Alien Tango

going to your high school reunion?”
    “Jeff, I don’t know why you want to go.” This wasn’t completely true. As an A-C born on Earth, he’d been schooled within their community. They were a tight-knit group, all related somewhere back there in the generations, so every day was a reunion of some sort for them. I could understand Martini’s interest in how the other half had done it, but I still didn’t want to attend.
    “They’re supposed to be fun, romantic, exciting.”
    “You are watching way too much Lifetime Channel. And why, may I ask?”
    “Helps me relate to you.”
    “Hardly.”
    “You don’t think I relate to you well?” I could hear a little bit of hurt in his voice.
    “No, I think that, as the super empath, you, more than any other man I’ve ever known, relate to me just fine. However, I don’t think you watching Mother, May I Sleep With Danger again will give you more relatability to me.”
    “Tori Spelling’s really an underrated actress.”
    “So’s Shannen Doherty, you’ve told me. I’m impressed. Join their fan clubs. I miss your Fantasy Island fixation.”
    “I’ll stop watching Lifetime if we go to your reunion.”
    “Wow, you can’t even lie if I’m not looking directly at your face.”
    The door opened before we got to the entrance, and Christopher White came out. He looked upset. “Jeff, we have a problem.”

CHAPTER 2
    CHRISTOPHER DIDN’T REALLY LOOK LIKE his cousin. Where Martini was well over six feet and extremely muscular in a non-body-builder way, Christopher was a head shorter and more lean and wiry. He was fairer, with green eyes and lighter straight brown hair. They were both gorgeous—I still hadn’t met an A-C who wasn’t—but Christopher resembled his late mother, and I’d been told Martini resembled his father, so you had to know them to realize they were closely related.
    Christopher also had glaring down to an art form, and we were being treated to patented Glare #1. “What did I do now?” Martini asked.
    “Why am I the one who has to field every communication from your parents?”
    Oh, this one again. I tried to slip away, but Martini had a firm grasp on me.
    “Because, like everyone else, they like you better.”
    “I like you better, Jeff.”
    “Thanks, baby. You’re about the only one.”
    Christopher rolled his eyes. “If I have to tell Aunt Lucinda one more time that you’re tied up in an important meeting, I’m going to kill you.”
    Martini rubbed his forehead. “What did she want this time?”
    Christopher didn’t answer and looked at me. “Great landing, Kitty.”
    “Your mother wants to know why you haven’t dumped me yet and married a nice A-C girl or boy like you’re supposed to.” A-Cs didn’t have hang-ups about same-sex relationships. They just had them about interspecies and interreligious ones.
    Christopher flushed. Got it in one! “It’s not like that,” he muttered, but he was now looking at his shoes.
    “And you wonder why I’m dodging her calls?” Martini hugged me. “Let’s get inside.”
    “Jeff, it’s not Christopher’s fault.” It was mine, for being human and falling in love with her son, at least, as far as I’d picked up. Or Martini’s, for doing the same with me. The whole “saved his life” thing didn’t seem to factor in for Martini’s parents. “Maybe if I met them—”
    “Not a great idea!” both Christopher and Martini chorused.
    “How bad can they be? I mean, Christopher, your father seems to think I’m okay.” Richard White was the Sovereign Pontifex for the A-Cs, or, as I thought of it, their Pope with Benefits.
    “My father thinks you’re great.”
    “But I’m not his son’s girlfriend.” Both of them winced, because that had been a close call, and the three of us normally did our best not to bring it up. So, my bad, as pretty much always. Maybe Martini was right to keep me away from his parents.
    “Let’s talk about this later.” Martini sounded tired and depressed. Which made me worry. “Don’t stress out, baby.” The positive of being with the strongest empath on Earth was that he was really in tune with how I was feeling. The downside was that I couldn’t hide anything from him emotionally, even when I wanted to.
    Paul Gower joined us in the doorway. He was built like Martini, only black and bald. His father had married an African-American human. I often found myself wondering how happy she was, but I hadn’t asked. Yet.
    “We have a bigger