Alien Proliferation

just order it wiped off the face of the Earth.” He sighed. “Can’t wait to have to deal with him after this.”
    “He’ll be fine.” I kissed his head. “Chuckie’s really freaked that you did this, Christopher, but that’s because he respects you. If he didn’t respect you and Jeff, he never would have let Centaurion leave ETD control.” Or let me marry Jeff, but I didn’t figure that was relevant to this conversation.
    “If you say so.”
    “Known him half my life. I say so.”
    “I don’t think he’s ever going to get over you.”
    Great, how had this moved from important things to my love life? “We’ll always love each other, Christopher. It’s not really important now.”
    “Why does he hate Amy so much?”
    I found myself wondering if Christopher had lost his mind. “Because he never liked her, and she never liked him. She thought he was a drag on me socially, and he thought she exemplified everything wrong with wealth.”
    “Who was right?”
    “Neither. I met more interesting people because of Chuckie than anyone else in my life, at least until that superbeing formed. I tried things I never would have because of him and learned things that have helped me survive in my second career. Amy’s not nearly as stuck up as Chuckie’s always thought, and she’s worked for everything she’s gotten, though most people assume her parents paved the way. But she went to college on a full merit scholarship, worked like a dog to pay for law school, and then got her job based on skill, not connections.”
    “So they fought over you?”
    “Geez, dude, you make it sound like Amy’s my special girlfriend. She’s straight. For what it’s worth, she thought Brian was a great boyfriend and was upset with me for breaking up with him. Everyone but me thought Chuckie was nuts . . . you know, because he believed you and your family were living on Earth.”
    Christopher actually laughed. “Yeah. Wonder if he’s going to rub that in to her.”
    “Dude, they are not hanging out reminiscing and bonding over newly found shared interests. He wants to arrest her as a mole and lock her away. He can’t stand her, and nothing she’s said or done since you and Jeff brought her in from Paris has changed that mind-set. She still can’t stand him, either. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them act like we were all still in high school, but I’m not looking forward to putting the three of us along with Brian and Sheila in a room together.”
    Thought about how I hadn’t seen Sheila yet. Got the “worst friend in the world” feeling. Decided saving the world might make up for it. Never had yet, but maybe I’d be lucky.
    “Is that because it’ll be all of them against Reynolds?”
    “Insightful. Yes.”
    “How many years did you spend defending him?”
    “Dude, I’ve never stopped. I have to defend him every damn day to Jeff.”
    “Jeff’s never going to have the jealousy chat with Reynolds.”
    I snorted. “They have it all the time. Not like his jealousy chat with you and James, more like a constant stag fight.”
    “Do you like it?”
    I thought about it. “It doesn’t bother me the way it did when you and Jeff were fighting over me. That freaked me out.”
    “Why?”
    I kissed his head. “Because you mean so much to Jeff, and vice versa. I was afraid I was going to ruin your relationship, and then you’d both hate me.”
    “Lissa said the same thing.” He sounded despondent. “She was almost right. If Jeff hadn’t put up with me treating him like my worst enemy, she would have been right.”
    “She was murdered before she could tell you she was going to marry you and while she was with Jeff. I can understand why you took it out on him.”
    “I can’t. Not any more.”
    “You’re a bigger boy now.” I leaned my head against his. “I guess asking for my old Christopher back’s kind of impossible, huh?”
    “Can’t have my old Kitty back, either.”
    I moved and looked into his eyes. “I want you to promise me something.”
    He sighed. “I’m not going to shoot up again, no matter how tempting it is.” He sounded like he’d been saying this to people for days.
    “Great, not the promise I’m looking for.” He raised an eyebrow. “Recovering from addiction’s one step at a time. Sometimes it’s not even one day at a time, sometimes it’s like one minute at a time. You can’t promise that you’ll never do it again. You can only promise that each minute