by Magan Vernon
Frank Sinatra crooned Fly Me to the Moon, and I turned to the source of the music. A picture of Ace's beautiful face popped on my phone. It was hard for me to ignore his picture with the raised eyebrow and cockeyed grin. I unlocked my phone and slid it up to my ear.
"Are you trying to distract me, Mr. Ace?" I did my best sultry voice.
"Only if you'd like me to," he purred. He was way better at the sultry voice than I was. Everything he said came out husky and with a tinge of what sounded like an English accent. If he was a phone sex operator, he would get a lot of calls.
"I do have to finish working on a speech for my class tomorrow." I sighed.
"Okay, don't let me disturb you," he said.
"But, I could use a break, and Lucy isn't here if you want to beam in for a bit."
I waited for a response, but instead a stream of brilliant blue light showered down from my ceiling to my bed and when the light disappeared there stood my alien.
"What took you so long?" I locked my phone, setting it down on my desk before I stood up and slinked over to my bed.
He looked like a male model. If he was human, he probably could have been, except for the fact that he had permanent black lines around his eyes that looked like guyliner. I guess he could have been a rock star model.
He sat down on my bed, and I took the spot next to him. The cold of his body instantly radiating through his temperature control suit, jeans, and sweater and hit my skin. It jolted me awake from the lull I had put myself in by looking up different Dustin Hoffman facts.
"I see you decorated?" He leaned back against the wall my bed was pressed against and stared up at The Graduate poster.
"Yeah, some alien dude was selling posters outside of my com class. I feel like everyone on this campus is an alien and all of them seem to know me," I said, scooting next to him.
"Well, we are the Caltian royal couple." Ace stretched one arm above his head and looped the other around my waist to pull me closer.
"Does this mean I'm going to have alien paparazzi following me around? Should I start dressing better so I don't end up on some Martian version of Fashion Police?" I asked half-serious and half-wondering if any of what I said could have actually been true.
"You look fine in whatever you wear, Princess." Ace's warm fingers trailed the line of the v-neck of my shirt. "Don't worry about what any other alien thinks. I like what you wear and that's all that should matter."
"You're not so bad yourself. Even if you do let Jen pick out your clothes."
He smiled before his fingers moved from my shirt and through my hair. He stopped when he reached the end of my hair and his hand rested against my back. "I really don't want to keep you from doing your studies." Ace took my left hand in his, brushing my knuckles with his lips. "I don't want this ring to just represent an engagement forever, and without a degree the Circe treaty says our marriage cannot happen."
"So, if I end up failing out of college because I can't write a decent speech, does that mean we will never get married since that is what the treaty says?" I arched an eyebrow, genuinely curious.
"There are always loopholes. You and I proved that when we broke the age-old tradition that humans and aliens cannot be together." He pressed his hand against mine, cupping his long fingers over mine.
"How do you always know the right things to say?" I asked.
"Because you, my dear, are my inspiration. Your beauty puts the words in my heart and your voice brings the words to my lips." He smiled, bringing out the Grecian look to his face. Who could resist a guy that was that gorgeous and had a way with words?
I leaned over, covering his smile with my lips and pulling him into a kiss. He released my hands from his and pulled me closer. His warm palms pressed against my lower back where my shirt didn't meet my jeans. The heat from his fingers against my exposed skin made me let out a muffled moan beneath his lips.
With my mouth slightly pulled away, he nibbled on my bottom lip, his hands trailing up and under my shirt, spreading the heat throughout my body. I pressed myself closer against his chest. The cold ripple of his defined stomach combined with his warm hands felt like ice cream in the summertime—a refreshing combination of hot and cold.
Ace moved his lips from mine and let them linger from my mouth, up my jaw line until he reached my earlobe. "I love you so much," he whispered.
"I love you too," I whispered back before rolling my head back while his lips trailed down my neck. With all of the frustrations with school, Riley, the accident, Ace had been there with me through them all. I loved him with my very being. He was the only one who was there for me no matter what happened. I even caused him to end up in the infirmary for a few days and get ostracized by his planet, but he still loved me. I couldn't even say that about some of my family members.
I wanted to take my chance. I never wanted to feel like I did the day of the car accident. I didn't want to lose him forever without him having all of me. I pulled back, looking down at his endless black eyes. Slowly, I reached for the hem of my shirt and tugged it over my head, tossing it to the side of the bed.
Ace didn't say anything. His eyes trailed upward from my stomach and all the way up to my black, lacy bra. He reached his hands up and brushed his fingertips against the underwire as if it were a delicate flower instead of something I found in the clearance bin at Victoria's Secret.
"I don't understand this contraption." He tilted his head. His fingers circled the underwire of my bra.
I held back a laugh. "You mean you don't understand my bra?"
"Is this what a bra is?" He widened his eyes, his fingers moving in semi-circles around the bottom cup. There was nothing sexy about it. He looked like a little kid with a new toy, not a man trying to arouse me.
"Yes, Ace, this is a bra. It keeps my goodies in place so they don't flop all over." The moment was gone just as soon as it came.
"Goodies? I thought they were breasts?" He looked up at me with puppy dog eyes.
I rolled my eyes. "Same thing."
"This is fascinating." He grabbed the entire cup in his hand, yanking it toward his face and pulling me with him.
"Whoa, calm down there, buddy." I sat back up, his hand still cupped on my chest.
"Sorry, I've just never seen anything like this before." His eyes went as wide as they could go.
"Are Caltian girls just naturally buoyant or something?"
He shook his head, not looking up from my bra. "No, I've never seen this much of a Caltian girl. Or any girl for that matter. You're the first."
"Oh." It was all I could muster. He hadn't done any of this either. It was probably why he was so reluctant as well. But with him playing with my bra like a cat toy there was no way I was going to try anything more.
"Hey guys! WHOA."
I hopped off Ace and the bed, turning toward the door to see Lucy standing in the doorway with her arm raised and over her eyes.
"I told you to put a sock on the door," she yelled.
"Sorry, Lucy." I could feel a blush creep up my neck and to my cheeks while I picked my shirt up off the floor and quickly put it back on. "You can look now."
Lucy pulled her arm down and walked to her bed, throwing her purse down. "I'm cool with the boom-boom and all, but Alex…"
"We weren't doing anything," I snapped, harsher than I intended. Maybe the cat and mouse chase was getting to me.
"I think that nothing at least requires the wearing of a shirt." Lucy plopped down on her bed, kicking off her Birkenstocks.
The flush was back and made its way through my cheeks and my whole face.
Ace sat up behind me. "Sorry about that. It won't happen again, I assure you."
Won't happen again? Did he mean Lucy walking in on us? Or did he just never want to see me sans shirt again? He seemed pretty excited by my bra, or so I thought.
"Don't worry about it. I understand. Sometimes you just get in the heat of the moment and forget to put the sock on the door. I get it," Lucy said.
> "Okay, Alex, I guess I should be off and let you finish your homework. Shall I come by tomorrow?" Ace stood up, straightening out his pants. I wondered if aliens got excited like human boys. He once told me he was anatomically correct, but I'd never really thought about the functioning operation of his anatomy until I really thought about wanting to do it. Maybe he couldn't do it and that was why he kept refusing it?
"That sounds good. I can text you later tonight," I said, walking with him to the door. He beamed into my bedroom, so I guessed that he would have to find somewhere secluded to beam back to Circe.
His eyes quickly flitted to Lucy, and then he tilted his head down to mine. His words were a whisper on my lips. "I love you, Princess. I will be eagerly waiting to see you and your bra again."
His finger briefly grazed the front of my shirt, letting a slow quiver travel through my chest. He then lightly kissed my lips and walked out the door.
Maybe there would be some boom-boom in my future.
Chapter 16
Whose stupid idea was it to do a speech on Dustin Hoffman's career? Oh, yeah that was me. Even though Ace left pretty early I just couldn't wrap my head around the speech and still had to have my note cards and outline finished to turn in the next morning with it.
It could have been because every time I tried to write about Mr. Hoffman's time working on The Graduate all I could think about was the time Ace leaned into me and whispered "Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson?" He was never a Dustin Hoffman fan, but the first time I heard him quote one of my movies and do it in a low, husky voice it sent tingles to all the right places. It was enough to make me forget all about my favorite actor standing in the hotel room and staring at his married mistress, and think about what it would be like to be with my alien in that same situation.
The alarm went off way too early the next morning. Maybe I did spend too much time thinking about Ace. My outline was only half-finished, but I could easily fill that in during the other speeches. There were at least three or four of us going plus evaluators, so I had a good chance to get it done before it was my turn. The bad part was that we had to dress business casual for our speeches. Instead of working on finishing my note cards or even practicing my speech, for the first time, I was busy curling my hair and forcing myself into a pencil skirt and heels. Hopefully, whenever I became an alien princess, I would never have to worry about heels again.
"Looking hot there, roomie." Lucy walked into the room with a mug of tea in her hand. She usually wasn't up early, but she just came home, so technically she probably hadn't gone to bed yet.
"Hot enough to give a speech about Dustin Hoffman and his acting career?" I buttoned the last button on my blouse, praying I didn't sweat through it on the way to class. Whoever said that Arizona was a dry heat underestimated the power of an Italian girl's armpits.
"That's what your speech is about?" Lucy coughed, setting her tea down and tapping her chest with a fist like it went down the wrong pipe.
"Yeah, I had to think of something quickly and that was the first thing I thought of." I shrugged.
Lucy shook her head. "After getting a good look at Ace, I thought you would be more into the male model rockers than the likes of Mr. Hoffman."
"Every girl has a little bit of a soft side for the classic male actors and Dustin Hoffman is no exception. I'm sure even you can't deny that one."
Lucy rolled her eyes and set her mug down on her desk. "Don't tell me you are like my dad and think this lesbian thing is just a phase?"
"What?" I snapped my head up. "No, I never said that. I was just saying that Dustin Hoffman is a great actor and rocks the silver fox look."
"As long as you aren't trying to swing me in the direction of team boy, we're good." She sat down on her bed, folding her legs underneath her. "My dad tried to do that."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
"I realized I was more attracted to girls around freshman year of high school. My dad just thought it was a phase and grounded me from watching any more reality TV shows, like somehow that would work."
She ran a hand through her hair, tousling it. "I actually dated guys all through high school just to please him. I thought maybe if I forced myself to spend time with people of the opposite sex, then it would magically cure me of lesbianism. Except lesbianism isn't some sort of a disease that needs a cure. It's who I am and if I never met Riley I don't think I'd be as happy as I am now, or realize that there is nothing wrong with me. I'm just a girl in love with another girl."
I smiled. Lucy and I were more alike than I thought. Both of us tried so-called normal relationships, but the only kind that made us happy were the ones that everyone else saw as strange. Maybe I was wrong about her and Riley, and now there was definitely no way I was going to try and force her on a date with Monte.
***
I got caught up talking about awful date stories with Lucy and had to run across campus, in heels, to make it to class on time. I told her all about Brody, leaving out of course that an evil alien was invading his dreams, and she told me about some jock she dated who was more into the other guys on his team than he was into her.
I took my usual seat, glancing at everyone else in the room. There were two other students in dress clothes. If I was lucky, I would, hopefully, draw last in order of speeches and second to last for evaluations. That would give me enough time to finish my outline and go over my notes.
Professor Johnson passed around two small Tupperware containers with folded up squares of paper. "Pick from this box first for your speech order, and this next one will be the order in which you will evaluate."
By the time the containers got to me there were only two scraps of paper left, one in each box. I picked the first one out for my speech. Number three. Okay, I could work with that. I could still work on my outline between now and then. Then I reached into the container for the evaluator scrap. Number one. Oh crap.
"Okay, who do I have giving speech number one?" Professor Johnson clasped her hands together.
A girl on the other side of the room raised her hand. She looked so poised and put together with her hair in a tight brown bun, and she wore a dark brown pantsuit. No giant pit stains on her.
The professor nodded in her direction. "And who will be evaluating Melanie?"
Weakly, I raised my hand and saw the class stare in my direction.
"Very good, Alex. Now, let's get started."
Melanie stood up from her desk and walked to the front podium. She handed her nicely typed up outline to Professor Johnson and then stood in front of the class with her note cards in hand.
Crap, crap, crap. I would have to evaluate her and my outline was still half filled out in pencil. I didn't even fully read the directions to see if I actually needed to type it out or use a pen. I quickly grabbed my workbook from my bag and flipped to the evaluation portion. There were five questions that I would somehow have to fill out and put my answers into a two-minute speech to evaluate Melanie's speech. Okay, I could do it. I could definitely do it. Maybe…
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that stereotypes are prominent in modern literature," Melanie proclaimed. Dang she had a good opening, quoting Jane Austen and all.
There was nothing bad I could say about her speech. I trudged to the front of the room when her speech was done and rattled off the notes I took. I barely looked up from my workbook, a big no-no in speeches, and just wanted to get back to my desk and hope I could salvage my outline. That still didn't stop Professor Johnson from clapping louder than any of the students. I swear I even saw some students glare at me. Great, now I was going to be known as the teacher's pet.
While Mila gave her super awesome speech on the dangers of plastic toys, I hurriedly scribbled down my outline and filled out the rest of my note cards. We had to have at least seven, and I had exactly two and a half filled out before I got to class.
"And now it's time for Alex to give her speech on the wonderful topic of Dustin Hoffman!" Profe
ssor Johnson exclaimed loudly as if I were some sort of celebrity. I guess to her I was.
There was only silence from the class while I walked to the podium. I handed the professor my poorly written outline and took my spot at the front of the room.
"Today, I am here to seduce you on the acting career of Dustin Hoffman from his early roles in the 1960s to his iconic roles that earned him Academy Awards, and how his career has shaped those of other actors."
I tried to make eye contact with everyone in the room, but everyone's eyes were already drooping just from my intro. The only one who was actually paying attention was Professor Johnson. She stared at me like I was a rock star walking around the gray tiled floor.
I tripped over a few of my words and basically made up the last half of my speech as I went. My evaluator, Mila, caught all of those things. In the nicest way she tried to tell me that it sounded like I just put my speech together the night before, which I did.
When she went back to her seat, Professor Johnson went back to the front of the room. "Now, remember students, it is great that everyone has their own opinion, but try not to let the judgment of making ourselves look good cloud a great speech. We all can't be as poised of speakers as Alex."
Gulp. Did she seriously just say that? I slunk down in my seat, really wishing I could just disappear. The only time I ever got special treatment in school was when I actually deserved it. I could write the heck out of a term paper, but usually I didn't get pointed out by the teacher like that. The only time I could remember that happening was in advanced senior English, and I still liked to forget about my whole time in that class and the heavy influence of sleep creep on my English teacher.
Chapter 17
Finally, my first week of accelerated classes was over. Only four more weeks to go and I would be done with summer classes and maybe the next semester would be better. I did fine in high school, so why was I struggling so much in college classes?
