our fingers connect, that feeling of skin against skin. An even brighter blue bursts across my vision. His palm feels calloused, his fingers soft and dry. My toes curl in my work boots. I look up at him and find him staring down at our intertwined fingers, wonder playing across his face. He raises his gaze to mine and smiles again. Fuck it all.
“Not what you’re thinking,” I say under my breath. “Don’t you say a damn word until I tell you to.” He nods, looking back down at our hands. He gives an experimental squeeze and then does it again.
Great. Fantastic.
I take a deep breath and look back to the porch. Mary and Christie watch us, dumbfounded. Nina looks like she wants to tackle us and kiss our faces off. Mom looks like there are at least four hundred more questions she must ask right at this moment. I need to end this now. “Cal’s going to be staying with me in Little House for a while.” Uh, what? He squeezes my hand again, harder. “There’s some stuff he and I need to talk about, so… you know. Maybe we can do this whole thing later?” I direct this last at my mom, trying to put enough emphasis on my words that she feels no need to say anything else.
She can see right through my attempts, but small wonder. She nods tightly, pursing her lips. Mary and Christie stand behind her, waggling their eyebrows obscenely, but it’s wasted on my apparent new best friend, who is still looking down at our hands, squeezing again and again like he’s never held hands with another person.
Maybe on whatever planet he comes from this is frowned upon, I think, trying to avoid going into hysterics.
“We’ll talk later,” my mom says finally, the tone in her voice letting me know in no uncertain terms that there will be a later. I almost want to tell her that I’m fucking twenty-one years old, but realize how that would sound and there’s no fucking way that’s going to happen. “Remember, you’ve… you’ve got the day off tomorrow, so….”
“So make sure you get plenty of sleep.” Mary giggles, sounding so much like her sister when she laughs.
“Yeah, sleep in,” Nina says, although I’m not sure she understands what she’s saying.
“Ladies,” Christie says, “into the house. Let’s leave Benji and Gigantor alone so they can do whatever it is two guys do when they are all by themselves in an empty house where no one can hear them scream.”
My mom shakes her head and turns and walks back into the house, followed by Christie and Mary. Mary asks her older sister if it looked like Cal was wearing a skirt, and Christie replies that it must be a Californian thing. Nina waits until they’re all inside before she looks back at us. “I promise I won’t say anything,” she whispers hurriedly. “But these things have a way of getting out all on their own. Be careful, Benji. And Blue?”
He looks up from our hands, where he’s nearly turned mine into mush. “Yes, little one?”
Her eyes sparkle. “I am so very happy to meet you.” She blushes again and runs up into the house, then closes the door behind her, shutting off the porch light and leaving us in darkness.
I stand there, staring after them, trying to collect my thoughts.
“Benji?” he finally says, sounding bemused.
“What?” I say tiredly.
He hesitates. “They seemed nice,” he offers.
Oh dear God. I drop his hand and move back toward the truck. “Let’s go, Blue or Cal or whatever your name is. We have a shitload to talk about.”
“I can’t wait to tell you things,” he tells me seriously, which causes me to roll my eyes. “Well, what I can remember, anyway.”
I reach the Ford, ignoring the tingling in my hand and just how empty it feels.
it came from outer space!
The ride to Little House is quiet. I don’t know what I would say even if I could
speak. Two thoughts are running through my head, both of which are cause for panic. First, if I’ve gone insane, then apparently I’ve pulled Nina into my delusional psychosis, since she seems to see the same things I do. Beyond that, she apparently has seen it (him?) longer than I have (what did you do?). She didn’t seem to fear the outline of wings that had formed on Calliel as she held him. Although I don’t know what there was to fear besides the fact that there