Alien Tango

girls.”
    Reader burst into laughter. “Did he tell you that?”
    I pulled it up from memory. “He said that he’d dated fewer than ten humans and more than ten A-Cs.”
    “Truthful, yet a lie at the same time, I’ll give you that. As we both know, the only way they can manage it. If he was counting the girls from school that Christopher’s told me about, and Lissa, then we do get to all of eleven A-Cs. Keep in mind that seven of them he dated when he was between twelve and twenty. In terms of the humans, if we count you, he’s dated exactly one.”
    “One other?”
    “No, one. As in you, only.”
    “So, I was his exotic event.” My heart ached and I couldn’t even cry.
    “No, he’s in love with you. He’s been in love with you since you two met.”
    “He doesn’t love me any more, if he ever did. Feel free to ask him about it. I’m sure he’ll suggest you and I have been cheating on him the entire time.”
    Reader sighed. “No idea. Look, do you need me to come and be your date?”
    “I love you, James. No, but I can’t tell you what the offer means.”
    “I love you too, you know that. Look, just hold it together, okay? We’ll figure out what’s going on.”
    “I’ll do my best.”
    We hung up, and I looked at the clock. Plenty of time before the first event, which was a dinner-dance. Wonderful. Made worse by the fact that I knew my girlfriends weren’t coming. I’d seen Amy when we’d been in Paris—she was living there and said since she’d met Jeff, she didn’t need to come out. I wondered if she could get here anyway. She could afford it. But I couldn’t bring myself to call her and ask.
    Sheila and I had texted about it, and I knew she wasn’t coming due to finances and the same reasons I hadn’t wanted to come—she didn’t really care about anyone she wasn’t still in contact with. I was currently willing to pay to fly her out, too, but again, couldn’t bring myself to even suggest it.
    Both of them would come, both wouldn’t care that I needed them because my heart was broken—that’s what friends were for. But it was too new, too raw, and I couldn’t imagine telling them about it and not being known for the next decade as the chick who had a meltdown at the Princess.
    I’d forgotten to let Chuckie know I was coming, so he was out, and it wasn’t fair for me ask him to come save me anyway. He would, if I called him, not only because he was that kind of friend but because I couldn’t lie to him at all, and he’d know how upset I was, and then nothing would stop him from coming. But having that meltdown with Chuckie would be no better than having it with Amy and Sheila. I’d still be the Class Loser for eternity.
    I took a shower and forced myself to not notice that it would be an awesome place to have sex. I was never doing that again. Not sex—at least I hoped I wasn’t going to end up celibate—but doing it in the shower. I’d never be able to have sex in a shower and not think of Martini.
    Of course, as I toweled off, the issue was that there were far too many places where sex was going to remind me of him. Like, everywhere. I forced myself to think about who might be there tonight.
    As I got dressed, I realized that probably no one I liked was going to be there. Brian was a maybe now, and that meant I was not only going to this thing alone, but I was going into enemy territory alone. I’d had a lot more friends in high school than Chuckie had, but we’d both agreed that college was a hell of a lot better.
    I went through my purse. I’d brought a small handbag for the evening events—they were formal after all. Put the room key, my cell phone, driver’s license, and some cash in. Contemplated my iPod and decided that was admitting defeat too early. Looked at the Glock. Realized why people killed themselves in hotel rooms. Put the Glock back into my purse.
    I took a look in the mirror. I was in a long, slinky, sleeveless black dress that cut low in the front and back. It was tight around the hips and had a slit up the right side to the knee. I was in high black sling-back stilettos. I looked good. Unless you saw my expression, and then I looked like crap.
    I played around and decided to put my hair up. I rarely did this, but I had so much time to kill. My experience over the last few months told me that if Martini were here with me, there would be no time wasted, and we’d be late because we’d be so busy doing the deed in every part of the