“Do you have to scream so loud this early?” Delaney rubbed at her temples, a headache sprouting.
“I don’t know,” Mariana stated. “Does your boyfriend have to always forget where wet towels are supposed to go?” She lifted her right hand, the large, damp green cloth grazing the ground. “I stepped on this and nearly had a heart attack!”
“You mean like the one you almost gave me with your screams?” she said. “I thought something seriously wrong had happened.”
For a second she was about to argue, but then it must have hit Mariana what she meant and she deflated, guilt crossing over her face. “I’m sorry. You thought something alien had happened.” At the confirmed nod, she sighed. “Hun, it’s been over a month. It’s safe to say you’re in the clear. Olena didn’t give you up. Besides”—she wagged her brows—“if I had a hot alien boyfriend to protect me, I certainly wouldn’t worry.”
“Um.” Ruckus cleared his throat from the doorway. “Thank you?”
“Thank me by not leaving your disgusting used towels lying around!” Mariana shook the cloth again and then tossed it at him. Crossing her arms, she stared him down, clearly waiting for a response.
Delaney had to hand it to her: She’d taken the whole thing really well. More so than her parents initially had.
After two fantastic days with Ruckus—mostly spent in bed—they’d arrived to chaos on Earth. Olena hadn’t been kidding: Delaney’s face was all over the news, constantly being flashed as a missing person. Kidnapping was the main theory. Obviously, this posed a dilemma for them. All that time she’d spent wanting to get back home, and she’d never once thought about what she’d tell everyone once she had.
Fortunately, considering Ruckus’s position, it was fairly easy to get government backing on their story. All he had to do was contact the liaison between Vakar and Earth, Trump Lorus, and explain the situation and how important it was to their people. He’d probably only been on the phone with the guy a total of five minutes before a couple of officers dressed in black and wearing badges had appeared at the Vakar embassy building, where they’d had Fawna drop them off.
Her parents had flipped when she’d shown up at their house, new boyfriend and government officials in tow. There’d been no good way to tell them the truth, so they’d come up with a believable story. She opted to give as many real details as she could, including that she’d accidentally been taken by aliens.
Of course, she’d left out the parts about being dragged to another planet, being mistaken for a princess, and all the times she’d almost died. Instead they’d spun a web of lies about being dragged down to Arizona, where she’d been interrogated—yet treated incredibly fairly—by members of the Vakar.
The two agents who’d been sent with them amazingly carried on the ruse rather convincingly. By the end of it, after all her parents’ insane questions, even Delaney herself was starting to believe she’d been in Arizona that whole time.
They’d even helped quiet the media reports so that they disappeared, the only explanation to the public being that she’d been “found.”
Of course, her parents had bought it, but Mariana was another story entirely. Not two seconds after the same agents who’d convinced her parents had left, she was jumping down Delaney’s throat to know what had really happened. They knew each other far too well, and Delaney had been forced to tell her the real story.
Ruckus had given them space during the conversation, which she was grateful for, because a third of the way in, she burst into tears. There were times over the next three hours when she would laugh, others when she’d tear up all over again, and Mariana would hold her hand and listen without judgment.
“I apologize,” Ruckus was saying to Mariana now, begrudgingly clutching the damp towel. “Won’t happen again.” He went into the other room to hang up the towel, then returned to the kitchen.
“Oh, you’re damn right it won’t,” Mariana stated, moving her hands to her hips, “cause if it does, I am never making you tamales again.”
Delaney held in a laugh when Ruckus’s face fell. “All right, guys, I think we get it.”
“Good. Now”—Mariana’s eyes sparkled with excitement—“get dressed.”
“Why?” She glanced between the two of them, frowning when he held up his hands.
“Don’t look at me.” He moved toward the fridge. “I just live here.”
He’d offered to buy them their own place—apparently being Ander paid well. Like, really well—but she’d declined. They’d been through a lot together, yet he was right about taking a denzeration first. They needed to make sure that they could be happy without all the adrenaline highs that came with being almost murdered.
So far, things were going well.
“We are having a girls’ day,” Mariana announced. “Just you and me, sista. No offense, Ruck.”
“None taken.” He smiled at Delaney over the rim of his glass of orange juice. His hair was still wet from the shower he’d taken, and while he’d thrown on a pair of light gray sweatpants, he hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt.
The ripple of his muscles in the morning light made her think of other things she’d like to do that day instead.
“Uh-uh.” Clearly noting her train of thought, Mariana tugged on her arm and moved to block her line of sight. “You did plenty of that last night.” She mock-glared over her shoulder at him. “Thanks very much, by the way. You do realize we have thin walls, right? Anyway,” she said then, looking back to Delaney, “after that, you owe me.”
She wrestled between being embarrassed and finding it oddly amusing, settling on a place in between. “All right, what did you have in mind?”
“We haven’t done anything awesome for the summer yet, and it’s already halfway over, so beach day!”
“Why can’t Ruckus come to that again?”
“Because I want to boy-watch and flirt, and there’s no way anyone is going to approach us when Commander Tall, Hot, and Lethal is with us.” Mariana looked at him a second time. “Again, no offense. You’re just way too intimidating.”
“Honestly,” he said, and settled more comfortably against the edge of the counter, giving them a better view of his chest in the process, “after that kind of description, I’m not offended at all.”
“Great.” Mariana headed toward her room. “I’m going to get ready. We leave in twenty, Delaney!” At the last second she popped her head back around the corner, narrowing her eyes at them. “That means you do not have time for another make-out session, got it?”
They both held up their hands in surrender.
“So,” Delaney asked once they were alone, moving over to settle in front of him, between his legs, “what are you planning on doing with your day?”
“Without you?” He winced. “Weep, mostly.”
Playfully, she shoved his shoulder. “I’m serious.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe learn how to play the guitar?”