Page 52 of How My Fake Alien Boyfriend Learned to Cook and Saved the Family Business

“Have you tried turning it off and back on again?”

Okay, it’s officially time to save Kal from my future IT nerd brother. I took one last look in the mirror, called good enough good enough, and joined them in the living room.

The first thing I noticed was Kal. The man in my living room wasn’t him, except it was. I had quickly grown accustomed to Kal’s true form, even though I saw him in his human persona more often than not. That human form looked so strange to me now—a pale facsimile of the real Kal.

In his disguise, Kal’s brown hair was boring and limp. His skin looked pale, almost sickly compared to his natural vibrant green. Where on his authentic form, Kal had a constellation of spots peppering his face, arms, chest, his suit’s skin was flat and beige. A drawing without shading, a painting without details.

Kal in his human suit was nondescript, while the real Kal defied description.

Like this, plain and so perfectly normal, Kal looked more like a stranger to me than when we first met, when he first showed his true self.

I resisted the urge to tell him to take it off. Take off that disguise, I would shout. Let me see the real you; the unique and beautiful you. But I knew the consequences of that now that Kal had told me. It could put him at risk here on Earth and back on his home planet.

On the living-room floor, Jacob was prodding at some sort of alien device, moving it from one hand to another. Kal plucked it from my brother’s hands and twisted to set it aside.

“Ready to go?” I asked, deciding it was the right time to cut in.

Kal stilled when he saw me standing at the end of the hallway watching them. His mouth parted, and then…he just stared at me. Stared at me like I was something worth looking at, like the moon appearing after a nighttime of dark clouds. I stood there self-consciously as I waited for someone to say something.

Did I look ridiculous? Maybe I had overdone it. I will admit to putting more effort into my appearance than usual. I was wearing a white and yellow gingham halter dress that slipped delicately across my curves. My pink hair, usually gathered into a messy ponytail or buns, cascaded around my shoulders. It tickled at my collarbone, and I wasn’t sure whether to blame my hair or Kal’s attention for the way my skin prickled.

“You look like flowers,” Kal said, finally breaking the silence.

Roses bloomed across my cheeks, and goosebumps spread like wisteria tendrils wrapping around my arms. My stomach twisted, a tangle of thick, sweet honeysuckle. I faced Kal head-on, a sunflower seeking his light.

“Ugh, gag.” My little brother broke the silence and hopped up from the floor. “I’m going to the house before you two make me barf.”

I rolled my eyes, but was secretly appreciative of Jacob for breaking the silence. My muscles relaxed as I slid back into a familiar role.

“You better not eat all the garlic bread,” I called after Jacob. It was the only thing Mom made that was reliably edible on spaghetti nights, and even that was a gamble.

Looking at Kal, I smiled, though it was tense. “Before we go over there, you should know a few things. My parents think we’re dating, so…just try not to give away that we’re, you know, not.”

But what if we were? What if this was real, this thing between us?

And another thought, buried deep enough that it almost didn’t reach the surface. What if you could stay?

“Your best bet,” I continued, “is to say as little as possible. Which won’t be difficult, since my family never stays quiet for long.”

Kal nodded along as I issued my pre-dinner warnings. And then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, I held my hand out for Kal to take. When his fingers threaded between mine, I sighed.

* * *

I loved my family. Clearly, I loved my family. I mean, I dropped everything to take over the family restaurant and help out after my dad’s condition got too bad to keep up with work. But they could be…a lot.

And when I say they, I mostly meant my mom and Jacob. Jacob because he was a teenage boy, and teenage boys were weird and kind of smelly with strange, niche interests. I could handle Jacob’s brand of a lot pretty well. But my mom was just plain a lot, and always had been.

“Can you pass the bread, Lollipop?”

“Mom, we talked about not using that nickname anymore,” I said. “Especially around company.”

I shoved the bread basket across the table a little too forcefully, and a piece of garlic bread bounced out and onto the centerpiece, which was, from what I could tell, an actual rosemary shrub.

Mom had really pulled out all the stops to impress my fake boyfriend.

That thought made me feel awful. I hated lying, especially to family. Kal and I weren’t a thing, not really, and I could have told her the truth. But was it really a lie when I wanted it to be the truth? I couldn’t deny it anymore—I had feelings for Kal. Real, complicated, deep feelings that set me off balance.

“It’s a perfectly fine nickname,” Mom said with a sniff. “And I’ll use it until I can’t anymore. Then you’ll really miss hearing it.”