How To Break Up With An Alien (13 page)

I shook my head and sat up. "What do you mean because I think someone is? Do you not think a Caltian is sleep creeping?"

Ace leaned back and sat at my feet. "I'm not ruling it out, but I really don't think the queen would sabotage the treaty with Circe."

"How could you even say that?" I tried not to yell, so my voice came out as a loud whisper.

"What do you mean?"

"Uh, hello, did you completely forget about last summer? She did invade my dreams and she tried to have me and the rest of the world killed. And that was just for dating you."

Ace couldn't even look at me. His eyes stayed focused on the floor below us. "Yeah, but she is over that. She knows we are together and she signed that agreement with Nerses."

I blinked. "So you are saying you now don't think this is sleep creep? You think I was just making it all up?"

He groaned, leaning back with his head against the window. "I don't know, Alex. It just seems like the queen would have better things to do than focus her attention on breaking us up."

"Obviously she didn't have anything better to do when she tried to have me killed either."

"Alex." Ace rolled over toward me, his face focused intently on mine. "I'm just not convinced this is all sleep creep. I've talked to some people back on Calta and they haven't heard anything about the queen intending to control you or anyone else in this town."

I twirled a loose thread from my comforter around my ring finger repeatedly to avoid looking at Ace.

"Maybe." He placed his hand on mine. "Everyone else is just starting to realize what I knew the moment that I first laid eyes on you."

"And what is that?"

A small smile touched his lips until it spread along his whole face. He moved up until his body was next to mine. He propped his elbow on my pillow and laid his head on his palm. "That you are the most wonderful being in the entire universe."

I rolled my eyes. "That was totally cheesy."

"Yeah, but you liked it."

I let out a deep breath. I still wasn't convinced that someone wasn't sleep creeping and I knew that by having Ace closer it would be harder for a Caltian to have influence over me. "Are you going to stay with me tonight?"

He shook his head and slowly stood up until he was back at the foot of my bed. "It is probably best that I go. Only another couple of days and I will be here again and this time we won't have to whisper."

Friday. Just two more days and he would be staying with me for the whole weekend. The dance, the football game, and meeting my mom and Brian. If this wasn't sleep creep then I needed to really figure out if my feelings were real before Friday.

Chapter 24

I was happy to wake up to a dreamless night, but when I really didn't get much sleep, it was hard to dream. Was Ace right? Was the sleep creeping all just in my head? A wave of nausea rolled over me, and it took everything I had to swallow the bile taste and get out of bed.

I looked over at my desk. My phone had the blinking red light in the corner, indicating I had a text. I slid my phone open and prayed the text was from Ace.

Free after work tonight?

No such luck, it was Simone. But maybe it would be good to have some girl time.

Yep
, I typed back.
Shall we hang out?

Sounds good
. she responded.

I put my phone down and lurched down the hall to the bathroom.

"Whoa, rough night, kiddo?"

Ugh, the last person I wanted to see in the morning was Brian. Jen may be an uber perky morning person, but Brian was just plain annoying.

"Yeah, sure," I mumbled, trying to dip past him and get to the bathroom.

Fail. Not only could I not get passed him, but he grabbed my shoulders with his furry hands. How a man could have so much hair everywhere but his head was beyond me.

"You know, kiddo, I may not be your biological father, but I still care about you and I'm always here for you."

I tried to avoid his big puppy dog eyes. "Yeah, I know." I'd say anything just to get away.

"And if this Ace boy is giving you problems, you just tell me and we can just arrange something else for this weekend."

I let out a deep breath. If only he knew what was really going on and how I wished I could just rearrange my brain so that it would give me the answer I wanted.

I let out the best attempt at a smile I could. "No worries, everything is fine. Just worried about a Spanish test."

He nodded and let go of my shoulders so I could slink past him and get into the bathroom. Safe from Brian, but far from safe from my lingering thoughts.

***

I finally had enough experience to work by myself at Cuppa Java. The only problem with working by alone was that when it was slow, it was incredibly boring and gave a girl way too much time to think.

Both Columbia and Northern Arizona had sent information for freshman orientation and both schools needed me to send in my information by the end of the month. Now it was crunch time to choose.

On the one hand, Northern Arizona really did have a great public relations program. I knew if I went there, not only would I be close to my dad and Ace, but I really would get some great experience and be guaranteed a job at Circe after graduation.

Then there was Columbia, my dream school. Everything about New York and the journalism program was like a dream come true. But then I would be farther from Ace, more susceptible to alien sleep creeps, random aliens walking in on me at work, and maybe even grow further apart from Ace than we already had started to.

"Looks like you are working real hard."

I looked up to see Brody leaning over the counter. He must have just gotten out of school and came right over since it was barely three.

"Yeah, been a little slow." I shut my binder of college info and slid it under the counter, next to my messenger bag.

It was a little awkward to see Brody. Sure I had seen him in classes and by our lockers, but no real serious conversation.

He drummed his fingers against the countertop. "Yeah, I see that."

"So, did you want to order something?" The awkwardness was so thick, it probably couldn't even be sliced with one of those massive knives from infomercials.

"Look." He picked his hand up from the counter and ran his fingers through his bit of chicken fuzz of hair. "About the other night..."

I held up my hand. "Don't worry about it. We don't need to talk about it."

"Heh." He licked his lips. "Yeah, that would be easier, but then we would just keep doing this weird little nodding and tension thing and I don't want it to be like that for dinner this weekend."

I raised an eyebrow. "Dinner?"

"Yeah, you and your date are still coming with our group for pictures and dinner before the dance, right?"

I honestly had put the whole thing to the back of my mind. I was so worried about Ace and sleep creeping that I had completely forgotten that Brody invited us to go with his group to the dance.

"Are you sure Gemma is ok with that?" I adjusted my glasses to have something to do with my hands.

He shrugged. "Does it matter?" But it looked like it did matter. Every time Brody got really nervous or really excited he always put his hands in his pockets and then pulled them back out, over and over. And he was doing it so quickly I swore he could have started a fire with the friction.

"Well aren't you two still going together?"

There was a long pause before he finally answered."Yeah, not by choice, though."

"Oh, okay…"
Weird
. I would never want to go with an ex to a dance. It was hard enough going to a dance when I was fighting with Ace.

"But, hey, we are all going together so it should be a good time." He took his hands out of his pocket and wiped them on his jeans.

"Right." I nodded. "Good times."

"So we are cool, now?" He finally looked up to my face, his hands firmly at his side. His eyebrows were raised so high I was afraid that if I said the wrong thing they would spring off his head.

"Yeah, we're cool." I smiled.

Cool as in the fact that I still had absolutely no idea what was going on. If only everything that I said out loud was true in real life.

Chapter 25

Simone had an obsession with people watching, so after work we went to one of the big grocery stores in Rockford to sit on a bench and watch people walk in and out of the store.

"Check out that lady. I bet she is either a crazed couponer or she just really loves energy drinks." Simone took a big hunk off her gummy shark with her teeth before nodding in the direction of the lady in question.

The woman had to only be about five-foot tall and was struggling to push a cart overflowing with energy drinks to her mini-van.

"Maybe that is how I can save money for college, just start coupon hoarding and sell energy drinks out of my dorm room during finals week."

I took a gummy shark out of the bag and gnawed off the tail. Another perk of people watching at the grocery store was that we could always load up on gummy sharks.

"Speaking of college." Simone swallowed the last bit of blue goo. "Did you decide between the city and the desert yet?"

I gulped the last bit of my shark down. "I wish."

"Doesn't seem like it would be that hard to choose between a school in the heart of New York or one in the middle of the desert."

I brushed the bits of gooeyness off on my jeans. Simone hated when I did that. She was like Ace in that respect, both neat freaks. I always thought they would probably get along if they ever met. They were similar in so many respects. The tidiness, their love of eclectic music, and their obsession with their cell phones.

"Yeah, when you put it that way it sounds simple." I snorted.

"Then why isn't it?" Simone's eyebrows raised into two perfect arches. She must have had plucked them every single morning because they were always really thin and I never saw a stray hair.

"Because." I grabbed another shark from the bag. "There is a lot more to it than just picking between the city and the desert."

"If you ask me, I don't think one guy should have this big of a hold over where you spend the next four years of your life."

I slid the shark through my fingers, letting the blue jelly glide back and forth from its head to its tale. "It isn't just about Ace. My dad is there, too. And my friends from my internship. They also really do have a great public relations program."

"Yeah, but do you want to do public relations or be a real journalist like you always talk about? Getting down in the field AC360 style."

I laughed. "I could never compare to the silver foxness of Anderson Cooper."

"How will you know if you don't try?"

"And what about you?" I asked. "Are you just going to stay here, sitting in front of the supermarket and eating gummy sharks while I go after a spot on CNN?"

Simone looked down at the bag of gummies and let her shoulders fall. "Yeah, I guess that is the plan for now."

"You always talk about me going off to New York and not Arizona, but what about you? You are way too cool to stay around this town forever."

"Yeah, I know, I just got some things to take care of." Simone stared into the bag, crinkling the plastic in her hands.

"Like what? Discovering the secrets to making the perfect cappuccino?"

"Hey!" She snapped her head up. "Without me you wouldn't even know what a cappuccino was."

"Psh." I waved my hand. "I am an espressologist. I know it all."

She rolled her eyes and tossed the bag of gummies into my lap. "Whatever you say."

I shook the bag of gummies, separating the melting sharks from each other. "Speaking of espresso, are you working this weekend?"

"Yeah, someone took off all weekend, so I have night shift."

Her tone had an edge to it, but I hoped she really wasn't mad. I was able to get off work since Ace was coming in for the Fall Ball, but I didn't want Simone to hate me since she had to cover.

"How about I bring Ace in after dinner and before the dance, then you can size him up for yourself?"

Simone grabbed a gummy shark from the bag and popped it in her mouth. "You've got a deal."

Maybe having one of my best friends meet Ace would alleviate all my tension. Or maybe Simone was right and it was time for me to put Ace in the back of my mind and focus on what I wanted. I didn't know the answer and just thinking about it made the pounding headache come back.

Chapter 26

Thursday. I had one more day until the Fall Ball festivities and one more day until Ace came in. I hadn't seen or spoken to him and was hoping that he was still coming. My mom wouldn't let me pick him up from the airport alone, so Ace actually had to buy a plane ticket to come in. The last time he rode in a plane was before I was even born and I hoped it didn't give him another reason to resent me.