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And braggy. And he burps a lot. I have a feeling he ate either Caesar salad or garlic bread for dinner, because every so often a garlic and beer–scented burp wafts my way. It’s a challenge not to grimace every time it happens. Instead, I plaster on a smile and try to follow the conversation, but it isn’t easy with all the hot garlic wind.
“Are you still in college, too? I’ve never seen you on campus. I’m in the final year of my PhD.”
“Oh wow. That’s a lot of education. And dedication. What are you studying?” I ask. This is good. If I can keep him talking, then I don’t have to answer questions. When I’m with old people or cats, I don’t have to worry about making an ass out of myself.
“I’m taking alien studies.”
I blink a few times, waiting for a punchline, but one apparently isn’t coming. I wonder if my expression is the same as other people’s when I tell them I cat sit and train them. “Oh, that’s really . . . interesting. What kind of job would you get with that? Would you work for NASA?”
“Oh no. NASA is only looking for rocket scientists and people with engineering degrees. Or at least that’s what all my rocket scientist friends are saying.” He waves a hand around in the air. “I fell in love with aliens when I watched E.T. as a kid. Have you seen that movie? The one from the eighties?”
“Oh wow. Yeah. I’ve seen it. He’s obsessed with Reese’s Pieces, isn’t he? The E.T. character?” This is an exceptionally odd conversation.
“Oh yeah, totally obsessed.” Bryce nods exuberantly and burps again.
“If you’re not in college, what do you do?” he asks.
“I’m a professional cat sitter.”
He blinks once, twice, a third time, and then throws his head back and guffaws. It draws the attention of the surrounding tables, which in turn makes my face feel hot. When I don’t join in, his expression sobers and his eyes round with shock. “You’re serious?”
This coming from a guy who went into alien studies because of a Reese’s Pieces–loving Hollywood-created extraterrestrial. “Yup. I own my own business.”
He frowns. “You can make a living off of that?”
This isn’t an uncommon reaction to my job, but it is frustrating. “There’s a woman who makes six figures from farting in jars. Why can’t cat sitting be lucrative enough to pay the bills?”
“Cats are kind of assholes, though. Like, dog sitting I get. They need to be let out and taken for walks. Cats are just doorstops that crap in a box,” Bryce says.
“They’re just as affectionate as dogs, and they need just as much love and care,” I argue.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, which is a relief because I’m getting heated. More than just in my face. I check the message, half hoping it’s an emergency. It’s not urgent, but it is Miles. Listening to Bryce crap all over my job isn’t my idea of a good time. But if Miles were here . . . On a whim made out of panic and kneejerk reactions, I invite him to the pub. It isn’t until after I hit the Send button that I realize it probably isn’t the best idea to invite the guy I have a crush on to a pub with my sister and her friends.
“Everything okay?” Bryce asks, seemingly oblivious to how much he’s offended me.
“Yup. Everything’s fine.”
I proceed to panic-chug the rest of my drink and order another while Bryce tells me about the time he was abducted by an alien. It’s better than him insulting my job, but not by much.
“I was only eight years old when it happened. It was the middle of the night, and I had a feeling, you know? I looked out my window and there was a UFO in the sky. I opened my window to get a better look, and then a huge spotlight shone down on the side of my house and boom.” He snaps his fingers. “I was beamed up to the mothership.”
“Wow. That must have been surreal.” I need to ask my sister where the hell she met this guy, and why she stuck me beside him. Unfortunately, asking her right now would be rude, as she’s currently flirting with a guy who looks a lot like Chris Evans’s younger brother.
“I was prepared for the worst,” he says solemnly.
“Like being anally probed?” I joke, sort of.
“That’s actually a myth. Aliens don’t do that.” He stretches his arm across the back of the seat and leans in close, as if he’s about to tell me a secret.
Which is the exact moment I spot Miles walking through the bar. He’s wearing a suit and his glasses, and he looks so good. Like a sexy, nerdy, suit-wearing smart guy who crunches numbers like gym junkies crunch their abs. I raise my hand in the air and wave it around to catch his attention. For a moment his face lights up when he sees me. It makes my stomach somersault. And then his gaze shifts to my right, where Bryce is close talking in my ear. I consider how it must look to Miles. Here I am, inviting him to the pub while some random weirdo chats me up. About aliens.
