coat and got back to her steak. It was kind of weird trying to grind up the tough meat with her new gap, and of course, it had to be on the side that she favored for chewing.
“Don’t look now, but your boyfriend’s back,” Shelley muttered behind her hand.
For one shocking second, Monica thought she was talking about the commander and felt scorching color surge all the way up to her scalp. It was almost a relief to realize Shelley was referring to her new shadow, Lieutenant Shauss.
“Just ignore him,” she advised. “That’s what I do. I’m sure Commander Kellen asked him to keep an eye on me to make sure I don’t, you know…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. Get drunk on their sex hormones .
“I don’t like the way he’s looking at you,” Shelly insisted. “You need to nip his little thing in the bud before it becomes a problem.”
30
Alien Overnight
“I saw his thing in xenoanatomy,” Monica snickered, “and believe me, it’s far from little.”
“Damn it, I’m serious! He’s looking at you like…” she trailed off, biting her lips.
“Like?” Oh, the suspense was killing her. Truly, how often did a prime cut of male look at her like…anything?
Looking both directions first, Shelley leaned forward and hissed, “Like he wants to bonk your brains out.”
Smothering a laugh, Monica told her, “God, Shel, you are too much. Maybe you need to see a therapist or something. Sounds to me like you have your own little thing to deal with.”
“Fine,” Shelley said, obviously insulted. “Just don’t come crying to me when you wind up naked in chains on the cover of some alien BDSM mag.”
There was no holding back this time. Monica slapped her hand over her mouth and doubled over, shrieking with laughter, and barely missed dipping her bangs in her whipped cream. She laughed even harder when Shelley just sat there, munching on her taco salad with a bored look that said, You ’ re sooo immature .
Then she caught a glimpse of Lieutenant Shauss as she turned to wipe her eyes and the last of her giggles lodged in her throat. He was just smiling at her, nothing too unusual about that. But it was the way he was smiling…
Shit ! Heat flashed in her belly and she quickly looked away, shaken. Shelley was dead-on about how he was looking at her and Monica had no clue how to react. Damn it, she wasn’t going to react. There was a reason men didn’t look at her like that and she’d damn well better remember it.
“Mmm-hmm,” Shelley hummed knowingly, still chewing.
“Just ignore him,” Monica repeated less firmly than she would have liked. And maybe he ’ ll go away . He didn’t, of course, but she concentrated hard on chewing her steak and tried to shove him toward the back of her mind.
Which became even more difficult when Shelley whispered, “I think Jasmine has a crush on him.”
“On Lieutenant Shauss?”
When Shelley nodded, Monica slumped back in her seat and stared at her. The Stepford secretary, crushing on the cover-model alien? Oh, now that was too funny.
“No way.”
“Way. Watch her the next time he’s around.”
“He’s always around, and I’ve never noticed anything.”
“That’s because you’re not keyed in on boy-girl stuff. Alien-girl stuff,” she corrected with a grimace.
Monica turned her attention back to her steak, not wanting to travel any further down that road. Alien - girl stuff . God, maybe she and Jasmine had more in common than she knew.
31
Robin L. Rotham
“So what do you think it means?” Shelley finally asked. “Losing the tooth, I mean.”
“Is it supposed to mean something?”
“Well, you only lose your baby teeth when your adult teeth are ready to come in, right?”
“Yeah, when you’re anything close to normal, which we both know I’m not. With my luck, they’ll all just drop out and I’ll have to gum my way across the galaxy.”
“Oh come on, Monica.” Shelley pushed away the crumbs of her salad
Dan Bigley, Debra McKinney