My Alien's Baby (Draci Alien 2)

“Ezo too,” I agree, my eyes lingering on her scales. I want it so badly, a thousand times more after spending yesterday with Ezo. I want concrete physical evidence that we’re tied together for the long haul.

Gisele laughs, swiping at a stray tear. “You’ve only known him for a day.”

Juliet and I exchange a look. I don’t think either of us knows how to explain that after even a single time sleeping with one of them, you can feel more connected than you ever have before to any human. It’s not love at first sight…or, er…at first sex, but it’s deep. I feel like I’ve known Ezo for months, not hours.

“It gets intense pretty fast with these guys,” I say and Juliet nods emphatically. Gisele’s eyes again go to the window. I know Gisele’s wanted a steady boyfriend for a long time now. All she seems to meet are losers and guys who are just looking for a one night stand on the dating apps she uses.

“How are things with the new job?” Juliet asks diplomatically.

“Uh uh,” Giselle laughs, eyes coming back our way. “No way. You’re about to pop any second with a brand-new interspecies baby and this one just hooked up with hot bachelor number two. Sorry girls, but I know my little human life is just not that interesting at the moment.”

“No,” Juliet cries. “Of course your life is interesting. Everything’s just the same as it always was. Three Musketeers, forever.”

Giselle doesn’t look convinced but she still lifts her coffee cup. “I’ll toast to that.” Juliet toasts with her herbal tea and I join in with my coffee. The only thing I dread about pregnancy is giving up my daily caffeine fix.

“Okay, so my boss Erica is a little hard to get along with,” Giselle finally says.

“Aka, she’s a total bitch, but Giselle is just too nice to say so,” Juliet interprets.

I nod and Giselle rolls her eyes and then continues, “Jorge in accounting asked me out again—” Juliet and I make oooo noises but Giselle waves a hand “—and I let him down gently again.”

“Booo,” Juliet and I say in tandem.

Giselle laughs and continues, “Then he asked out Madison and apparently they had a terrible first date. It was the gossip of the office for the week. Okay? That’s the extent of my oh so fascinating life. Now, you two. Go.”

Juliet waves her mug of tea in my direction. “I’ll let Maverick here go first. Last I knew she was all excited about the latest episode of Mercury in Retro and now she shows up with an alien mate.” She lifts her hands defensively. “Which I totally support! We just want to hear the story of how it all went down.”

Giselle leans in. “Yeah, share with the class. Does he have the—” She breaks off and wiggles her eyebrows, “—double trouble downstairs, too?”

I can’t help giggling and covering my mouth with my hand as I nod.

“Oh my God, you’ve already done the dirty with him?” Giselle exclaims.

I don’t want to tell them my real reason for sleeping with him so fast—that I wanted to seal the whole mate thing and make sure he wasn’t going to pass by me for some other girl. So instead I arch an eyebrow. “Have you seen him? Plus, they get really excited to explore new things with their tongues.” That at least is true.

Juliet nods emphatically and rests her hands on her ginormous belly. “You have no idea. The other day, I caught Shak licking a cactus. It took me an hour to get the spines out of his tongue.”

“Oh my God,” I cackle, “I could totally see Ezo doing that. He wouldn’t stop licking my dashboard yesterday.”

Juliet’s face suddenly scrunches and her hands move down to the sides of her belly.

“What is it?” Giselle asks, jumping to her feet.

Juliet exhales slowly through her nose and waves Giselle back down. “Just little Thrax reminding me he wants to come out soon.”

“How soon?” I lean forwards.

“Ugh, if only I knew! Being the test case for this whole interspecies baby-mama thing has some sucky downsides.” But then her sour face transforms. “Mostly its upsides, though. Did I show you guys the new pictures? I don’t think I did. Shak wouldn’t let me text them. Privacy being the first directive and all, blah blah blah.”

She grabs the arms of her chair and tries to lift herself with an awkward waddle but Giselle waves her to sit back down.

“Just tell me where they are and I’ll get them.”

Juliet nods. “Beside the refrigerator. We printed them out.”

Giselle hurries over to get the pictures and starts to squeal, flipping through them on her way back.

“No fair,” I call. “I wanna see, too.”

Giselle all but skips the last few feet to the table and hands me the pictures she’s already looked at. They’re incredibly detailed 3D sonograms.