Page 46 of Starry Skies, Stolen Kisses, and My Best Friend's Brother

“I know about the book club and the naughty books you and Abi read.”

Her face flushes.“I won’t even ask how you know that, but Abi and I are adults.”

“You’ve been reading those books since you were fifteen.”I try to keep the disapproval out of my voice.More than once I’ve thought about confronting Abi about it.

“And they’ve served us well.”

“None of that is realistic.”I read a few of the romance novels, just to see what Abi’s reading, but mostly I stick to thrillers and sci-fi.

A grin forms on her face, and she dissolves into giggles.Then she pulls out her phone and shakes her head.“Might as well start with the books.”

She shifts back over so she’s not looking at me, but curls up against me so we can both see her phone.She opens up her Kindle app, and her finger hovers over a folder titled “Education.”

She spins to face me, her face inches from mine.“You have to promise me that what I’m about to tell you remains a secret.With the exception of a few people like me, no one else knows this.Not Abi, not my dad, not anyone.”

I desperately want to kiss those lips, but I have a feeling this is too important.Instead, I settle for kissing her forehead.“I promise.”

She bites her bottom lip.“And you also have to promise not to make fun of me.”

“I can’t promise that.”I raise my brows at her.She’s really got me intrigued now.

“Seth.”

I’ve never noticed before how much I enjoy hearing my name come out of her mouth.“Okay, fine, I promise.”

She spins back around, and her finger hovers over the folder again.“It’s only named this so that if Abi got ahold of my phone, I know she’d never open that folder because she’d think it was for school.”

This has to be big if she hasn’t even told Abi.“You know, the suspense is killing me.”

She finally presses on the folder, and the screen is filled with book covers with blue, green, and purple man chests.

“The colors are a bit unusual.”I take her phone and scroll through the books.The titles all have one thing in common.“They’re all about aliens.”

“Yes,” she squeaks.

“I still don’t see how that’s different from the unicorn romance phase you went through.”

She groans.“Those were awful, but Abi loved them.”

“I did not want to know that.”

She closes the folder and opens another one titled work.The books in this folder are more recognizable.Hard-core sci-fi novels.I’ve read a fair few, but most of these seem to be centered on alien life as well.

“You like aliens?”I ask, still a little confused.

“I’m obsessed with aliens, and I have a very active imagination.That giant satellite dish is visible from my bedroom window.Anyway, when my dad realized Mom wasn’t coming back, he sat me down and had a long talk with me about how she felt stuck in this small town, and she couldn’t take it anymore, and so she left.I always thought she’d keep in touch and have me come visit her and stuff, but to this day, no one knows where she went.So I sat in my window and imagined that she’d been abducted by aliens because no mom would just leave her child like she left me.For a long time that kept me going.”

She takes a couple of deep breaths, and I don’t say anything.I want her to feel safe continuing.I squeeze her hands, and she gives me a small smile.I wish the search I did for her mom had given me more conclusive answers.

“I read everything I could find on alien life forms.When Abi found out about it, she made fun of me.We were only ten.So I buried it.And I’m glad I did too.In sixth grade, during our annual tour of Green Bank, there was a SETI seminar going on, and I snuck into it.There, I met the lead scientist.He and I talked for nearly an hour before my teacher found me and said we had to go back to school.He gave me his card with his email address, and we kept in touch.Dad worked a lot, so I would sometimes ride my bike over to Green Bank and just sit in the room with the SETI scientists while they worked.They’d give me odd jobs to do, and I learned a lot.”

She pauses, and I don’t know what to say.This is a whole side of her that I didn’t know about.I find her brain dead sexy.As if I needed another reason to love her.

“I have no idea why you might think I’d make fun of you for this.”

“Aliens, Seth,aliens.”Her voice is laced with irritation.

“Sounds more like astrophysics to me.”

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