Alien in the House

I’d have to smile and give it a party hat and a piece of cake. “Sure, that would be great.”
    We got off and I called Lillian Culver. She expressed great joy at the invitation along with the proper understanding of how people could forget to mail important letters, and guaranteed that she and Abner would be in attendance.
    Politically required sucking-up done, all I wanted to do was go to sleep. Jeff picked it up. “Raj, can you cover whatever and fill us in tomorrow morning?” he asked as he picked me up.
    “Absolutely. Get good rest.”
    “You too,” I managed before I snuggled into Jeff’s neck. Heard more voices as we went upstairs; sounded like some of the others were back. Good.
    Jeff hypersped us upstairs and into our apartment. Dad and Jamie were both in their beds asleep, dogs with Dad, cats and Poofs with Jamie. Couldn’t just lie down with my clothes on, though, because I was still wearing a bulletproof vest. Knew I was in dire need of sleep when Jeff undressing me didn’t make me want to instantly have sex.
    Oh, sure, I wanted to by the time I was in the standard-issue nightclothes and he was naked, but he got into his pajama bottoms and then into bed. “You need sleep,” he said as he snuggled me up against him. “You had a big day and that fight with Naomi took a lot out of you.”
    “You knew about that?”
    “Still not an emotion you have that isn’t broadcast, baby. You were so angry you were an easy read, for more than emotions. I told Chuck about it, so he knows. He said you were right, by the way.”
    “Right about what?”
    “That he doesn’t want a big wedding. He just has no idea of how to get out of what they’re being forced into.”
    Would have discussed this more but Jeff’s body was warm, his heartbeats soothing, and I was asleep before I could say another word.
    Slept like a rock and, happily, didn’t wake up in the middle of the night. Having gone to bed after midnight might have helped. Knowing Raul and Clarence were both dead probably helped more.
    The morning came bright and early with Jamie getting out of her crib by herself and jumping into bed with us. Chose to enjoy this as opposed to freak out about it, but we were clearly going to have our hands full by age two if this was what she was like at age one.
    Half of her mountain of presents were for just us, and half were for later at her party. Mom had joined us somewhere in the night—had no idea how she’d gotten in without waking everyone up, but she’d managed it—and so the five of us had breakfast and then Jeff called for his parents to come over.
    Alfred and Lucinda being with us made Jamie almost vibrate with happiness. She opened each present, showed it to each of us, and thanked the giver with huge hugs and kisses.
    This took hours, which was fine with me. But soon enough it was lunchtime and then time to get ready for the party.
    Jamie had insisted on being in an all-pink ensemble, including a sparkly pink tiara I was positive Pierre had found and suggested to her. Based on the fact that he was the one who’d arranged her outfit, it seemed a good bet.
    I was back in a nice black-and-white dress with side slits. Oh those trendy Elves. Apparently they felt cocky about my wearing white, too. Chose not to complain and hoped their optimism wasn’t misguided. Transferred the necessities from my purse to my handbag. My own home or not, wasn’t going downstairs without my Glock, Jeff’s adrenaline harpoon, or my iPod.
    Contemplated asking Jeff to wear his fedora, but decided explaining why he was wearing a hat indoors to both his parents and mine would be the very definition of “totally embarrassing” so chose to live without his hat for today.
    Walter advised that guests were starting to arrive, so we all headed down to the ballroom. Happily the first guests were all our friends and a lot of our family. The wisdom of holding the party in the ballroom wasn’t lost on me anymore.
    The fresh flowers—all pinks and whites—had already arrived by the time we got downstairs. Sadly, the press had already arrived, too. Saw a lot of familiar faces, most of them familiar because of Jeff’s being sworn in and Cliff’s car exploding. There were a couple blonde women in the group and I wondered if one of them had been the one who’d asked if we knew who the bomb was supposed to kill. None of them looked remarkably stupid, however, so I wasn’t going to figure it out via those means.
    Jeff had won