How to Date an Alien (4 page)

“Well, I wasn’t going to let you get lost on
your way to the cafeteria on your first day.” She looped her arm
through mine as we started down the long hallway.

It looked like any other cafeteria you’d see
in a big high school with the fluorescent lights and lunch ladies
standing behind rows of different colored concoctions in silver
buckets. But the difference between the base and high school was
that most of the lunch ladies here had at least three extra arms
and instead of students, the room was filled with aliens.

I grabbed a tray and followed Jen into the
line. “Hopefully the food is better than the last base my dad was
stationed at." I wasn’t really good at the whole small talk thing
and was kind of intimidated by Jen.

“Well, the Neptunians do like their MSG, so
as long as you aren’t on a diet, you should be good.” She had the
most melodious giggle that didn’t sound anything like my deep
wheezing laugh.

I picked exactly the same things that Jen put
on her tray, having no idea what I was actually getting. Everything
looked like different colors of gelatin and smelled like unwashed
hair. I was hoping that it all tasted better than it appeared.

“Hey, we're over here!" Malcolm shouted,
waving his arms at us. We spotted him sitting at a table with the
rest of the interns, behind a huge bear-looking alien.

Riley ignored us as we sat down, but everyone
else's attention was on us, especially Gavin who scooted over for
me to sit next to him.

“So, is it true?" Justin asked as he took a
big slurp from a drink that looked like something from a fifth
grade science project.

“Is what true?” I looked from Jen to Gavin,
who were both staring at me wide-eyed.

I heard Riley groan from the other end of the
table. “This really should be an obvious one, but I guess that's
not something you learn in high school.” I turned toward her and
she smirked, planting her palms on the table. “We all heard that
you are working with that Caltian who saved you from the
Cephlapod.”

“Oh, that," I muttered as I watched all the
interns' eyes circle me. “Well, yeah I guess he’s the same one." I
swirled some of the green goop on my plate with my fork and tried
to take a bite, but the smell overpowered me and I had to put the
fork back down. “He hasn’t come right out and said anything about
it.”

I looked up from my plate, but instead of
seeing the eyes of the interns I caught Ace staring right back at
me from across the room. He looked like he was taking in everything
as his eyes grazed over my table. When he noticed that I caught him
staring, he looked away and pretended to be interested in the
person next to him—as if I hadn't seen anything. Like I could even
ignore the way he looked at me or the way the darkness of his eyes
had sent my pulse to heights I didn't even know existed.

“If you ask me, I don’t know how you can
stand an alien like that." Gavin shook his head.

I pried my gaze away from Ace and looked back
at Gavin. “What do you mean?”

“Caltians are the snobs of the universe and
have no reason to be. They’re like the mutant spawn of burlesque
dancers and emo kids, but somehow can control just about everything
in the universe." He took a big gulp of his drink. “It’s just
sick.”

I nodded, pretending like I understood, but I
didn’t. How could Gavin have such dislike for someone he didn’t
even know? I’ll admit that I hated the popular girls at school, but
at least I had a reason. They were nothing but mean and only talked
to me when they wanted help on an English assignment or were making
fun of what I was wearing. As far as I could tell, Gavin hadn’t
even talked to a Caltian since we’d been there.

“You just snarfed my goulash!” I turned to
see a large purple alien who looked like he had a giant octopus on
his head yelling at the bear-like alien behind us.

“I did no such thing!" The bear stood up,
mounting to almost eight feet tall. His huge paws were held high
over his head, and his short snout curled into his furry face and
exposed a layer of pointy yellow teeth.

“Liar, I saw you do it!" The octopus spread
his tentacles all around his body as he stood to his full height of
at least seven feet.

“What are you going to do about it?" the bear
mocked, putting his arms out to the side.

Before I could even blink, the octopus
launched one of his tentacles across the table, stabbing through
the bear and coming within a millimeter of my face. I closed my
eyes, getting ready for the impact when I felt a force hit me like
a dodgeball, knocking me off the table and slamming my back hard
against the floor. I heard a splashing sound around me and imagined
whatever came out of the alien had to have landed nearby, but the
sound of my own heartbeat rang louder in my ears than the other
sounds around me.

"Are you okay?" Jen yelled.

I felt a warm hand pressed to my cheek and
expected to see Jen hovering over me, but when I opened my eyes, I
saw Ace's dark orbs staring into mine.

After the incident in the cafeteria, Ace was
off me and disappeared out of the room. I didn't even get a chance
to thank him. Even as Jen helped me up off the floor and walked me
toward the infirmary, I couldn't see Ace, but I could feel his
stare. He was like this constant shadow that watched my every move,
or maybe more like a guardian angel, I still wasn't sure. I wanted
desperately to talk to him, to ask him why he chose to save me. By
the time I was done at the infirmary, we were all ordered back to
our rooms for the night and I didn't get the chance to see him.

When I walked into my dorm, I smiled to see
that Jen and I were sharing a room. Her contagious laughter had
kept me in a good mood while I was stuck in the infirmary, even
though my head was pounding. But my smile quickly disappeared when
I saw Riley scuffle out of the bathroom, mumbling something about
peeling linoleum. Three girls in a small room with one bathroom and
only one window that had bars secured across it wasn't exactly my
ideal living situation.

It wasn’t enough that I had already been
almost killed, twice, by an alien, but then I had to end my day by
sharing a room with Riley! While Jen and I tried to get to sleep
early, Riley spent all night complaining about our beds being made
with cheap metal or that our room wasn’t much bigger than her old
dorm room at Penn State. I wanted to just cover my head with the
pillow and drown out her whiney voice.

Sleeping wasn't much better. Since Riley took
over about half of the bedroom, I was squashed in the corner near
the bathroom with the squeaky metal, cot-like bed and my dresser
staring me right in the face. By the time I finally relaxed and
stopped worrying about my creaking bed, or that another alien might
come after me, it was already morning.

“At least you survived day one. Think you can
handle day two?" I rolled over to see Jen already fully dressed and
staring down at me.

I scrambled to grab my glasses off the
nightstand, hoping I didn’t sleep in and make myself late for my
second day. I squinted until the red lights of the digital clock
became clear.

I groaned. “Jen, do you know that it’s only
six?"

She smiled, way too perky for that early in
the morning. “I know and while you’ve been sleeping I’ve already
checked out cultures in the lab, gone for a run, and showered." She
beamed again. “Now get up so we can go to breakfast before you wake
up someone much less pleasant than me.”

She threw off my blankets, making me realize
how cold the room was as I shivered in my t-shirt and shorts.

“You better hop in the shower before you
freeze,” she sang as she headed toward her dresser.

I sat up on the bed, running my fingers
through my hair that had become a big rat's nest in the middle of
the night. “Where’s Riley?”

“She’s still in bed, but I’m definitely not
going to wake a sleeping beast." She covered her mouth to stifle
her giggle.

I peered over to the other side of the room
to see Riley propped up on three large pillows with a sleep mask
over her face and giant headphones covering her ears. She looked
like her own little science experiment. I was sure perky Jen would
do any morning over an overly grumpy Riley. I stumbled out of bed
and got ready in record time, hoping not to wake up Riley, but she
didn’t even move from her pillow throne.

“Are you finally ready, Alex?" Jen put her
hands on her hips, standing in the doorway to the bathroom just as
I finished putting my hair into a ponytail.

“Yes, ma’am," I said, doing a small curtsey
in front of her.

“Ha-ha, very funny.”

We walked into the cafeteria where it
definitely wasn’t the clustered mess from the day before. Most of
the humans and aliens were like me and not crazy morning people
like Jen. The few aliens who actually woke up for breakfast
shuffled to their seats, not looking up from their morning bowl of
blue gelatin, or whatever it was they were eating.

“I’ll meet you in line. I’m just going to
talk to a few people from the lab. Be right back." Jen patted my
back before running over to a table full of frog-like aliens,
mumbling over papers that were scattered in front of them

I shook my head before grabbing my tray and
finding my place in line. My eyes trailed over the assortment of
different colored gunk in large bowls across the buffet until I
spotted something familiar.

“Yeah, cereal!" I grinned, scooting toward
the end of the line.

“You know you’ve had a head injury when you
start talking to yourself in the breakfast line.” I looked over to
see Ace staring down at me.

“Oh." I tried to regain my composure, but
could feel my face flush from getting caught talking to myself by
Ace. “I was just excited to see—"

He held up his hands. “Hey, no harm done,
just giving you a hard time."

He grabbed a bowl of the blue gelatin-like
substance. “How are you feeling today anyway? Are you going to be
able to work after almost being maimed by a tentacle?”

“I think I can manage.” I scooped some cereal
into a bowl, waiting for Ace to say something, but he just stood
there, shuffling back and forth.

I stopped scooping and looked up at him. He
had a stare that made every bone in my body turn to slush. I didn’t
know if he was playing some kind of an alien mind trick on me, or
what the sensation was that I felt every time I could feel his eyes
on me.

“There you are." I was pushed out of my
trance by a bump from Gavin on my shoulder. “Jen said you were in
line." He didn’t even look at me, just kept his eyes on Ace.

“I’ll see you at work,” Ace muttered as he
headed toward his table. I didn't even get to thank him for saving
my life, twice, but I didn't know how one would even approach
something like that. It wasn't like every girl encountered her
knight in shining armor on a regular basis, or knight in a shiny
silver jump suit.

Gavin shook his head as I poured milk on my
cereal. “Can you believe that guy?”

“Believe what?" I cocked my head as we went
toward our table, trays in hand.

“The way he looks at you." Gavin gave a
sideways glance over his shoulder before sitting across from Jen
and next to me. “It’s as if he thinks he's your personal superhero
and may have to run to your rescue at any second.”

I snorted, swirling my spoon in my cereal,
concentrating on the round flakes like they were the most
interesting thing in the world. “He does not.”

Justin laughed from across the table. “Dude
you’re right, he totally does.”

I looked up, feeling the temperature rise in
my face. “You guys are just making it up to embarrass me.”

“You wanna bet?" Gavin leaned in closer. “I
bet if you look over at his table right now, he will be gawking at
you with those big Bush Baby eyes.”

“Aw c’mon Gavin, leave the girl alone. You're
just jealous that some Caltian is checking her out,” Malcolm
joked.

“I am not jealous of that
alien
."
Gavin shuddered.

He scooted closer to me. I couldn't believe
that I was so attracted to him the first day and now he was just
acting like a first rate a-hole. “Maybe Alex just doesn’t want some
alien guy creeping her out, right, Alex?”

He stared down at me with pleading eyes, a
tight-lipped smile forming on his face.

I looked up to meet his eyes, but not before
I caught a glance to see that Gavin was right and Ace was staring
right at me.

“Do all aliens feel that they need to use
dating websites?" I squinted at the screen of an alien that listed
himself as a ‘sensitive man who enjoys long walks on the beach and
fine French cuisine.’ No red flags or anything that would say he
was from another planet, or that he was looking to destroy
Earth.

“Most aliens usually don’t go out of their
way to try and date humans, but they can use these sites to find
other aliens around them,” Ace commented, not looking away from his
computer screen. His stature was stiff and perfectly straight, his
face expressionless like a statue, and his eyes didn't waver from
the screen.

You would think that after saving my life,
twice, that he would have started to warm up to me, but he was just
as distant as ever. It only got worse after Gavin pointed out that
Ace was always watching out for me like my protector. It didn't
make any sense how he acted so uncomfortable when he was near me,
but still kept his eyes carefully locked on me whenever we were in
a crowded room. Sometimes Ace acted like it was killing him to be
in the same room as me the way he groaned or just shook his head
whenever I asked a question.

“Why wouldn’t an alien go out of his way to
date a human?”

He sighed as I waited for an answer, but
never really answered my question. That had become his habit; I'd
ask a question, and he would act like I had just said the stupidest
thing in the world, and then ignore me. I stared at him, hoping to
at least get him to have some sort of a conversation with me
instead of this awkward silence.