Catching Stardust Read online

  Did he even have a right to make this kind of choice knowing it affected everyone?

  Zander suddenly felt like Atlas with the weight of the world resting squarely on his shoulders. If he told the world about Maia, he’d be breaking her trust and probably signing her up for a lifetime of being studied like a lab rat. But, sacrificing her would give the world so much they never had before. It was the action that would result in the most positive outcome for the most people.

  And yet the thought of looking into those beautiful green, star-filled eyes of hers and telling her that he’d spilled her secret made him feel like a part of himself might die.

  Damn it. What the hell was he going to do?

  The cab jerked to a stop in front of the café. Somehow he’d made it all the way downtown without realizing it, almost as if he’d teleported himself there. Not that it was possible to teleport.

  Or was it?

  Zander bit his lip to hold back a smile. Was teleportation impossible? Yesterday he would have said yes, but today—today everything was different. If Maia could get here from a planet he didn’t even know existed in a cluster of stars, anything was possible.

  Throwing a few bills at the driver, he left the taxi and entered the café. Zander spotted Jude sitting in a booth in the back corner, hunched over a pile of papers, a pencil hanging out of his mouth and a half-eaten muffin pushed to the side. Perfect location for having a conversation Zander really didn’t want overheard.

  Stopping quickly at the counter, he ordered a double espresso. He would need the shot of energy to get through this conversation without giving anything away. When the barista handed him the tiny cup, he wove his way through the crowded café and slid into the seat across from his friend. Jude startled, looking up from his papers.

  “Oh good, you’re finally here,” Jude said, shuffling papers around on the table. He thrust a few sheets at Zander. “Look at this.”

  Zander scanned the papers. Graphs and star charts, comparisons and multiple calculations scrawled across the pages in every direction. Anyone else looking at them would have seen nonsense. But not Zander. Years of straining to make sense of Jude’s chicken scratch and crazy hypotheses paid off. Zander read it all in an instant, a spike of excitement shooting through him.

  Evidence. He really did have solid, data-driven evidence.

  And Zander had Maia to make all that data real.

  Zander took a gulp of his espresso, the heat burning on the way down. Suddenly, this all felt very real. He’d waited his whole life to have a discovery like this. This is what he’d gone to school for, what he’d spent countless hours of studying for and working toward. And now here it was, right in front of him and if he just told Jude what Maia had told him only a few hours ago, the two of them could have it made.

  “So what do you think?” Jude asked. Hope filled his tired eyes. “It’s all right there, isn’t it? I figured it out, didn’t I? Finally.”

  Zander didn’t know what to do. Tell his friend that he knew he was right and sacrifice his new relationship with Maia, an alien by any other name—an extra-freaking-terrestrial. Or pretend Jude had finally gone off his nut and convince him that what he thought was evidence was actually nothing more than a desperate man’s illusion.

  “I need a minute to look it all over,” Zander said, buying a little more time.

  The truth was, he’d only known Maia for a week. And she was an alien. Even if he wanted to protect her, even if he wanted a relationship with her, was that a possibility?

  Jude, on the other hand, had been his friend for years. They’d gone through school together, they spent countless hours researching, learning and fantasizing about what this exact moment would be like. Could he really turn his back on all of that—turn his back on his friend?

  “If you look at this chart I drew up of the constellation Pleiades the night before you met Maia in the park, and compare it with this one that I made the night after, and even this other chart from just last night, you’ll see it’s all there. The sky changed the night you met Maia and it hasn’t been the same since.”

  Zander just nodded but stayed silent. Jude was right. The data was there. It might still be hard to convince others that they weren’t totally crazy with this information. That is unless they included the real-live Maia in the mix.

  “And this,” Jude forced more papers into his line of sight. “You just can’t deny this, right?”

  Zander scanned the new pages and couldn’t stop the thrill of excitement shooting through him. It was all right here at their fingertips. All they had to do was share the information.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Zander said, his mind whirling with the information and the decision of what to do with it. He could be famous—finally get the real recognition he’d always wanted.

  “You can tell Maia you want another date with her and then when she gets there, we can have cameras waiting and get her reaction to us spilling the beans about who she really is.”

  An image of Maia standing on a street somewhere, surrounded by a barrage of cameras shoved in her face while Jude announced her deepest secrets to a live audience sent a chill through him. He could already imagine the fear and betrayal in her eyes. Eyes that hours ago had looked at him with trust as she’d told her secret. Eyes that filled with passion as they moved together as one in his bed.

  He shook his head, forcing the scene from his mind.

  The thought of Maia’s hurt stung him like a hot iron. She would hate him and how could he blame her if after they’d been together, after she’d trusted him with her secret, he turned around and shared it with the world.

  Zander’s chest tightened making it hard to take a full breath.

  “So what do you think,” Jude asked.

  Zander put his hands up to stop his friend from demanding an answer from him again. “Just give me a minute. This is a lot to take in. It’s a lot of information to sort through.”

  “I’m going to grab us another couple of coffees while you look.” Jude popped up from the booth, obviously thrilled with himself and his discovery as he strode to the counter with more confidence than Zander could ever remember seeing him have.

  If he turned against Jude and made him believe he was crazy, he’d possibly lose the best friend he’d ever had. And he’d have to keep Maia’s real identity so well hidden that Jude could never figure out the truth. Well, figure it out again. There would forever be a wall between them if Zander was going to keep this secret. And if Jude ever found out what Zander had done, there simply wouldn’t be a friendship left. There’d probably be a lawsuit.

  But if he ratted out Maia and her secret, he’d lose the first girl who turned him on with her body and her mind. He wouldn’t hear her laugh at his stupid jokes. He wouldn’t have her next to him on the rooftop as they gazed up at the stars. He wouldn’t see the spark of something more than friendship in her eyes when she looked at him.

  He’d see hatred looking back at him if he exposed her secret.

  He’d never get the chance to hold her again. To discuss the world, the universe, her home—she’d never tell him another thing. But she’d be forced to tell the world everything. And if she resisted, the authorities would do whatever they deemed necessary to extract the information. Anything.

  Damn.

  Maybe he and Maia would never have a real, lasting relationship, but was he willing to risk any hope of a future with her—even if it was short-term—for the sake of finding fame and fortune with his friend?

  Jude set two new cups of coffee on the table and slid back into his place in the booth. “So, I figure we need to call your friends at NASA first, then we need to call the FBI because this could be some serious Area 51-style shit, and we need to contact our lawyers to figure out all the legality of this to protect our new asset.”

  NASA? The FBI?

  Images of Area 51 aliens bound to hard, metal exam tables came to mind. Only instead of some trumped up vision of a little green man with a
huge head and big black eyes, he saw sweet, beautiful Maia lying prone on the table, terror in her eyes.

  Zander cringed. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t put Maia through all of that. This had to end here, now. Jude had to be stopped. If he let Jude go through with this—if Jude called all those organizations—Maia would be taken away. She’d be locked up, studied, scrutinized, interrogated…hurt.

  Stacking the most important papers into one pile, Zander grasped them in both hands and ripped them down the middle. He torn them again and again, trying to destroy the evidence and in turn destroy Jude’s dream.

  “What are you doing?” Jude yelled, drawing attention to their table for the first time. “Stop!”

  “This is for your own good, Jude,” Zander said, forcing a stern expression onto his face. “You have to stop all of this nonsense. This isn’t healthy. I think you might actually be…sick.”

  The look of hurt on Jude’s face gnawed away at Zander’s resolve. It sucked having to hurt either of the people he cared about, but if it had to be one or the other, he’d much rather see this pain on his friend rather than on Maia. At least Jude’s pain was fairly superficial unlike the pain that Maia would have to endure in an interrogation.

  “I can’t believe you just did that.” Jude slumped back into the booth, the life and excitement visibly drained out of him. “I can’t believe you destroyed all my work, all my research. Why?”

  “Because it’s not real. You’re letting yourself get carried away on a tangent again.” Zander swallowed the lump in his throat. It hurt more than he thought it would to crush Jude’s hopes and dreams like a bug on the sidewalk. But it had to be done. “This evidence you think you have doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does. If you would have looked at the numbers I could have explained how I got them.”

  “Stop. It’s over. You need to get over this thing you have against Maia. She’s not from space. Oh my god, do you even hear how stupid it is to say that out loud?” Zander forced a laugh and dramatically rubbed his forehead. He could see Jude’s determination and confidence crumbling, falling away. “This notion that Maia is some kind of…alien,” he continued, dropping his voice, “has got to end. It’s ridiculous. You’re lucky you told me and not someone else. You could be locked in a padded room with this kind of talk.”

  “But,” Jude said weakly, his voice barely over a whisper.

  “But nothing. I looked at your evidence and I’m sorry, Jude. I don’t see anything to convince me or anyone else that what you believe is true. You have no valid evidence.”

  “I thought,” he trailed off, collecting the little scraps of paper into a pile. He pulled two pieces from the heap and tried to connect them like pieces of a puzzle. “It was right here.”

  Taking the scraps back, Zander scooped the papers off the table and walked behind the counter, dumping the papers into the trash bin moments before the barista dumped a container of wet coffee grounds on top.

  Zander joined Jude again. “I’m sorry, but that had to be done. Now why don’t you work on the presentation you’re giving next week on calculating the distance of stars using our intergalactic compass and GPS system? The IGPS is one of our flagship personal space travel gadgets and it’s going to take multiple tries to get the presentation right before we even think about approaching new investors.”

  Jude twisted his napkin in his fingers but didn’t say anything.

  Zander sighed. Seeing his friend with his dreams crushed sucked. “Or better yet, go home and get some sleep.”

  Jude pulled out a large map of the sky over the northern hemisphere and unfolded it. “I think I’ve had too much coffee to sleep.”

  “Maybe you should get some fresh air. Take a walk or something.”

  Jude stared at the map with unblinking eyes. “Maybe.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Jude nodded but didn’t say anything.

  Zander held back his own disgust at having just betrayed the best friend he’d ever had. He’d done what he’d had to. He’d done what was right. He’d protected Maia.

  The overwhelming urge to wrap her in his arms, to feel her body pressed against his, suddenly struck him. He needed to get back to her—make sure she was okay.

  “I gotta run. You sure you’re okay?” Zander asked, standing beside the table.

  “I’m fine. Just drained.”

  “Go home and do us both a favor, get some rest.”

  Zander turned and wove his way back through the busy restaurant, thankful he’d been able to convince Jude that his evidence was wrong. Now Maia wouldn’t have to worry. Stepping aside, he held the door open for two women coming into the café. Just as he was about to walk out himself, another person pushed through the small space.

  The man towered over Zander, nearly filling the entire doorway, peering down at him as he passed. A twinkle of stars glinted off the man’s irises, so faint someone could easily have thought it was just a reflection of light from the sun streaming in the door.

  Zander looked away quickly and walked out onto the street. Best not to draw attention to the fact that he knew what he was looking at. Just because Maia trusted him with the knowledge didn’t mean that everyone else in the universe would appreciate her letting him in on their secret.

  Apparently Maia wasn’t the only alien in town.

  He walked to the curb and raised his arm to hail a taxi. As he waited for a car to stop, he couldn’t help but glance back through the window to check on Jude, who appeared to be talking to someone now sitting in the booth where Zander had been only moments before. It looked as if he was showing the person something on the star map. Hopefully Jude would know better than to tell some random stranger his theories about Maia. If not, it was Jude’s own fault if he found himself in a padded room later.

  “Hey, man, you want a ride or not?” a cab driver called out the open window. The taxi had stopped right in front of Zander without him even noticing.

  “Yep,” he said, hopping into the cab. He quickly told the driver the address of his apartment and leaned back into the seat, relief washing over him that his conversation with Jude was done. He couldn’t take any more suspicion from Jude, not if he wanted to protect Maia and her secret.

  And he did want to protect her, didn’t he?

  Stifling a yawn, he glanced at his watch. It was quarter past ten already but someone needed to tell his body it wasn’t still the middle of the night. Staying out late and being involved in extra-curricular activities all night was starting to catch up with him. His body didn’t feel as young as it had in college. He desperately needed more rest.

  Good thing he was heading to his apartment. And to Maia.

  Of course seeing her lying naked in his bed again probably wouldn’t be very conducive to sleep. Sleep was overrated.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Maia startled as the front door to Zander’s apartment opened. She stopped pacing the living room floor and bolted for the bedroom door. She hid behind it, pulling it all the way open so she was tucked safely between it and the wall. It wasn’t much of a hiding place, but if Zander returned with the authorities, it might be her only chance to make a run for it before they caught her.

  And she couldn’t let them catch her.

  She’d seen pictures of what they did to people like her here on Earth. Those pictures were mandatory viewing before traveling to Earth as a solid reminder of why not to blow your cover.

  But Zander wouldn’t bring the authorities to her, would he? He said he was going to deal with Jude and keep her secret safe. She’d wanted so desperately to believe he would keep his word that she stayed and waited for his return. Now her pulse raced and she feared she’d made a horrible mistake staying when she’d had the chance to escape.

  “Maia, are you here?” Zander called from the living room.

  Her breath caught in her throat. This was it—the moment she’d learn if he were a man of his word or not. Please be alone. She peeked through the crack where t
he door met the wall. Zander moved toward the bedroom. No one else appeared to be in the room.

  “Maia,” he called out again, his voice filled with concern.

  She breathed out a sigh and slumped against the wall for a moment before stepping out from behind the door. “I’m here.”

  He jumped and turned, a flash of surprise on his face. “Oh thank god. I was worried you’d left.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her on the forehead. “It’s going to be okay. Your secret is still safe.”

  The scent of Zander surrounded her—warm and manly—and made her want to crawl right back into bed for a repeat performance of their night’s activities. She melted into him, comforted by his strength and his words. She’d known he wouldn’t give her away. “What happened with Jude?”

  Zander rubbed her back in lazy circles as he spoke. “It didn’t go well. But I think I convinced him his evidence was nothing more than a pipe dream.”

  She pulled back to stare into his eyes. “You think you convinced him, or you did convince him? Because that makes a big difference in my state of well-being.”

  “Did convince. I’m sure of it. And just for good measure, I tore up his evidence and threw it away.” She saw sadness in his eyes. “I crushed his dreams. I’m an awful friend.”

  She reached up and held his face in both hands. “No, you’re a great friend to me. That took a lot of guts and courage and…” she said quietly as her voice broke. “I can’t thank you enough for protecting me. For turning on your friend.”

  Zander dropped his arms and collapsed onto the bed, covering his face with his hands. “What have I done to him? He’s never going to forgive me for this. Maybe I should have trusted him with the truth. He’s been my buddy for years. He wouldn’t tell a soul if I asked him to stay quiet about all of this.”

  Maia didn’t know what to say so she just stayed quiet and perched on the edge of the bed. He’d done the right thing for her, but had he done the right thing for himself? Was he going to change his mind?