Three

I have very little to wear on a date with a guy who wants to marry me once I spend time with him so I can make a better decision. I have nothing to wear on a date with a guy who may or may not be human. What does one pair with an alien bodyguard? Chain mail?

For whatever reason, this makes me giggle and Clementine smiles as she discards yet another dress from my closet. She came by to provide moral support, drive me to the restaurant and generally play the part of the friend I desperately need but didn’t know how to ask for. Eventually I’ll get the hang of how this kind of close friendship works.

“I like the sound of you laughing,” Clem says. “I do not like the contents of your closet.”

“I told you. I left behind almost all of what I owned when I bailed on Seattle.” And Malcolm. Who had bought most of the outfits in my closet or at least picked them out. I had zero intention of ever putting anything on my body again that had netted his seal of approval. “I’m starting fresh. Date clothes did not make it to the top of my must-buy list.”

Clem scowls. “Which is a crying shame. You’re a gorgeous woman. Men must ask you out all the time.”

I shake my head. “I would have to speak to a man in order to be asked out. Besides, it’s only been a few weeks. I’m fine with being by myself for a while until I’m a bit more steady.”

Maybe one day, I’d be healed enough to try for something more. I want to believe that’s going to happen.

Wrinkling my nose at the black turtleneck Clem pulls from the back of my closet, I push it aside and grab a plaid skirt that I forgot I took with me. I always liked the pleats but Malcolm didn’t. He’d said it looked like something from a Catholic school catalog.

That’s the one. I slip it on and heave a sigh of relief that it still fits. Must be something like two years since I’ve worn it. Clem smiles her approval.

“Is that why you’re so hesitant about Ajax?” she asks once I’m dressed. “Because you’re thinking about keeping your options open?”

“Options? As in the hordes of other men out there who are not asking me out and who I have no desire to speak to. Yeah, that’s the reason.”

She gives me a look. “Then I’m not sure I get it. He’s really great. I like him.”

“I’m going on the date, aren’t I?”

Probably I shouldn’t even do that. I mean, what am I doing here—thinking of marrying a guy I just met whose origins are in question? On the flip side, if he was just a guy I met at the grocery store, I’d never even look twice at him. It’s only because Malcolm’s messages have me looking over my shoulder that I’m even considering any of this.

I sit heavily on the bed as the enormity of the thing called life overwhelms me.

Is this where Malcolm has driven me to? A place where my new normal is fraught with nerves, hesitation and suspicion? Even fear? I don’t want to be who I’ve become.

The only way to get better is to get better. I can’t do that sitting around in this new apartment, too scared to live my life. What’s wrong with liking a new man? His bodyguard potential is only one aspect of what’s going on here. I’m allowed to treat this like an actual date with a nice guy who has a killer body and an interesting accent.

I stand.

“Come on,” I tell Clem. This is me being brave. “Let’s go to dinner.”

Clem drives and we meet Ares and Ajax at the restaurant, a minor detail that isn’t so minor to me. I have no way of knowing how I might react to riding in the car with a man—alien—whatever next to me. Malcolm gifted me with such weird triggers and I appreciate that everyone is going out of their way to make me comfortable without making a big deal out of it. I’m doing okay and that’s enough for now.

Our dates are waiting for us outside the steak house and I am struck again at how otherworldly they both are. It’s not just their size, which is certainly outside the norm. They draw the eye as if there’s something magnetic inside them. Clem and I cross the parking lot to join them and suddenly I’m hit with the full force of Ajax’s presence. It overwhelms me but as I peer up at him, he smiles and my insides go liquid. In a good way. I have never once felt threatened by him.

That’s enough out of the norm that I start to relax.

That’s when he carefully hands me a bouquet of flowers that makes my eyes sting with unshed tears. “Thank you.”

Ajax says something in his native language and then grinds out, “Welcome.”

The flowers go a long way. A long way. I can’t remember the last time I got flowers from a man who was interested in me. I’m being courted and I don’t hate it.

We go inside to dinner, and Ajax is quiet but attentive, drinking in the atmosphere and intently studying how Ares and Clem interact. Ajax and I have a couple of painful exchanges of thoughts that only get harder to manage as we lose our interpreter to his wife. Clem and Ares are achingly sweet with each other, murmuring and laughing with heads bent close together.

I want that. Despite everything, somehow Malcolm was never able to kill my desire for a relationship, and the longing that unfurls in my chest can’t be explained away as anything other than mildly jealousy. Sure I’m happy for them both. But that doesn’t stop me from wishing I had the ability to be that free to trust, to love.

I catch Ajax openly watching me. My lips curve into a smile automatically—yes, automatically. He pulls it out of me just by virtue of being near him, which is nice. Having never met a killing machine before, I can’t say for sure what I was expecting, but a man who makes me smile is not it. Does he get fierce only if threatened?

“How do you like Olympia?” I ask him. It’s not for everyone. Rainy and often cold. Depressing sometimes unless you enjoy being inside, which I do.

“Good,” he answers immediately.

I sense being agreeable is his default. I’m not sure yet if that’s a function of his desire to stay hidden here in the US or because that’s his real personality.

“Do you like the water?”

“Water good,” he says with a nod. “Pretty.”

That’s one thing we have in common. I like the water too, but not to swim in. Only to look at. Maybe there are some other areas where we can connect.

“Do you like to watch TV? Movies?” He cocks his head, his confusion evident and I try to think of a way to explain, shaping my hands around an imaginary box. “You know. The moving pictures on the screen. With a story and people.”

“Ajax has not watched much TV,” Ares throws in helpfully. “You may choose to introduce him to it as part of his acclimation process.”

That actually works for me. We can start out with HGTV instead of football and I might have a shot at a housemate who isn’t a vegetable from September until the Super Bowl. The conversation flags then as I run out of small talk. Despite having agreed to this date so I can get to know him, it’s been slow going thus far. Regardless, I’m not sorry I came.

It’s only when the meal arrives that it becomes painfully obvious that he is not very familiar with using silverware. My heart twists again as he struggles to spear the steak. The fork keeps falling out of his hand, largely because he doesn’t seem to know how to brace it between his thumb and forefinger.

Who doesn’t know how to use utensils?

“Watch me,” I murmur after his third growl of frustration, then I demonstrate how to hold the knife and fork. “See, you have to grip it harder.”

His long, lovely lashes shutter over his eyes for a beat and then he does as I’ve shown him. But as his fingers firmly close around the fork, it bends right before my eyes until the two halves are almost touching each other. His mouth flattens into a thin line and he hides the fork under a napkin.

“Ajax has trouble controlling his strength on occasion,” Ares explains in the sudden silence and I glance at him. “He is still learning how to acclimate to Earth. It will take time.”

The evidence of my date’s claim to be from another world is no longer visible but it’s too late. I’ve already seen it. Of all things, the way he easily bent a piece of metal should scare me the most, but I’m still struggling with the sudden and intense desire to give him a hug. He looks miserable, but he’s trying to hide it by schooling his expression—and failing. I’m left wondering how he eats if he can’t pick up a fork without destroying it.

Selfishly, I’m a little giddy at the thought of what he could do to Malcolm. I mean, I would have been happy just to see Ajax intimidate him without saying a word. But the anticipation of how easily my new friend could curl my ex into a pretzel gives me warm fuzzies. Maybe I’m not supposed to feel that way about another human but I don’t care.

“Can I help you?” I ask Ajax with a nod toward his meal and he shoots me a grateful smile.

Wow is he a gorgeous man. I shoot him surreptitious glances from corner of my eye as I cut his meat for him. He’s free with those smiles and they transform him from ethereally beautiful into something more earthly. Ajax is not like other men in more ways than one.

I have to concede that there’s a possibility what I’m being told about the origins of the males at this table is true. And if there’s a possibility, it’s almost a certainty, because why would someone present it as a possibility otherwise?

Clem is married to an alien. I roll it around in my head until it almost seems like I can accept it, though that means I have to accept that my own suitor is one too. I feel like this should freak me out more, but Ajax spears a piece of meat I just cut for him and chews it with appreciation, his dark eyes trained on mine as if I’m the best show in town.

I like him despite the fact that I’ve exchanged less than a dozen sentences with the man—alien—do I call him that? To his face? Ugh, it’s hard enough to date with all the ambiguity over statuses and exclusivity and learning each other’s preferences. Now I have to figure out my companion’s nouns too.

After dinner, Ajax spits out a rapid sentence in his native language in Ares’s direction, who patiently translates for me. “Ajaxasaurvyn would like to walk with you along the water, if you are agreeable.”

Ajaxa-what? “Is that your full name?”

He nods and gestures with his super strong hand toward the path along the waterfront, just past the parking lot of the restaurant. I’m not afraid to be alone with him. But I am completely unsure how to navigate. Will he try to kiss me? Will I let him? If nothing else, it’s an opportunity to see if we can interact without help.

Clem shooes me along. “We’ll walk too. Meet me back at the car in thirty or forty five minutes. Text me if that changes.”

With no excuses and a burning desire to get to know my date a little better without an audience, I skirt him to follow the concrete path that leads to the wharf. He strolls along beside me and eventually steers me toward the pier overlooking the water. It’s open to the public so it’s easy enough to tread the boards to the end where the black water quietly laps at the wooden beams disappearing into the deep.

“Brooklyn,” he rumbles and I turn to him, leaning on the metal railing. Not close, but not far away either.

Curiously, I contemplate him, wondering how I’ll react if he tries to touch me. This is the perfect atmosphere to get a little cozier by slipping an arm around my waist and drawing me near in anticipation of a kiss.

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t even try to hold my hand. Which is good. I’m really not ready for anything more than conversation and I’m grateful he realizes this.

“Stay Olympia,” he says carefully, enunciating each syllable. “You help.”

Well. I guess we’re going to get right to it. “You can only stay if we get married. Is that what you want?”

He nods, his dark eyes glowing in the single dock light that shines down on us. “You want?”

I can’t say it’s my fondest desire to bond myself to anyone through holy matrimony, but I don’t actually think of it as a real marriage. I can’t think of it like that. It’s a contract, one that we’re both entering into in order to get something. I feel like I need to clarify this. “You understand it’s not a real marriage, right?”

Ajax cocks his head, confusion flitting through his gaze and I suddenly realize I have no idea if marriage is a concept on his world, nor whether it follows conventional Earth customs. I know nothing about his world other than he fled it because he didn’t want to be a super soldier for his government any longer.

I sigh. I guess I’m sold then. Ajax is an alien. An alien.

Will I be expected to perform some kind of weird alien mating ritual? Granted, Clem married one and she doesn’t seem to be sprouting any extra tentacles or anything. But still. I’m not on board for anything other than tit for tat at this point and not solely because I’m not sure what he is. I wouldn’t be okay with a real marriage even if he came from Earth, though I still recognize that if he did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

I try again. “Marriage. It would be in name only. No kissing. No touching. No…sharing a bed. No affection. You’d be like my employee.”

His dark eyes grow a decided sheen but the scant bit of light doesn’t provide me many clues about the reason behind it. “Job. No marriage.”

“Well, I mean, the marriage part will still happen. It just won’t be traditional. Like Ares and Clem.”

All at once, I wonder if they had a similar arrangement to the one Charmaine laid out for me. They must have. Clem married Ares so he could stay in America. Had they met each other first, maybe gone on a date like this one? Did Clem give Ares a similar speech and he ignored it, determined to win her heart? They had to have segued into the lovey-dovey marriage they seem to have now at some point.

He finally nods. “No kiss. Job.”

“That’s right.”

Good, he gets it. And seems okay with it. That’s a relief. Probably that means no more flowers and I shouldn’t want that anyway. It confuses things and the less confusion, the better. The less affected I am by his smiles and deep, dark gaze, the better. At least that’s what I try to tell myself as something that feels a lot like disappointment winds through me.

I can’t have it both ways. And gaining a bodyguard who will protect me from my ex in exchange for helping him stay in America is the bravest I can be right now. If Ajax is okay with that, then I guess I’m in.