Page 54 of I Fell for an Alien Popstar

“But?” she asked softly.

“But,” I said, sitting back down on the edge of the bed, “I need you to know that me wanting you like that isn’t the same as me signing up for the forever-bond thing. My body is apparently very on board. My brain is still in a meeting about it.”

Her brows furrowed.

“You think I cannot tell the difference?” she asked. “Between you wanting to touch me and you wanting to bind your life to mine? I understand my species is different from yours. We move fast.”

“Yes, Velans do. Also, I don’t know what you can tell,” I said. “You keep saying the aura knows, like it’s this wise little light bulb in your chest. Mine just feels like static.”

“For me, it is not just light,” she said. “When our auras clicked at the concert, it was like…”

She searched the air with her hands, fingers spreading as if she could pull the right words out of it.

“Like hearing a song I had loved my whole life and suddenly remembering the lyrics. It did not feel new. It felt like… Oh, there you are. I have been waiting for you.”

My throat went tight.

“That’s a lot to put on someone you just met.”

“I know,” she said. “But the feelings were just… there. Not built. Not earned. Just there.”

She pressed her palm lightly over her dual-pulse.

“I do not know how to separate that from what I feel for you now, after all of this. It is a bit tangled.”

“I get that,” I said. “Kind of. I just… I spent most of my life being told what I should want. What a good job looked like. What a good daughter did. Who I should date. Destiny is just another voice in that choir. I need to know that if you choose me, it’s because you like the actual person. Not just because your biology rang a little bell.”

“I do like the actual person,” she said, reaching out to my thigh. “I like all of you. If there were no aura, I would still—”

She cut herself off, her jaw working.

“Still what?” I asked.

“Still want you. Still want to sit with you and eat terrible food and listen to you talk about your cat-brother and your mother and the way your city smells after rain.”

She paused.

“The bond did not make that. It only… pointed me in your direction faster. I know you are worried, and I am trying to understand. If the universe is saying this is your person, why would one wait?”

“I understand. I want that too,” I said quietly. “I just want you to want me because I’m me. I just… I don’t want to wake up one day and realize I said yes to something I can’t ever step back from because it felt good in the moment and the universe was yelling, ‘Kiss, kiss, kiss!’ in the background.”

She was silent for a moment before nodding and taking my hands.

“Then here is what I can promise,” she said. “We will not complete the bond without you being completely sure. Not your body on autopilot. Not your panic. You. Clear. Awake. Not because the universe is yelling. Because you are.”

She leaned in and kissed my cheek.

“Okay,” I said. “Thank you for being so patient. I know I overthink. This is just extremely life-changing.”

She nodded, squeezing my hands tightly.

“And in the meantime,” she said, the corner of her mouth quirking up again, “I still get to take you to the market, feed you fungi, and show you gravity charms. That does not require forever.”

“Fungi? Well, joke’s on you because I love mushrooms.”

She threw another pillow at me. I dodged it, laughing, and finally went to get dressed.

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