How to Marry an Alien

How to Marry an Alien: My Alien Romance
Series, Book 3

Copyright © Magan Vernon, 2013

www.maganvernon.com

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are either products of the
author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the
author or publisher.

First Edition: November 2012

Cover art by Steven Novak.

http://novakillustration.com/

First edition edited by H. Danielle
Crabtree

http://www.hedanicreations.net/freelance-editor

The first day I took my daughter to daycare,
I cried. It was like I was losing my days with her, but I wasn't.
The My Alien Romance series is like that. Though this is Alex's
final chapter in the story, this isn't the end. This is just the
end of their chapter and it's on to the next.

First off, this series would be nothing
without GP Ching, my mentor, my confidante, and most of all, my
friend.

To Dani Crabtree, thank you for saving this
series when it needed an editor SO badly.

To Steven Novak, somehow you took a vague
idea of what I had for a cover and rebranded my series so fully. I
don't know what I would do without your constant support and your
way with graphics.

To Kelsey Ketch and Eryn Rask, thank you for
reading this story in its beginning stages and giving me the
pointers to make it better. I value both of you as critique
partners.

To Angela Carlie, thank you for helping me
out with all things vegan.

To Jennifer Wells, thanks for helping me out
with Arizona info, turns out that Northern Arizona isn't actually
in the desert, they have trees! AND SNOW!

To Bobby Jolley, Connie Mchenry, Nancy
Bryant, and Dianna Davis. Not only do you all provide remarkable
customer service, but you can help a crazy little processor write a
great accident scene.

To Adam Viel, thank you for not talking to me
like an idiot when I asked about aviation.

To Karen Hooper and Susan Kaye Quinn, thank
you for pushing me to finish this story and even helping when my
alien romance scenes went a little too Fifty Shades.

To the Indelibles, thank you for supporting
the weird alien girl, no matter what.

To all book bloggers, I heart you. You are
the reason my books sell, because you are all the sprinkles on my
ice cream and make my books look better.

And to you, the reader who picked up this
book, thank you for taking the chance on an indie author.

There are two days that every girl looks
forward to: her wedding day and the day she finally gets out of
high school.

I had been waiting for graduation day ever
since I first set foot at Winnebago High School and after the past
year I had with evil aliens trying to kill me and controlling my
classmates, it was about time.

“I am so proud of you, Alex,” mom gushed.
“You’re a high school graduate!” She was always the drama queen.
Like a high school diploma was that big of a deal anymore.

“You did great, kiddo.” Brian, my stepdad,
patted me on the back.

The late spring sun shone down on us in the
parking lot, and I could already see the perspiration bead on his
big, bald head. I never remembered it being so hot in May, but I
chalked the weather changes up to global warming and hoped I didn't
have a big wet spot on my gown from my sweaty back.

I still couldn’t get over the awkwardness of
having my entire family in the gym, watching me walk down and get
my diploma. I mean my ENTIRE family. My mom and her parents where
there. It was always awkward having grandpa around since he
believed that he knew my boyfriend, Ace, from somewhere. Okay, so
my boyfriend may or may not have flown with him during World War
II, but thank goodness grandpa was old enough that I could just say
he was senile. Brian and his parents came along, of course, and
even though I thought they were a little off their rocker, they
always gave good Christmas gifts and I couldn't exclude them.
Elijah, my little brother, loved my step-grandfather. In fact, he
sat next to him the entire time during the graduation and told him
every detail of the bugs that gathered on the back window. Then
there was my dad and his parents. They all sat just a row above mom
and Brian's family with the same Italian glare pasted on their
faces. This blended family thing never got easier.

Mom, her parents, and Brian and his parents
stood in a small circle in the parking lot outside the gym doors
and dad and his family stood at least twenty feet away. I even
think my nona called my mom something mean in Italian under her
breath. Dad rarely saw my nona and nanu anymore since he was busy
working in an alien operations center, but every time they came in
from Chicago they acted like it had only been a few minutes since
they last spoke and went back to talking about the same story they
had the last time they were there. The story was always about food.
I never knew where it was going, but they still kept going on about
it.

At least Ace was there to pick me up and
twirl me around as if I were lighter than air. My black gown
swished around me. Having my alien there was enough to make me
forget about my fighting family and just enjoy the fact that I was
finally out of high school and would soon be on my way to Northern
Arizona University.

“What was that for?” I looked up at him once
he sat me down.

He had a giant grin spread across his face.
There was absolutely nothing that I didn’t love about his smile or
the way that he could just pick me up so effortlessly. In his baby
blue sweater and beige trousers, he looked more like a model than
my alien boyfriend, which was a good thing if he was going to keep
his identity as an alien hidden.

“Can’t I just enjoy this moment with my
favorite valedictorian?”

I rolled my eyes, pulling the itchy square
cap off my head and smoothing out my hair. “Oh please. I’ve done
way cooler things than be valedictorian.”

“Trying to show off for me, now?” He raised
his eyebrows and pulled up the sleeves of his sweater ever so
slightly.

Even though the temperature was probably
approaching the eighties, Ace still had to wear long sleeves no
matter how hot it was. He needed something to cover his temperature
control suit, so he was better off looking like the weird guy in
long sleeves than the guy in the silver jumpsuit.

“Yeah, it’s kind of my thing. I’m a show
off.” I bounced on the balls of my feet. Mom might have made me
wear a dress, but there was no way I was wearing heels for the
occasion. Last time I wore heels, I was attacked by an evil alien
trying to kill me and that would hopefully never happen again.

Hopefully.

“Well I have something to show off for you.”
He reached out for my hand. I took it and arched a brow, looking
behind us as my family just watched from their respective
sides.

“What is going on?” I asked.

“You’ll see.” He pulled me through the
parking lot, pushing past the groups of people huddled
together.

My classmates were lined up all over, taking
pictures with their friends in their gowns or just screaming in
general. God, was I happy to be getting out of that place. The only
pseudo friends I had at the school were the ones that only liked me
because they were under the influence of an evil alien. Ugh, why
did I always just attract evil aliens and not enough human friends?
First Ace's mom, the queen of Calta, came after me and then some
psycho ex-girlfriend. It was no wonder that dad kept sending me
pepper spray guns for holidays.

Ace stopped next to an all-black SUV with
tinted windows and rims that probably cost more than my entire car.
I swore it looked like the same vehicles the president's secret
service men drove in. I hoped there wasn't some sort of secret
Circe mission I would have to go on and explain it to my mom.

“Uh, why are we stopping here?” I asked.

Ace just smiled and pulled out a set of keys
from his pocket, pressing a button and unlocking the doors of the
shiny car.

“No freaking way! This is your car?” I looked
from Ace to the car and back to Ace.

“No.” He took a step closer, removed his hand
from mine, and dropped the keys in my palm. “It is actually your
car.”

“WHAT?”

“Just a little graduation gift.” He smiled as
I took another step toward the car.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t let
you drive that thing you call ‘The Pox’ to Arizona.”

I opened the door to be greeted by the new
car smell. Not just new car smell, but top-of-the-line new car
smell. The interior was decked out in plush leather with all the
bells and whistles: navigation system, heated seats, DVD player,
and a blue box sitting on the passenger seat? That couldn’t have
been included.

“What is this?” I picked up the box and held
it in my palm as if it might burn me.

Ace took the box and got down on one knee in
front of me. I realized that my family were only standing a few
feet away. Somehow in all my excitement, I didn't realize they came
over. I looked past my mom's cheesy smile and also saw that half
the town was looking at us. I could already feel the heat creeping
up my neck and looked back at Ace.

He opened the box and a silver ring with a
giant diamond the size of a cheese ball looked back at me. “I
figure we should do this the right way,” he said with the smile
never leaving his face. “So, Alexandra Bianchi, will you do me the
honor of marrying me?”

I was speechless. We agreed in front of the
alien world that we would someday get married, but I wasn’t
expecting a human proposal. I looked around at everyone’s eyes on
us. Even stupid Gemma and her rugby cronies stood with their mouths
wide open. Then I looked down at the only person that really
mattered, my alien. After the events of the past year, there was no
one else I wanted to be kneeling in front of me.

I felt the tears well up in my eyes. Not
tears of sadness or of pain, but of pure happiness. I swooped a
finger underneath my eye and hoped the pound of mascara on my
eyelashes didn't all drip down my face.

“So is that a yes?” He arched his
eyebrows.

I let my hands lay on either side of his
statuesque face. His body was as cold as ice and even with his eyes
dark and calculating, the way he looked at me made every single
hair on my arms stand up and made me shiver in all the right
places.

“It is a definite yes.”

My graduation party quickly turned from being
about my last days of high school to being about my engagement.

“So when are you due?” My great-aunt Cici
stared from my giant ring to my stomach. Aunt Cici wasn’t one to
hold back her feelings, and I guess she was saying what everyone
else was thinking.

“Um, what?” I blinked, pulling my hand away
from her wrinkled old lady hand and moving my arms around my
stomach. I thought my black, one shoulder dress actually made me
look slimmer—guess I was wrong about that one.

Aunt Cici’s lips formed into a tight smile,
her wrinkles pulling at the edge of her tiny mouth. “You know, the
baby? Why else would a girl your age be getting married?”

I let out a breathed laugh. There wasn’t much
else I could do when someone questioned my and Ace’s relationship.
It wouldn’t be the first time, but at least Aunt Cici wasn’t trying
to kill us because of it. “We are just engaged, for now. We're
waiting until I’m done with school before we decide on any sort of
a wedding date.”

“Oh, well then, there is always time.” She
patted my shoulder before walking toward the kitchen, muttering
something that I couldn’t decipher.

“Don’t mind her. She did the same thing when
your mother and I got engaged,” dad whispered behind me before I
turned to face him.

The months away from him and Circe aged him
even more than when I first saw him on base almost a year ago. Back
then, I thought he was starting to look like an old man, but now he
was really getting into geezer territory. Before I knew it, his
dark circles would be even darker and he would be sporting some
white Velcro tennis shoes instead of his usual wing tips.