by Magan Vernon
I sighed. “Me waiting up for you, only to have you show up late or busy with some alien duty.”
Ace shook his head, his hair brushing against my headboard. “I hope not. Once you are at Northern Arizona, I can arrange to see you more often. Then we won’t have to worry about sneaking around when your mother isn’t awake, and you can even come see me instead of this beaming thing.”
I lay down next to him, pressing my body to his. His muscles shivered underneath me, and even through the temperature control suit I could feel his icy hot chill. “How about you figure out how to beam me places, and then I can just come see you at work whenever I want?”
Ace pressed his forehead to mine, his eyes dark and close. “Why must you ask me questions that you know are impossible?”
“Impossible things are happening every day.”
Ace let out a silent laugh, the cold air blowing through his nose and tickling my lips. “You stayed up watching musicals while you were waiting for me, didn’t you?”
“I can sing some of them if you would like.”
“I think there is something better that you can do with your mouth than sing.”
He tilted his head and pressed his lips to mine. After waiting all night for him, the electric current his touch sent through my lips and all the way down almost made up for it. Almost.
"Alex?" a woman's voice rang through the door.
Crap, my mom. I broke the kiss and put my finger to my lips. Ace rolled off the side of my bed and crawled underneath it. I pulled the comforter up and over the side to try and hide him the best I could.
The door squeaked open and mom poked her blond mess of hair in. She reached her fingers under her thick glasses, rubbing her eyes. “Is everything alright? I thought I heard something?”
"Oh, no, just woke up and thought I would listen to some Ira Glass podcasts.” I pushed the comforter farther onto the side of my bed, hoping that she wouldn't walk over and see Ace lying between the bed and the window.
"Oh.” She glanced at my IPod in the dock. Hopefully she was too sleepy and wouldn’t realize that nothing was actually on. “Well you should probably get to sleep. I know the first day of school is exciting, but it'll be better if you are awake for it. You need your rest."
"Okay, I will do that.”
She nodded and I thought she would leave the room, but instead she walked over to my nightstand. My heart pounded as I thought about how close she was to finding Ace under my bed. Hopefully he didn’t breathe too loud.
“What is this?” She picked up the box of Feeble Weebles, squinting at the giant purple dinosaur.
“Just some cereal I got the other day. Been hiding it in my room so I wouldn’t have to share with Elijah.” Good excuse, Alex, Good excuse.
Mom shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
I shrugged. “Yeah it’s new.”
“Huh. Alright, well next time let me know when you get a box and I will try and get some for Elijah as well.”
“Will do.”
Finally she walked to the door and closed it behind her. I waited until I heard the door to her bedroom shut before I pulled up the comforter and leaned over the side of the bed. But Ace wasn't there. Nothing but dust bunnies.
Huh.
I sat back up and felt something cold against my back. I looked up and there was Ace, kneeling behind me.
"Looking for something?" He placed his hands on my shoulders and brushed his lips to my forehead.
If only I had the speed that my alien boyfriend had, then I could just zip through my senior year and forget about distance and mom’s annoyingly great sense of hearing. But when said alien boyfriend was in my bed, I wanted nothing more than the opposite speed. I wanted to freeze time to keep everything just the way it was.
