A week until the release of How to Marry an Alien! Squee! Since so many people have picked up a copy of the first two books with the 99 cents sale, I decided to be generous and post the first chapter of How to Marry an Alien! As Sadie Saxton would say, "Your Welcome."
There are two days that every girl looks forward to: her
wedding day and the day she finally gets out of high school.
I had been waiting for graduation day ever since I first set
foot at Winnebago High School and after the past year I had with evil aliens
trying to kill me and controlling my classmates, it was about time.
“I am so proud of you, Alex,” mom gushed. “You’re a high
school graduate!” She was always the drama queen. Like a high school diploma
was that big of a deal anymore.
“You did great, kiddo.” Brian, my stepdad, patted me on the
back.
The late spring sun shone down on us in the parking lot, and
I could already see the perspiration bead on his big, bald head. I never
remembered it being so hot in May, but I chalked the weather changes up to
global warming and hoped I didn't have a big wet spot on my gown from my sweaty
back.
I still couldn’t get over the awkwardness of having my entire
family in the gym, watching me walk down and get my diploma. I mean my ENTIRE
family. My mom and her parents where there. It was always awkward having
grandpa around since he believed that he knew my boyfriend, Ace, from
somewhere. Okay, so my boyfriend may or may not have flown with him during
World War II, but thank goodness grandpa was old enough that I could just say
he was senile. Brian and his parents came along, of course, and even though I
thought they were a little off their rocker, they always gave good Christmas
gifts and I couldn't exclude them. Elijah, my little brother, loved my
step-grandfather. In fact, he sat next to him the entire time during the
graduation and told him every detail of the bugs that gathered on the back
window. Then there was my dad and his parents. They all sat just a row above
mom and Brian's family with the same Italian glare pasted on their faces. This
blended family thing never got easier.
Mom, her parents, and Brian and his parents stood in a small
circle in the parking lot outside the gym doors and dad and his family stood at
least twenty feet away. I even think my nona called my mom something mean in
Italian under her breath. Dad rarely saw my nona and nanu anymore since he was
busy working in an alien operations center, but every time they came in from
Chicago they acted like it had only been a few minutes since they last spoke
and went back to talking about the same story they had the last time they were
there. The story was always about food. I never knew where it was going, but
they still kept going on about it.
At least Ace was there to pick me up and twirl me around as
if I were lighter than air. My black gown swished around me. Having my alien
there was enough to make me forget about my fighting family and just enjoy the
fact that I was finally out of high school and would soon be on my way to
Northern Arizona University.
“What was that for?” I looked up at him once he sat me down.
He had a giant grin spread across his face. There was
absolutely nothing that I didn’t love about his smile or the way that he could
just pick me up so effortlessly. In his baby blue sweater and beige trousers,
he looked more like a model than my alien boyfriend, which was a good thing if
he was going to keep his identity as an alien hidden.
“Can’t I just enjoy this moment with my favorite
valedictorian?”
I rolled my eyes, pulling the itchy square cap off my head
and smoothing out my hair. “Oh please. I’ve done way cooler things than be
valedictorian.”
“Trying to show off for me, now?” He raised his eyebrows and
pulled up the sleeves of his sweater ever so slightly.
Even though the temperature was probably approaching the
eighties, Ace still had to wear long sleeves no matter how hot it was. He
needed something to cover his temperature control suit, so he was better off looking
like the weird guy in long sleeves than the guy in the silver jumpsuit.
“Yeah, it’s kind of my thing. I’m a show off.” I bounced on
the balls of my feet. Mom might have made me wear a dress, but there was no way
I was wearing heels for the occasion. Last time I wore heels, I was attacked by
an evil alien trying to kill me and that would hopefully never happen again.
Hopefully.
“Well I have something to show off for you.” He reached out
for my hand. I took it and arched a brow, looking behind us as my family just
watched from their respective sides.
“What is going on?” I asked.
“You’ll see.” He pulled me through the parking lot, pushing
past the groups of people huddled together.
My classmates were lined up all over, taking pictures with
their friends in their gowns or just screaming in general. God, was I happy to
be getting out of that place. The only pseudo friends I had at the school were
the ones that only liked me because they were under the influence of an evil
alien. Ugh, why did I always just attract evil aliens and not enough human
friends? First Ace's mom, the queen of Calta, came after me and then some
psycho ex-girlfriend. It was no wonder that dad kept sending me pepper spray
guns for holidays.
Ace stopped next to an all-black SUV with tinted windows and
rims that probably cost more than my entire car. I swore it looked like the
same vehicles the president's secret service men drove in. I hoped there wasn't
some sort of secret Circe mission I would have to go on and explain it to my
mom.
“Uh, why are we stopping here?” I asked.
Ace just smiled and pulled out a set of keys from his
pocket, pressing a button and unlocking the doors of the shiny car.
“No freaking way! This is your car?” I looked from Ace to
the car and back to Ace.
“No.” He took a step closer, removed his hand from mine, and
dropped the keys in my palm. “It is actually your car.”
“WHAT?”
“Just a little graduation gift.” He smiled as I took another
step toward the car.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t let you drive that
thing you call ‘The Pox’ to Arizona.”
I opened the door to be greeted by the new car smell. Not
just new car smell, but top-of-the-line new car smell. The interior was decked
out in plush leather with all the bells and whistles: navigation system, heated
seats, DVD player, and a blue box sitting on the passenger seat? That couldn’t
have been included.
“What is this?” I picked up the box and held it in my palm
as if it might burn me.
Ace took the box and got down on one knee in front of me. I
realized that my family were only standing a few feet away. Somehow in all my
excitement, I didn't realize they came over. I looked past my mom's cheesy
smile and also saw that half the town was looking at us. I could already feel
the heat creeping up my neck and looked back at Ace.
He opened the box and a silver ring with a giant diamond the
size of a cheese ball looked back at me. “I figure we should do this the right
way,” he said with the smile never leaving his face. “So, Alexandra Bianchi,
will you do me the honor of marrying me?”
I was speechless. We agreed in front of the alien world that
we would someday get married, but I wasn’t expecting a human proposal. I looked
around at everyone’s eyes on us. Even stupid Gemma and her rugby cronies stood
with their mouths wide open. Then I looked down at the only person that really
mattered, my alien. After the events of the past year, there was no one else I
wanted to be kneeling in front of me.
I felt the tears well up in my eyes. Not tears of sadness or
of pain, but of pure happiness. I swooped a finger underneath my eye and hoped
the pound of mascara on my eyelashes didn't all drip down my face.
“So is that a yes?” He arched his eyebrows.
I let my hands lay on either side of his statuesque face.
His body was as cold as ice and even with his eyes dark and calculating, the
way he looked at me made every single hair on my arms stand up and made me shiver
in all the right places.
“It is a definite yes.”
