Page 18 of I Fell for an Alien Popstar

And I had known this woman for approximately five minutes in real life.

I didn’t know what she ate for breakfast. I didn’t know if she was kind to waiters, if she was a clean person or kept her places messy or if she was the type of person who ghosted people after two texts. I knew her music. I knew her from interviews and magazines. I knew the version of her that had been packaged, broadcast, and sold to me through a screen for three years.

That wasn’t knowing someone.

That was knowing a poster.

“Okay, let’s back up for a second, okay?” I said, moving my hands around. “I’m going to be real with you. This is all very crazy, okay? I don’t understand how I could be classified as your fated mate. I admit I don’t know much about Velans, but this doesn’t seem crazy to you? Solar car or whatever?”

She just stared at me, unblinking, like a hologram someone had paused.

I waved a hand. “Earth to Zhari. Seriously, how is this real? Oh God, I think my brain’s about to short-circuit.”

I pressed my fingers to my temples and shut my eyes.

She had basically just told me I was her person, and my brain did not go, Yes, this makes sense.

My brain went, This is insane, and you are a stranger, and I am in your dressing room in a miniskirt with sweaty palms and absolutely zero frame of reference for this situation.

But also, I had nothing to go back to. That was the truth sitting underneath all the panic. My job was boring, and Carla was always up my ass about something. My flat was lonely. My social life was Thomas and a vending machine.

I had spent years drawing this woman’s face in the dark, and now she was right there, telling me the universe had connected us.

Terror and want crashed into each other in my chest, neither of them backing down. I could feel the shape of my old life behind me like an open door—sad, safe, and empty—and this was… whatever the opposite of that was.

Her expression softened a bit, and she reached out and lightly squeezed my knee, resting her hand there.

“It’s Sola-Ka,” she corrected me again.

“I believe you. I think. Or I believe that you believe it. But I don’t know you. I know your music. I know your interviews. I know the version of you that exists on my screen. But that’s not the same thing.”

Something shifted in her expression. Not hurt, exactly—more like she hadn’t planned on me arguing and was having to recalibrate.

“You’re right,” she said quietly. “You do not know me.”

She pulled her hand back and rested it in her lap.

“But my aura is very sure about you,” she added, her eyes dropping to my mouth.

My gaze followed to her lips. They were perfect. I briefly caught myself wondering what it would be like to kiss them, then blinked and reeled myself back to her eyes.

“But,” I mumbled, “I also don’t have a single reason to leave. My life back home is lonely. My mum actually thinks I’m working right now. So if you’re telling me the universe pointed at me and said, ‘That one,’ I’m not going to argue with it. I’m just going to be honest that I’m processing, and I need you to be patient while I catch up.”

“I can be patient,” she said.

And then she kissed me.

She just leaned in, her fingers curling into the front of my shirt, and tugged me toward her. Her mouth found mine as if it were the most logical next step in the conversation—which, sure, maybe it was on her planet, but my brain definitely hadn’t gotten that memo.

As I sat there with my hands resting in my lap, her hand moved slowly up the back of my neck. For about two seconds, my entire body went, Yes, absolutely, finally, and then the rest of me caught up.

I pulled back. “Um,” I gasped.

She blinked at me, confused. “What? Did you not like that?”

“Uhh, no, I enjoyed that, it's just, you said you could be patient.” I wiped the corner of my mouth.

“I’m kissing you,” she said, as if I had asked her what color the sky was. “Is this not what you do on Earth when you feel something for someone?”