Taken by the Alien Next Door (Aliens Among Us #1) - Tiffany Roberts Page 0,9

world possessed me to wear an underwire for this? I should’ve gone with a sports bra.

Unpacking was taking far longer than it should have thanks to the movers. Why had none of the reviews mentioned how slow and incompetent they were? Not only had the movers taken their time, often standing around, talking, and checking their phones, but they hadn’t even bothered to pay attention to the labels on the boxes. She’d spent a big chunk of her day just moving boxes to the correct locations before she could even begin unpacking.

Boxes marked LIVING ROOM had ended up upstairs, and the ones marked KITCHEN had been stacked both in the living room and buried under other boxes in the master bedroom. And the most ridiculous part of that was they movers had literally walked through her kitchen to get to the living room!

She could have sworn they had done it on purpose.

“The jerks.”

Tabitha glanced out the kitchen window.

Night had fallen a while ago. With fall fast approaching, it was getting dark earlier, making it feel later than it actually was. She’d just unpack a few more boxes and eat one of the sandwiches from the cooler for dinner before rewarding herself with a nice, hot soak in her new bathtub. It’d been a long day—a long week, really, as she’d packed and prepared for the move—and she felt like she more than deserved it.

Drawing back, she pulled her cellphone out, unlocked it, and navigated to her current playlist. Once a Lady Gaga song was playing, Tabitha set the phone down and got back to work, singing and dancing along to the tune. She ripped open the box and transferred the pots and pans inside it to the wide drawer under the double oven.

Despite the day’s many frustrations, she was excited to set up her workspace and begin this new chapter in her life. She was a little anxious, but wasn’t anyone who’d quit their fulltime job so they could follow their dream? Tabitha wasn’t too worried. She had a great following on her YouTube channel, Lush Lathers, which had started blowing up over the past two years. And it was all thanks to Nan, her grandmother. The woman who had adopted and raised Tabitha.

Some of Tabitha’s earliest memories were of watching Nan make soap and candles. It had been so fascinating to see Nan with those big rubber gloves on as she mixed ingredients, or to see her deftly carving wax into all sorts of fanciful shapes. When Tabitha had turned seven, she’d started helping a little, though it had been years before she was allowed to deal with any of the chemicals.

Still, it hadn’t been until middle school—when other kids got particularly mean to a chubby girl with no mom and dad—that Nan really pushed Tabitha to get involved. They’d spent so many days trying new combinations of colors and scents, laughing together.

Nan had always said there were no mistakes. She’d especially liked saying that when their experimental combinations produced smells that were particularly overwhelming, which always resulted in hysterical laughter from both of them as they ran around the house opening windows.

Now that she was older, Tabitha knew all that time making soap and candles with Nan had been more than important bonding. Nan had done it, at least in part, to give Tabitha an escape. To give her something she could control while the world outside just seemed increasingly bigger and scarier.

Tabitha paused as she placed a glass in the cupboard, frowning. Her eyes burned with the threat of tears. Had Nan really been gone for two years already? Tabitha missed her more and more every day.

She resumed her work, unwrapping the drinking glasses from the thick paper protecting them and storing them in the cupboard.

Nan had made sure Tabitha could follow her dreams by leaving everything to Tabitha in her will. She hadn’t been wealthy by most measures, but it had been enough to give Tabitha the ability to put more time and focus into her blossoming business, and that focus had provided just enough of a distraction from the pain of loss to keep Tabitha going.

Selling Nan’s house, which had been the only real home Tabitha had ever known, had been a bittersweet process, but it had also been one of Nan’s last wishes. She wanted Tabitha to move on—to make her own life and new memories.

A light scratching at the sliding patio door called Tabitha’s attention away. She walked over to the door to