Alien Tango

He let my hand go, so I took that for a yes. The other three went with me, and we waited at a corner. Chee was still leading the others off; we were going to lose them in a second or two. “Michael, you know how to get to Mission Control, right?”
    “Gosh, I hope so. I only work here.”
    “Sarcasm is such an ugly trait in an A-C.”
    “You seem enamored of it.” Michael jerked his head toward Martini.
    “He makes it look good.”
    Brian cleared his throat. “I know how to get there, too, Kitty.”
    Now I felt bad. Oh, well, story of my life, chronic foot-in-mouth disease. Martini assured me there was no cure but claimed to find it an endearing trait. “Sorry, Bri. I’m just having a hard time thinking of you as an astronaut.”
    “What did you think I was going to become?” he asked, sounding somewhat huffy.
    I didn’t have the heart to tell him I hadn’t given his career choices a lot of thought once we’d graduated from high school. “I don’t know. Maybe a lawyer.”
    He shook his head. “I don’t know why. I could see you in marketing—you were always creative.”
    “No I wasn’t. I was good at bullshit. It’s considered a great gift in marketing. But I wasn’t an artist or a writer, Bri. I was a marketing manager. It means I told some people what to do and took orders from other people.”
    “As opposed to now,” Christopher said, “where she gives everyone orders and ignores the orders from people she’s supposed to listen to.”
    “You’re not over me not letting you guys die yet, are you?”
    “You really didn’t see me becoming successful, did you?” Brian asked.
    I wanted a subject change, but more I was wondering what Gower and Martini were talking about, because while it wasn’t an animated conversation, it was taking a little long for the “cool down” talk I’d thought Gower was giving him. So I didn’t really think about what came out of my mouth. “Why did we break up?”
    “What, you want me to recite the reasons you gave me in front of your ex-boyfriend? Why don’t we wait so I can tell your current one your reasons, too.” Ah, this sounded more familiar. I really attracted the jealous types. Or else I really found them attractive, because I’d had a few others in between Brian and Martini. Only, as I thought about it, I hadn’t been in love with any of them.
    “Brian, Christopher is not my ‘ex’ anything.” Unless one counted a few minutes of pawing each other like crazed wolverines in an elevator until my sanity came back as being an “item.” And I didn’t, in part because I’d almost lost Martini right then, before I’d even realized I never wanted to lose him. Christopher and I both had the real excuse that the Supreme Fugly was affecting our emotions, his in particular, but that excuse only worked because we’d stopped and Martini had finally realized I didn’t want Christopher over him. I didn’t want anyone over him, but some days he still didn’t believe it.
    This line of thought always did two things—made me feel guilty and incredibly horny at the same time. I wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, and make love to Martini for the next several hours and let everyone else deal with the crap. Only we couldn’t, and I knew it.
    “Then why do you want me to talk about why we broke up?” Brian wasn’t going to let it go, even though we were with Christopher and Michael.
    Interestingly, Michael was the one who answered that question. “Because she doesn’t remember.” Brian started to argue, but Michael shook his head. “Bri, I’ve got more of a chance with her than you do, and she was pretty clear that I have no chance at all. She didn’t recognize you, okay? Accept it. You’re still in love with her, but she moved on, as near as I can tell, about ten years ago.”
    Brian looked at me, and his expression was hurt. “Is he right? You didn’t remember me? You don’t remember why we broke up, or anything else?”
    I sighed. “Brian, I have your picture up, still. It’s one of the few that really matters to me, the one of us dancing at my sweet sixteen.” An oxymoron in and of itself, if you bought the tagline of “never been kissed.” I’d already been kissed a lot by then. “You’ll always be someone very important to me, for a variety of reasons.” I heard Christopher snort and made sure I didn’t look at him—I was certain he knew my full relationship with Brian from that one picture, perhaps more than I