Page 68 of Alien Wants A Wife

Harlee

“Have you watched many of the previous LOVE GALAXY seasons?” I ask, choosing a dinner conversation I’m hoping is safe territory and not going to wrench open another discussion of why I can’t commit to staying.

“There are seventy-five seasons,” he answers, between bites. “Ours will be the seventy-sixth.”

“Seventy-sixth!” My voice pitches high, and I accidentally drop my cutlery. I dive under the table to retrieve it, and when I return to my chair I notice Roan has shifted even closer. The legs of our chairs are touching, and when I sit back down, one of my thighs is pressed against one of his. “Have you watched them all?” Apparently, there are a lot of lonely aliens in the universe.

Roan chuckles. “No. Only the first two dozen seasons.”

“And then you decided to apply? They must have made a good impression on you.” I got the feeling this is the first season Chloe has worked on, considering she called herself the ‘Human expert’ and there haven’t been Human contestants on the show before.

I wonder if Mr. Smith has been the director for all seventy-six seasons, or if he’s also a relative newbie. Imagine trying to one up yourself seventy-six times. No wonder he’s got an air of desperation about him. No wonder he resorted to kidnapping three contestants.

“Do many Ril’os apply?”

“Not Ril’os. When I first saw LOVE GALAXY, it felt almost too good to be true…” There’s a pause, as if we’re both thinking the same thing—that LOVE GALAXY most certainly was too good to be true.

That’s the magic of show business: the audience only ever sees what the director wants them to. All the behind-the-scenes crap of Mr. Smith threatening not to take us home if we don’t follow his orders is hardly going to make the final cut—or even the blooper reel.

It goes to show how isolated from the rest of the universe Roan and his brothers are that they saw LOVE GALAXY and believed it to be real.

At least Briar, Lydia and I knew when we were signing up that actually finding true love was going to be the last thing on the crew’s agenda. Nobody who watches reality TV back on Earth thinks it’s actually reality; we all know the magic good editing can create.

Finished eating, I turn in my chair to more fully face Roan, pressing my knees to my chest and tucking my toes under Roan’s thigh, using him like a blanket.

He glances down, clearly surprised by my chilly touch. I snuggle closer, loving how he’s always several degrees warmer than me. He’s my own personal heater.

The amenities on Ril II might be lacking, but I’m not short on luxuries.

“…then I met you,” Roan continues, “and it felt exactly as if LOVE GALAXY had read my mind and given me everything I ever wanted.”

It takes a second for me to realize he’s continuing his paused sentence from a minute ago, and I feel my heart swell.

“It does feel a bit like we’ve beaten the odds,” I agree. “Despiteeverything”—I emphasize ‘everything’ in the hopes Roan knows I meaneverything LOVE GALAXY has tortured us with—“we’re connecting.”

He leans closer. Maybe he’s going to kiss me again. Until…

… something on the table rustles.

“What—?” Hunting through the tablecloth, Roan finds the culprit, still tucked in the pocket of my cocktail dress. It’s the brochure, edges crumbled.

“Oh, I’d forgotten about that. Chloe gave it to me.”

“These are words.” Roan runs a finger over the title,What To Do When You Find Out Aliens Are Real,and I read it aloud. Clearly, his translator is the same as mine and can’t decipher written language.

He doesn’t need a translator for the accompanying cartoon illustrations, though, which look like something straight out of an eighties’ comic book, with the green aliens short and stocky with eyeballs on the tips of their fingers.

“Step 1: Don’t panic.”

The Human in the first illustration is holding both hands to her cheeks as she stares at the alien. Above them is the classic UFO from which extends a gravity beam. Subtle it is not.

“And this one?” he asks.

“Step 2: Watch for signs of aggression.”

“You were frightened?”

“Not of you,” I tell him truthfully.

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