything might improve the general outlook, but it’s certainly not a popular opinion among those in power. I happen to agree with Griff. Some peace and happiness might go a long way. If he can learn how you do things here and bring it back, it might do some good. None of that can happen if he doesn’t win the wager against his father, though.”
I shake my head. “So I guess my planet does actually know about aliens.” Oh God, a government cover-up. This is exactly the kind of thing Kammie is always talking about—the government covering up the existence of aliens, giant, man-eating rats in Manhattan, alligators in the sewer, tax breaks for poor people, or whatever.
Devon looks at me as if he wants to say something else, but he just pinches his mouth into a thin line and nods.
“Well, how’re you going to find a secret society if you don’t reveal you’re aliens? They don’t exactly hang out on the street corners waiting for people to talk to them.”
“The Origin Collective will find Griffin if he’s made himself important enough for them to take notice.”
I consider this for a few seconds. “Alright. Listen. It was completely wrong of you guys to kidnap me,” I say, giving him a pointed look. “But here’s the deal… if you’ll tell me right now that I’m free of all this kidnapping business, I will help you. On my own, I mean, voluntarily.”
Griffin materializes at my side. “Whatever, you’re free. Now come help me get ready for my performance. We have a lot of work to do!”
Dating an Alien Pop Star Page 12
