Grayson chewed his bottom lip for a moment, studying me as if I had white fur and whiskers. “How’s this?” he said. “You know what’s coming, so you mentally brace for it.”
“Ah,” I said, and flopped down across from him at the banquette. “Forewarned is forearmed.”
“Exactly.”
Grayson’s cheek dimpled. It was the only way I could tell he was smiling, because his lips were perpetually obscured by a bushy black moustache that looked like the mothership that had delivered his bushy, shuttlecraft eyebrows.
He curled his long fingers around his coffee mug. “This ‘mental preparation’ could be skewing your alpha-wave results to a falsely high level.”
I sighed. “Or, it could mean I’m finally getting the hang of dealing with otherworldly creeps.”
“Hmm.” Grayson rubbed his chin. “I suppose that’s one of the other possibilities.”
“One?” I set my coffee cup down and tried to gather pertinent facts from my groggy brain for my rebuttal dissertation, but got sidetracked. A manila folder was tucked under Grayson’s laptop. The edge sticking out had the words Experiment #5 written on it.
I frowned at the folder suspiciously. “Okay. What other possibilities are there?”
Grayson shrugged. “Quite a few, actually. Elevated alpha waves could be a causal symptom of the vestigial twin lodged in the center of your brain.”
I sat back, surprised. “You think my twin has something to do with my high alpha waves?” I shook my head. “Sure. Why give me any credit?”
“Drex, I’m merely stating that the mass could be exerting pressure on your pineal gland, inducing a feeling of bliss.”
“Bliss?” I laughed jadedly as an image flashed in my mind from a week ago. I’d been yanking the spikey legs off cicadas for a casserole at a Duck Dynasty bug barbeque.
“Well, Grayson, whatever ‘bliss’ I feel sure isn’t coming from job satisfaction.”
Grayson locked eyes with me. “The bliss I’m talking about would be totally unassociated with your current reality.”
I smirked. “It’d have to be.”
I jabbed a finger at the folder peeking out from beneath his laptop. “What’s experiment number five?”
Grayson covered the label with his hand, then studied me for a moment. “That’s on a need-to-know basis, Drex.”
Frustration shot an arrow directly into my temple. “Come on, Grayson! I thought we were supposed to trust each other!”
Grayson cocked his head and raised an eyebrow at me. “Is that why you broke into my locked cabinet last week?”
I winced. “I already apologized for that. Besides, Earl did it first.”
Grayson eyed me coolly. “If Earl jumped off a bridge—”
“Fine!” I blurted. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry.”
Grayson looked down his nose at me. “Apology accepted.”
I glanced down at the mysterious folder and chewed my bottom lip. I couldn’t stand not knowing what the hell Experiment #5 meant. “Aw, come on, Grayson. Just give me a hint, okay?”
Grayson sighed. “Very well.”
I smiled and took a victory sip of coffee.
Grayson cleared his throat. “It involves hot bodies.”
Coffee spurted from my mouth like a busted lawn sprinkler. “Porn?” I hacked, wiping my chin.
Grayson studied me clinically, then put a spidery hand on my forehead. “Drex, do you have a headache?”
I blanched and yanked his hand away. “No. Why?”
Grayson stared at me oddly, but said nothing.
Suddenly, a thought stabbed my brain. My ears flamed with heat. “Grayson, is this your attempt at ... foreplay?”
Grayson’s handsome head tilted slightly to the left. “Four play? Impossible, Drex. We’re not equipped for that.”
My eyebrows met. “What? Why not?”
“Because there are only two of us.”
I collapsed back into my seat, stunned to silence. Either Grayson had stolen a joke from Leslie Nielsen, or he was indeed utterly clueless when it came to intergalactic relationships.
As I ground my teeth to powder contemplating whether Grayson was of this Earth or not, I realized there was only one thing I knew about him with absolute certainty.
The guy really knew how to pull my chain.
Chapter Two
A high-pitched wail echoed down the hallway of the RV.
I glanced up from my laptop and winced. Either Grayson was giving an extremely reluctant cat an enema, or he was singing in the shower again.
My lips curled diabolically. I rubbed my hands together.
Yes!
It was time to get to work.
WHILE GRAYSON CRUCIFIED Jesus Christ Superstar, I ransacked the RV like a flying squirrel on crack. I couldn’t help myself. My mind was literally twitching with curiosity. I had to know.
What the hell is Experiment #5?
“On a need to know basis, my ass,” I muttered as I rifled through the hallway cabinets like a meth-head craving a fix. So far, I’d come up empty-handed.
A hasty shuffle through Grayson’s shelves of secret potions produced no results either—just another gander at his oddball collection, including the Alien Parasite Remover he kept in a Windex bottle. Behind it, floating in a jar of gross, pale-brown liquid, was the Nubian fertility statue my dingbat cousin Earl had mistaken for the extra appendage removed from Grayson when he was a kid.
Grayson’s adoptive mother had given her new son the nickname “Nubbin” because of his extra appendage. Its surgical removal had left a scar on Grayson’s stomach that looked remarkably like a second bellybutton.
Or, at least, that’s the story Grayson had told me.
“Damn. No file,” I muttered to myself.
I closed the cabinet and headed for the bedroom. But even after pilfering through Grayson’s underwear drawer, ten minutes later I still had absolutely squat to show for my efforts.
Wedging my hand into every crack in the broken sofa-bed and scrounging through every kitchen shelf and drawer had produced nothing except the BabyRuth candy bar I’d stashed away in an empty macaroni box two months ago. You know, in case of emergency.
And as far as I was concerned, this was a freakin’ emergency.
I flopped onto the bed, ripped open the silver foil, and sunk my teeth into the peanuts and firm, chocolate-coated caramel. As I bit off a huge hunk, a thought struck me.
Grayson said the folder contained “hot bodies.” Where would
