“Almost,” Drew said, tossing her ball cap aside.
Beaufort leaped for it, but luckily it had landed on the kitchen counter, out of reach.
“I told Drew she deserved a break after working so hard,” Stevie said.
Drew noticed the array of food and drink.“You did all this for me?”
“It was Stevie’s idea,” Corinthia said.“She thought since you cook for a living, you should have a break.”
Drew hooked an arm around Stevie’s shoulders and gave her an affectionate hair ruffle.
Stevie fairly glowed.As soon as Drew was looking the other way, Stevie gave Corinthia a covert thumbs-up.
Drew pulled out a chair and began helping herself to a wrapped section of the sub.“You ever get to read that book?”she asked Corinthia.
“I started it.”
“What’d you think?”
Corinthia considered.She liked to wait until she was finished with a book to evaluate it, but she did have a few thoughts formed.“Is that how it would really happen if an alien space lesbian landed on Earth?Would she fall in love with the first human woman she ran into?”
“That’s, like, fate,” Drew said.She washed down another bite with cola straight from the can.
“It could happen,” Stevie chimed in.
“And why would the human agree to fly off into space, anyway?I feel like that’s dangerous.”
“You would,” Stevie scoffed.
“Nah,” Drew said.“Think about it.She may be purple and scaly but she’s beautiful, she’s competent, and she’s clearly rich enough to own a spaceship.I’d board that,” she added, matter-of-factly.
“Me too,” Stevie said.
“You’re a romantic,” Corinthia said to Stevie.“Your opinion doesn’t count.At least Drew has some logic behind hers.”
“You think you’re logical,” Stevie said, “but wait till a purple alien lands on your lawn.”
“Good luck to her picking the sandspurs out of her webbed, purple alien feet.”
“Huh,” Drew said, thoughtfully.“I wonder if real aliens are purple.”
Stevie and Corinthia traded a look.
“What do you mean, ‘real’ aliens?”Stevie said.
“You know,” Drew said, waving half a sub around.“Like the TV show,The X Files?”
Corinthia had a habit of scowling at things she found far-fetched, but she tried very hard not to make a face.A warning glance from Stevie told her she hadn’t quite succeeded.
“Have you ever looked at one of those pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope?”Drew said.
Corinthia and Stevie looked at each other, eyebrows raised, before both of them shook their heads.
Drew pulled out her phone, tapped a few times, and displayed a photo that appeared to contain a field of bright, multicolored lights against inky black space.“Looks like stars, right?”She paused, heightening the mystery.“Each one of those is a galaxy.Agalaxy.Galaxies contain more than a hundred billion stars each.So, just in this section of space: thousands of galaxies.Billions and billions of stars.”
“The mind boggles,” Stevie said.
“Boggles is right,” Drew replied.“Why couldn’t there be something special out there?”
