Page 40 of Loved By the Alien King
“Ahhh, it’s Porter and the Sleeping Beauty Lioness twins who got the least amount of votes,” Pete said with a roll of his eyes. “Pack your bags and get out.”
“Wait,bothof us?” one of the twins screeched.
“You’re a package deal. I don’t make the rules. Now, hit the road. So sorry to see you go.” He wiggled his fingers at them in a mockery of a wave. “Byyyyyyyyye.”
The other twin shot up out of her seat and posted her hands on her hips. “Rude, Pete.”
“Yeah, well, rude is putting pepper and jalapenos on the inside of my pillow case last night, but you don’t see me complaining, do you?” Pete fired back. “And yes, I know it was you because I found fur ballsallover my bed. Literal fur balls that came out of your mouths. Who even does that? Is that the equivalent of pulling my pigtails?”
He flipped his head and smoothed his imaginary pigtails while popping his hip out dramatically.
Everyone laughed. Even Maxx. God, Pete was good at this.
“You tried to kill us!” one twin shouted.
They looked so much alike with their matching spots and long, furry tails that even if I did know their names, I wouldn’t know which was which.
He jerked his bare shoulders in a cavalier shrug. “You both stayed asleep while tied to your chairs. You never even made it to the Breakout Dungeon.”
“I’ll sue,” the other twin yelled. “I’ll sue everyone on this show.Everyone. You hear me? Everyone!”
Crewmembers came to escort them all off the stage.
“Yeah, we hear you, Miss I Signed a Contract Saying I Wouldn’t Sue. We hear you loud and clear.” Pete saluted them while they squabbled their way down the steps.
It was then that I happened to glance down at the empty seat next to me and found a written script on a small holographic viewscreen of everything that had just transpired, word for word, action for action, beat for beat.
I laughed and shook my head at how absolutely bonkers this show was, and then with the subtlest, delicatest of coughs, I flipped the viewscreen to the stage floor so it landed underneath the hoverchairs facedown.
No one noticed except Pete who shot me a secret smile.
“Now that that’s over with,” he said with a flourish of his hands, “I can now tell you the news that you’ve all been waiting for.”
“That Elvis 6.0 is alive?” Nacket asked, all seriousness.
Pete slid her a confused look. “Elvis 6.0isalive.”
Nacket threw up her tentacles in disbelief. “Since when?”
“Since 108 years, four months, and six days ago,” Bling said smoothly, like all of that just happened to be on the tip of her brain. “Keep up.”
“Damn, that’s hot,” Miekil said to her, reforming himself out of his drool puddle. “Is it weird that I want to lick your brain?”
Bling giggled and turned a lovely shade of pink. “That comes later, Miekil.”
Oh my god, these two. They were so perfect for each other.
“Can I get back to my big surprise, please?” Pete asked, eyeing us all with impatience. “Now, you’re going to want to stand up for this and arrange yourselves in a circle.”
The nine of us did, Maxx and I gravitating toward each other and joining hands, both of us with giant grins on our faces because we got to be close to each other once again.
Oh my god,ustwo. We were so perfect for each other that it almost hurt my heart with how much he filled it.
“I missed you,” I whispered to him.
He traced my lips so tenderly with his fingertips that they ached for him. “I missed you too.”
“CREW!” Pete shouted. “My presents!”
