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Chapter One
Nisha’s nerves werefrazzled. In her mind’s eye, her blood was racing through her veins like a locomotive on wobbly and unstable tracks. At the moment, her anxiety level was cranked up to ten and she couldn’t tell a single soul how she felt. Not even Tasha, her best friend of over twenty years.
Anisha Tabitha Jones thought herself the epitome of cool, calm and collected. She was the same woman who men nervously stuttered in front of and fumbled to get her number wherever she went. And yet, here she was, unable to control her emotions when it came to the hunky alien who didn’t give a damn about her.
She would never admit that. Never!
“Okay, now.” Tasha, her best friend, snapped the plastic lid on the Tupperware bowl full of fried chicken wings. “I made enough for at least two days, although I don’t know about Kien’s appetite.”
Tasha scrunched her eyebrows in thought, then went to the cabinet by the kitchen sink and grabbed another handful of packaged cookies and cakes and tossed them into the already too full cooler. “Just in case you run out of food.”
Phate, one of the three aliens who lived next door to Tasha, stood by the open cooler, inspecting its contents. He glanced up at Tasha’s last words. “Is running out of food an option?”
Nisha swallowed then tamped down her growing unease about traveling with Kien, the alien who had her insides currently doing theCupid Shuffleon repeat, and with one hand, closed the cooler. “No. We aren’t in any danger of starving if that’s what you’re asking.”
Now that she knew they were from another planet, their speech patterns, questions and their naivety about everyday normal things made sense.
Solgre, the alien captain, and their leader, breezed into Tasha’s apartment without knocking on the door. All three of the aliens matched in height, lavender eyes, pale skin tone and they all had the same blonde, curly hair.
But unlike Phate and Kien, Solgre was skin and bones and he was growing thinner by the day.
It was easy to see his hollow cheeks even with stubble covering his face. The area around his eyes were also sunken and dark. His clothes, which might have fit him before, hung from his wiry frame.
He was sick. Very sick. And it was up to Kien and Nisha to save him.
“I’ve calculated your route.” Solgre made a beeline for the kitchen table. “Four days to get there, walk toHalo Oneon day five, reconfigure the portable replicator and download the medication compound specs and two days to return.”
While Tasha didn’t seem to mind that her alien neighbors had spent the day barging in and out of her apartment, Nisha did. She wanted her best friend to herself. Their long-time duo dynamic had quickly turned into a frapple. Fiver? Cinco? Hell, Nisha didn’t know what five people were called but frapple seemed to work in her head.
While it was cool to be in the know about aliens and to help them until their rescuers came, she missed the good old days when it was justherbarging in on Tasha unannounced.
Jealous much?
Possibly.
Since Phate and Tasha were back together as of last night, there hadn’t been a chance for Nisha to get Tasha alone. And she really needed some best friend time. Stat. She really needed to discuss this whole being alone with Kien for a week thing.
She’d gotten herself into this mess and had to see it through. Ugh.
Nisha sighed. “I’ll be back. I have to go home and pack.”
Phate barely lifted his head from rummaging in the cooler, but Tasha was at her side almost immediately. She dipped her head to whisper, “Are you okay?”
Not even.
But she couldn’t tell her bestie that. Yet.
“I really need to talk to you but not right now. When I get back, do you think you could take a minute away from your lover man?”
Her question may have held a tinge of envy. Not a lot, because she wanted Tasha to be happy and shedeservedhappiness but was the alien planning to leave in a month the answer to that?
Tasha’s smile was warm which helped quell some of Nisha’s uneasiness. All she really needed was to vent and have a game plan for dealing with Kien for a week. “Sure. We definitely can talk. I know I pressured you into doing this, but if you don’t want to, we can figure something else out.”
And be blamed for an alien dying? Nope. “I’ll do it. Just give me an hour to get my stuff.”
After a hesistant nod from Tasha, Nisha raced out the door.
The first thing she did was call her boss. She worked for the law firm her dad had built from the ground up. Her boss was her deceased dad’s best friend, so getting the time off wasn’t a problem.
