by Tasha Black
When he reached the green room door he took a deep breath, then knocked.
“Who is it?” Solo’s authoritative voice asked at once.
“Kirk,” Kirk replied.
“Ah, come in, brother,” Solo opened the door.
Kate looked up from her phone.
“Hi Kate,” Kirk said. “I thought maybe we could share some lunch?”
He held up the bag.
“I have already brought her eight sandwiches, brother,” Solo said proudly, gesturing to the counter, where indeed, an impressive number of sandwiches were lined up, unopened.
“We can still chat,” Kate said quickly, slipping the phone back into her pocket.
“I’ll just run a quick errand,” Solo said. “I’ll be back at the end of your break.”
Kate smiled and Kirk felt his heart melt.
Solo slipped out, closing the door quietly behind him.
“I don’t mean to intrude,” Kirk said. “I just wanted to talk with you now that we are both feeling less surprised.”
“I’m sorry I reacted like that,” Kate said. “I don’t blame you. You’ve been so quick to help. I was just upset.”
Kirk pulled up a chair and sat.
“You were right to be upset,” he told her. “I didn’t know how important your position was. I mean, I knew that you were an actress, but that doesn’t exist on my planet. And fame is something I’m only beginning to wrap my understanding around.”
“It’s pretty weird, right?” Kate asked. “I still can’t get it straight in my own head sometimes.”
“The reason I wished to talk with you is that I wanted you to know that I understand why you don’t want to be with me,” he told her, determined to say what he had come here to say even though all he wanted to do was throw himself at her feet. “Our relationship would be a danger to both my family and your career. And I won’t risk your happiness or theirs to satisfy my own. It feels like I can’t live without you, Kate, but I am going to try.”
She nodded slowly and he thought for a moment she looked disappointed. But he understood so little of human emotion that he plowed on rather than dwelling on it.
“Cecily is doing very well at her booth and I don’t think she needs my help,” he said. “I’d like to do something useful. I know when we met you had thought you might be able to help me get a job. Would you still be willing to do that?”
“Actually, I do know a guy at one of the booths who’s short-handed today,” she said. “Do you think you could help him out? It’s not exactly a career move, but if you’re wanting to be useful…”
“I would be glad to help,” Kirk said, hopping up. “Which booth and what does he need me to do?”
21
Kate
Kate had just enough time to introduce Kirk to the guy at the What-Would-You-Look-Like-As-An-Alien? booth before heading back to her own line.
Solo took his place against the back wall as the first set of fans approached her, giggling.
“Hi, ladies,” she said, smiling at them.
“We are such big fans,” the braver of the two said to her.
“Thank you,” Kate replied. “It was an honor to be on the show.”
“We are fans of you personally too,” the other girl said. “We heard that creeper who played Prazgar was giving you trouble. We think it’s awesome that you came to the Con anyway.”
“Wow, guys, thanks,” Kate said.
“And the hot bodyguards you brought are just the icing on the cake,” the first girl said, then erupted in a fit of giggles.
Kate spun around to see how Solo was taking this assault of flirtation.
He stood tall in his bodyguard position but his lips were curving up slightly. She was glad he had a sense of humor about it, and hoped he didn’t feel too much like a piece of meat on display.
“Thank you for coming, girls,” she said, pushing two signed headshots to them.
They scurried away, and she felt a warmth in her chest at the idea that they had known she was being harassed, and had seen her refuse to give in or back down. As much as she was lauded for being a role model on the show, for the very first time she was surprised to actually feel like one in real life.
She threw herself into the rest of the meet and greets until her line finally dwindled to nothing.
Solo walked her down the hallway, where she popped into the green room and donned her disguise.
She emerged to find Solo sitting on one of the chairs, gazing at himself in the mirror with the look of a scientist studying a Petri dish.
“Everything okay?” she asked him.
“Yes, of course,” he said, turning to her.
“Is it weird to have a human body?” she asked.
“Yes,” he admitted. “And even more strange to know that women find it attractive.”
“Not that strange,” Kate said with a wink.
“Cecily doesn’t think so,” Solo said wistfully.
“What?” Kate asked.
“She hasn’t said as much,” Solo explained. “But she isn’t attracted to me.”
“Why would you think that?” Kate asked.
“I asked her to be my mate, and she said no,” he said plainly.
“You did?” Kate was astounded.
“Oh yes,” Solo said. “I knew immediately, before I even laid eyes on her.”
“How could you know before you laid eyes on her?” Kate demanded.
Solo looked suddenly taken aback.
“That was a figure of speech,” he said quickly. “But what I mean to say is that I knew right away.”
“Humans don’t normally make a big commitment without getting to know each other first,” Kate explained. “You need to give her time.”
Solo nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.
“She likes you,” Kate confided. “I’m sure of it. Just be patient.”
“Thank you, Kate,” Solo said. “I will be patient.”
He sat back in his chair, looking greatly relieved.
“I’m going to explore the Con a bit,” Kate said. “I don’t need a bodyguard since I’m in my disguise, but you’re welcome to join me.”
“I think I’ll stick around here a while,” Solo said. “I want to do some reading.”
Kate tried to hide her smile as he pulled a copy of Cecily’s autobiography, Make-up Sex, out of his pocket.
“See you later,” she told him, and set off, her spirits still high from the meet and greet.
Half an hour later, all her good feelings were fleeing like rats from a sinking ship.
She stood at a t-shirt booth that looked out over four aisles of the Con. Down one of them was the What-Would-You-Look-Like-as-an-Alien? booth.
Kirk leaned back casually against the counter, surrounded by a semi-circle of preening women. The proprietor had clearly assigned him to work the crowd once he saw how people were reacting to him.
The owner was taking handfuls of cash as fast as he could as Kirk smiled at the women and led them one at a time to the photo booth.
Kate cringed as one of them stroked his biceps on her way to the booth.
He’s just doing his job. And you don’t want to be with him anyway, Kate’s inner coach told her sternly.
But it was impossible to look away.
And she had the sick feeling inside that although she was trying to protect her dreams, she was really just watching them fizzle.
Kirk had thought she was awfully special. But at this rate it would be no time at all before he found another condo to crash in and another woman to put on a pedestal.
22
Spencer
Spencer Carson wandered the Convention Hall aimlessly.
He’d arrived early, but when he learned that Katie’s signings didn’t begin until late morning he went to the cafe downstairs and had a good breakfast and a couple of energy drinks before heading back up.
He was surprised not to have heard from her after she received his gift. He’d waited u
p late, sure that he would get a phone call. She would go on and on pretending that she didn’t want him in her home or that she wanted him to leave her alone, secretly getting off on the excuse to talk to him.
But she hadn’t called. She hadn’t even texted. And she hadn’t called the police, as far as he knew.
What had she done?
There were a million possible scenarios.
He might have enjoyed thinking about them if the private investigator hadn’t told him the big goofy bodyguard had spent the night.
That narrowed it down to only a few scenarios.
And none of them involved Katie stripping off her clothes and rolling around naked in Spencer’s roses, fantasizing that it was him all over her body.
A lesser man might have thought that his attentions had pushed the bodyguard into her bed.
But Spencer Carson knew better.
This was just one more way for the little whore to play hard to get. Nothing got her off more than torturing him and pretending not to care.
Well, two could play at that game.
He stayed away from the Suspended in Space table and instead wandered the hall, looking for someone to flaunt in front of her.
There were plenty of Katie Bly cosplayers, but they were all cows up close compared to the real thing. Besides, that wouldn’t feel like ignoring her. That would be the opposite. He needed to let her know she was the last thing on his mind. He racked his brain for a way to make that clear.
He found a pretty hot Wonder Woman, but she spurned his advances. She was probably a lesbian. Spencer was pretty sure that when you put that many women on an island without men the writing was on the wall, so he didn’t take it personally.
He was rounding a corner in hot pursuit of a serviceable Harley Quinn when he saw something interesting.
The bodyguard, Kate’s freaking bodyguard, was leaning on the counter of one of the booths, women fawning all over him.
The guy ignored the flirtation, like he was a teacher or a cop or something, which only increased Spencer’s irritation.
But he stayed anyway to watch the guy for a minute. It would be good to get in his head, figure him out. Hell, maybe Spencer could even get to the bottom of what the brute had done to him last time they crossed paths.
No matter how many times he went over it in his head, Spencer just couldn’t see how the bodyguard had lifted him up so easily. Clearly he was a big dude, but so was Spencer. It just didn’t seem possible.
And then there was that business of not being able to move afterward. It was just… impossible.
The clues had to be here though.
Spencer examined the man from afar.
He was very tall, dark hair, gray eyes. He wasn’t wearing any kind of patches or pins that would indicate he was into martial arts.
He was super good-looking, almost suspiciously so. He looked more like he was a model or a soap star, not a bodyguard.
Spencer’s eye kept getting drawn to the sign over the guy’s head. He was at that dumb What-Would-You-Look-Like-As-An-Alien? booth, and he was standing directly under the third panel of the sign, so there were giant letters over his head that said:
* * *
An ALIEN?
* * *
It was super distracting. Spencer wished the guy would walk away from it so he could stop accidentally reading the sign every time he tried to figure out what was up with the dude.
Stop, Spencer, he told himself. Think.
Those were the words his impulse control coach had taught him to repeat to himself whenever he got rammy. The guy was a real nut-job. His mom had hired him, and almost nothing he said made a bit of sense to Spencer. But the stop-think advice was handy now and then.
Spencer stopped and looked at the bodyguard and tried to think clearly.
His eyes went back to the sign.
* * *
An ALIEN?
* * *
He wrenched his eyes back to the man.
The man was enormous, unusually attractive, and had some kind of weird fighting skills…
* * *
An ALIEN?
* * *
Something incredible occurred to Spencer.
This guy looked a lot like those big dudes from another planet that had been all over the news lately.
Spencer was pretty sure the whole thing was a hoax, but the rest of the world seemed to think it was legit.
He looked back at the guy, assessing him.
Maybe he had used crazy alien superpowers in their fight. That was the only way to explain him getting the best of someone as experienced as Spencer.
His heart began to pound with excitement. He had figured it out, for sure. And without any outside help.
He spun on his heel and half-jogged out of the crowded hall. He needed to get somewhere where it wasn’t so crowded. Then he’d be able to think.
He headed up the first set of stairs he found.
He had made an unbelievable discovery. That much was for sure.
And having this piece of secret information would definitely be advantageous to him.
It was only a matter of how advantageous.
He found himself in a quiet space, where a baby grand piano sat overlooking the west entrance and the lobby below. He approached the piano bench and sat. On TV, smart characters sometimes played music to help them think. Spencer couldn’t play any instruments. But the view was nice.
He was watching the people milling about in the lobby below when the real truth of the situation hit him.
Katie was seeing an alien. She was sleeping with a real, godforsaken alien.
And it wasn’t Prazgar.
Spencer took a deep breath and willed himself not to let the rage consume him.
Stop. Think.
He wondered why the alien was pretending not to be an alien. If Spencer were an alien, he’d be strutting his stuff for the press. But these aliens were kind of private, from what he’d been able to pick up.
As a matter of fact, it occurred to him that according to GQ, there were only three aliens on Earth in the first place. And they were in some dinky little rural town. They weren’t supposed to be in the city.
And they had all gotten married, so one of them definitely shouldn’t be sleeping with Katie Henderson.
Spencer was so thunderstruck he froze in place, causing a woman behind him to smash into his back and spray him with some kind of coffee concoction.
“Oh geez, I’m so sorry,” she quavered.
“Watch it, loser,” he roared. “I’m trying to think.”
She scurried away as he tried to wipe the whipped cream off his shirt.
So Katie was sleeping with an alien and keeping it a secret because he was married to someone else.
That was information he could use.
As far as Spencer saw it, the info could help him in one of two ways. Either he could tell Kate that he knew everything and use that leverage to get what he wanted from her…
Or he could blow the doors off the thing in revenge, and watch from the sidelines as it all blew up in her face.
Then, when her chips were down, Spencer would have the pleasure of swooping in to pick up the pieces of her broken life.
Like taking candy from a baby.
23
Spencer
A few hours later, Spencer sat in the lower level cafe, putting the final touches on his epic plan.
His fingers clacked on the keys of his laptop and his blood sizzled with anticipation and the zing of the energy drink he’d just pounded.
Everything would have been perfect if the woman sitting across from him could have kept her toddler under control.
The kid had two tiny pigtails, though she had barely enough wispy curls to need pinning up as far as Spencer could see. A thick bead of yellow snot peeked out of her left nostril periodically before being snorted back up. Her t-shirt said Future Leader. Spencer wasn’t so sure about that.
“Who are you?” she demanded in
a voice pitched so high Spencer figured it would give a dog a headache.
He decided it was best to ignore her.
“Who are you?” she asked again, coming closer. Maybe she thought he hadn’t heard her crystal-shattering question the first time.
“I’m working, kid,” he told her.
“I’m Maddie,” she squeaked, undeterred. “Who are you?”
“Do you mind?” Spencer called to the girl’s mother.
The woman glanced up from her phone. Her face looked like she hadn’t slept in a year.
“Maddie,” she called tiredly. “Come back here.”
“Who are you?” Maddie asked quickly, as if knowing the gig was almost up.
“I’m Spencer fucking Carson,” he roared. “Leave me alone.”
The mother ran over, snatched the kid under her armpits, and hoisted her up.
“His middle name is a real bad word, Mommy,” the girl whispered as she was whisked away.
Spencer laughed.
“Future leader, my ass.”
He went back to his work, put the finishing touches on his email and then sat back to read it over.
* * *
Your competitor published pictures this morning making it look like Katie Henderson is dating her bodyguard.
But did you know that he’s an alien?
Come to the Philadelphia Convention Center west entrance at 7:15pm tonight and I promise you a scoop that will have your readers crapping their pants.
* * *
- A friend
* * *
Yes, it was perfect. Precise, professional, and it included just enough info to make them all show up.
He copied the text and carefully visited as many news and gossip sites as he could, emailing it to their news tip inboxes.
