Page 85 of I Fell for an Alien Popstar

I couldn’t read her expression from there—or maybe I could through the bond, which was going absolutely haywire in my chest. It pulsed in sharp, stuttering bursts that felt like her heart breaking and mending at the same time.

Her aura flared.

Not the soft, contented glow from rehearsal. This was bright and unsteady, rippling along her neck and down her arms, visible even from the floor.

She pressed her hand flat against her chest, over her heart.

Then she laughed—a wet, broken sound—and brought the mic back to her lips.

“That’s—” Her voice cracked. She shook her head. The crowd was quiet, riveted. “That’s not fair.”

Someone in the crowd whooped. Someone else shushed them.

Zhari crouched at the edge of the stage, one hand on the barrier, and looked right at me.

Right at the sign.

Right through me.

“I wrote this song about you,” she said, not quite into the mic, but it caught anyway and echoed through the arena.

My face crumpled.

I was crying. I was absolutely, definitely crying in the middle of a concert in front of thousands of aliens, holding a glittery sign with a smiley-faced car on it.

A security officer appeared at my elbow. For a second, I tensed, ready to be escorted out.

“Come with me,” he said gently.

He led me along the barrier to the side of the stage, past confused crew members and through a curtain that smelled like haze machines and flowers.

My legs were shaking so badly that I was basically walking on vibes and spite.

And then she was there.

Zhari came off the stage at almost a run, her mic abandoned somewhere behind her, her jacket half-shrugged off one shoulder. Her eyes were red, and her aura was blazing.

She looked at me like I was the only thing in the room.

She stopped a foot away.

“You,” she said, her voice wrecked. “You absolute disaster.”

I held up the sign one more time because I didn’t know what else to do with my hands.

“I want to solar car with you,” I whispered.

She made a sound that was half laugh and half sob, then walked right up to me, our chests touching. Her arms came around me. I buried my face in her neck and sobbed.

“I’m sorry,” I said, muffled against her skin. “I’m sorry. I was a coward. I made it look like you were the risky thing and the job was the safe thing. Like I trusted a contract over you.”

Her arms tightened.

“The job was easy to say yes to because it didn’t ask anything from me that I hadn’t already given away,” I said, the words tumbling out. “My time, my brain, my drawings. I’ve been doing that my whole life. Saying yes to you meant putting me on the line. Not just my work. Me.”

She pulled back just enough to look at my face. Her thumb came up and wiped a tear from my cheek, rough and gentle at the same time.

“I wanted someone to choose me,” I whispered. “Not the Shadow Girl. Not the brand. Not the useful background human. Just me. And when the universe said, ‘Hey, this is your literal mate,’ I panicked because it felt like it was choosing for me. Like I was being assigned again. Like I didn’t get a vote.”