JAY HAD BEEN MESSING WITH my ringtone settings while I’d been at his place yesterday. He’d reset my ringer to The X-Files theme song in an attempt to lighten the mood over my predicament with Vair.
My phone was ringing in my purse now. Somewhere.
“Ah … that’s my purse,” I said, setting my empty glass onto the floating coffee table next to me. “I mean my phone … in my purse. May I have it? I think I hear my phone ringing.”
I’d had my phone inside my tiny evening bag when I’d gone to Vair’s club. Tauce had stashed it inside of a hidden compartment within the upstairs bar last night, and I hadn’t even thought to bring it downstairs with me in my excitement when we’d left for the basement.
“Of course.” He stood, moving with that catlike grace of his from the room. My phone had stopped ringing by the time he returned and handed the purse to me.
My first shock in retrieving my phone from my bag was in seeing that it was well after 11 a.m.
“Can it really be after eleven?” I protested, more to myself than to Vair. “I can’t believe how late I overslept.”
“You didn’t fall asleep until almost four in the morning. You could use a few more hours of rest still.”
“I’m fine. How much sleep did you get?” I countered defensively, sounding like an ornery child. Feeling like a scolded child. “You couldn’t have gotten much more than I did.”
“I slept three hours. Krinar don’t require the same amount of sleep as humans.”
They didn’t? Oh. Well, that was convenient for them. Humans probably would have made more advances as a species too if we didn’t need to sleep so much.
I stood and walked to the windows, tired of feeling Vair’s eyes staring down on me. I needed space to think.
I began to pace back and forth as I flipped through my recent phone activity. There were two missed calls from Jay, twenty-nine from my parents, and eight new voice mail messages.
Fuck. It was Sunday. I’d told my parents that I would call them, and I always called them before 10 a.m. on Sundays. They’d probably called the NYPD, FBI, and National Guard by now. I’d long considered it a personal blessing that barring evidence of violence or unusual circumstances, an individual had to be missing for twenty-four hours before they could legally be considered a missing person. Regardless of how many times my mother had been told this by law enforcement personnel, she persisted in trying to report me as a missing person whenever I failed to check in with her as scheduled.
There was a text from Jay saying to disregard his voicemail because he’d already spoken with Vair, which meant that the other seven voicemails were from my mom.
My eyes rolled. I couldn’t decide whether it was over my mother’s seven voicemails or the fact that Jay had been in touch with Vair already today while I’d been sleeping.
As I was concocting a plausible explanation (lie) in my head that I could tell my parents for why I hadn’t called them or answered my phone for hours, The X-Files theme song sounded again.
Shit. It was my mother. I didn’t want to take it with Vair listening in, but I knew she would just keep calling and freaking out if I didn’t. And start calling everyone she knew in NYC who knew me to organize a search and rescue party.
“Hey, Ma.”
“Amy, is that you?” Her hysterical voice came through the connection at such high volume I jerked the phone from my ear.
“Yeah, Mom, who else would it be?”
“It’s almost eleven-thirty,” she shrieked. “Where have you been?”
“Oh, hey, sorry I missed your call. I ah … went to an early morning hot yoga class. It was great, but super-intense. And then … I was so tired afterward I crashed. I didn’t even hear my phone ringing until I woke up just now.”
I rationalized there was a partial truth in there. But I knew I sounded like a compulsive liar. I snuck a peek at Vair. His expression was stubbornly blank as he watched my pacing, his forefinger rubbing absently back and forth across his full bottom lip.
“Hot yoga?” My mom sounded confused on the other end of the line. Or horrified—I couldn’t quite tell which as she repeated herself. “Hot yoga? You’ve been doing hot yoga?”
“Yeah, hot yoga. It’s my new thing. Hey, so it’s not a good time right now. I’ve got all these errands I’m behind on and that article I told you about that’s due Tuesday. I’ll call you guys later tonight, okay?”
“Amy, do you know how many people have died doing hot yoga? Didn’t you read the articles I sent you about that Bikram guru who was sentenced to prison?”
Oh, geez. Why hadn’t I fabricated a story about a community gardening project or something? I heard her yelling for my dad in the background. I couldn’t do this right now.
“I’ve got to hang up now, Ma. I’ll call you later.” I disconnected the call and then powered my phone off. “What?” I turned to face him. His expression was still annoyingly blank.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“But you’re judging.”
“If you say so, love.”
“You don’t understand. You don’t know my parents, okay? Sometimes it’s better to tell a white lie with them.” Why was I explaining myself? I didn’t owe him an explanation.
He laughed. “On the contrary. I have a very good understanding of them. I must confess your mother terrifies me, actually.”
“Ha! Right.” The idea of Vair being terrified of my mom was comical.
“I mean it. Those emails she constantly sends you …” He shook his head, one brow arched high. “It’s … disturbing. Even for human behavior.”
My breath caught. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. He’d accessed my personal email account? Jesus, why was I even surprised? The man—alien—had videotaped me without my knowledge or consent. I should’ve realized he’d have tapped into everything of mine that was personal and off-limits. Yet I still demanded, “You read my personal emails?”
“Of course, darling.” Not a trace of contrition.
“I am not your darling. And my family’s behavior is none of your business.” How dare he judge my mom?
His smile slipped, his jaw tightening to adopt that military soldier look of his. “I beg to differ. Everything about you is my business. Everyone who affects you is my business.”
My stomach took another dive. He was one hundred percent serious.
“Rather high-handed, don’t you think? Oh, right, you’re a Krinar. Invading a lowly human’s personal privacy is no big deal—totally within the realm of normal Krinar everyday behavior.”
Protective and defensive instincts for my parents aside, his “Even for human behavior” remark was gutting on another personal level, because it demonstrated just how inferior his view of my race honestly was—and by extension, me. But how could someone who lacked the basic respect for me to honor my right to privacy view me as anything but inferior?
His eyes were thoughtful, yet his tone direct, as he said, “I only hope you understand that every time your parents say, ‘Be careful,’ they’re saying, ‘I love you.’ You do know that, right?”
This conversation was not happening to me.
“Once again, Vair, what I do understand is that anything my parents say to me is my business and none of yours.” I heard the echo of my words in the enormous room, and realized how much I’d raised my volume.
I needed to calm down.
“It’s the only way they know how to express their affection for you—by constantly warning you of dangers and over-sharing their fears for your well-being.”
I swallowed the unwelcome lump forming in my throat and forced a laugh. “Of course I know that. That’s psych 101 stuff. You should really stick to being superior at wall-dissolving and other K technology and leave emotional understanding to therapists.”
He grinned, showing his perfect white teeth as he chuckled dryly. “Believe me, I wish I could at times. But there are many other Krinar with superior wall-dissolving skills and too few inclined to study human behaviorism.”
I felt like I was missing an inside joke.
“Your parents programmed you to respond to fear. To constant threats of danger and intimidation. And you’ve grown up to be as terrified as you are fascinated by those threats.” He shook his head and took a step in my direction. “You seek the truth above all else, and yet you lie most easily—especially to yourself. It makes you quite an interesting, delicious paradox, Amy.”
He was fucking with me again.
Or maybe not?
He took another step closer. The space between us suddenly felt charged with sexual energy. I knew I had to dispel it.
“Fine.” I tossed my hands in defeat. “You’re right. I’m not afraid of heights. So I’m a bad liar? What the hell do you want from me?”
He didn’t respond. I filled the silence.
“Look, I’m just an only child from Skaneateles with overprotective, paranoid parents. I probably should’ve taken the scholarship I was given and gone to college at Syracuse, close to home, like my parents wanted me to,” I rambled as he stalked nearer. “But I wanted to get away on my own. So I spent too much on my college degree at NYU as a result. And now, at twenty-four years old, I’m just trying to make a go of it here in the city and work my way out of debt.”
He kept moving fluidly closer. I retreated another step, then stopped myself.
“I’m not really even a very good reporter. Yet,” I appended. “And when my boss kept giving me nothing but stupid fluff pieces, I got desperate.”
He was close enough to touch me now. I knew I should stop all of my justifying and apologizing, but his soft black eyes encouraged me to continue.
“So I came to your x-club. I never meant to offend you or to upset the Krinar Council. I was just looking for an ‘in’—a lucky break. A chance to write a real news story that would give the human public more helpful information than we’ve gotten about Ks in the past two years since the invasion. Can’t you try and understand that and stop punishing me for my article?”
His sigh fanned my forehead. “Amy, I already told you, I thought your exposé was brilliant. I have no desire to punish you for it, nor will I allow anyone else to.”
“Then why are you doing this to me?” I appealed, blinking against the traitorous sting of tears. “Why are you blackmailing me?”
“I’ve already explained that as well, darling. You didn’t come back to my club, and I needed you to.”
“But why?”
“Because …” He smiled and brushed a stray wisp of hair from my forehead. “I’m an eight-hundred-and-forty-seven-year-old only child from Krina who came to earth to try and help out with the transition and assimilation of our species. But after I saw you, I lost focus on all else. I found myself only interested in assimilating with you.”
I heard the blood rushing in my ears again. I’d known that the Krinar were long-lived, but I’d never really contemplated it in quantifiable terms.
He was eight hundred and forty-seven?
And he wanted to assimilate with me?
Neither of us spoke as his fingers traced my jawline and stroked down the column of my throat, his feather-light touch sending a delightful thrill through me. So many questions swirled in my head. I posed the least significant one.
“You’re an only child, too?”
He nodded, his mouth twitching at the corners. “Yes.” He leaned into me, his lips ghosting my brow. “As a result, I’m afraid I’m used to having my way, and I don’t like to share.” His tone, which had been light and playful, became stern and fervent as he confided, “Which reminds me, I don’t want you spending the night at Jay’s anymore.”
My back stiffened. I pulled away from him as my spine straightened. “I’m sorry … how is that your business? How do you even know—? Have you been spying on me?”
It was a dumb question. We both knew the answer was yes. We both knew he’d visited me the night before at Jay’s. But it required asking nonetheless.
“Jay told me when he texted yesterday that you’d stayed with him Friday night.”
Oh.
“But yes, actually, I have been spying on you,” he continued matter-of-factly. “Quite intensely. It’s my second-favorite pastime.”
My stomach flipped at his admission. And the craziest part was that I wasn’t sure if it was nausea or butterflies that I felt.
I had been right. Vair had been keeping tabs on me everywhere.
And he didn’t seem the least bit repentant about it either.