Page 19 of My Christmas Alien Mate

We worked in perfect tandem; the only unsettling thing was the change in his skin color. It was weird thinking that I had only known him for a few hours, but I had already become accustomed to his strange blue skin so much that his olive tone now threw me off.

When the last dish was packed into the dishwasher and the counters sparkling clean again, he asked me if I was ready. I took a full look at him and shook my head. "Your uniform, you'll still stick out. We need to change that."

"Unfortunately, other than giving the illusion of a different skin color or scales on my skin, there is not much I can do about that."

"I can though," I said and marched into the one room in the cabin that had been off limits since my grampa's death. "Come with me."

My grandfather had been a tall man, but not as tall as Galexor. I rummaged through his closet and found a pair of dark gray sweatpants that he always had to roll up. They would still be a bit too short for Galexor, but they would have to do, same with a sweatshirt I bought for Grandpa a few years ago. The label said L, but it had turned out to be an XXL. Probably still too small for Galexor, but again, it would do.

"Try these," I instructed and waited in the living room for him to return.

It didn't take long, and when he stepped out, he easily passed for a very tall, very handsome human man. The too short pants were hidden by his uniform boots, which I hoped nobody would inspect too closely. As I had worried, the sweatshirt was too snug on him but not in a bad way. It showed off his muscular body that would attract far more stares than the slightly ill-fitting clothes.

"That'll do," I nodded. "But if you want to repeat this excursion, I suggest we buy you some properly fitting clothes in town."

"I don't expect they will accept Galactic credits?" he asked, only half joking.

"Probably not, but don't worry about it. I have money. I can buy you clothes," I offered, pushing thoughts of how little money I had in the bank away. Two weeks, I had promised myself. Two weeks where I would do as I pleased, consequences be damned.

He scoffed. "I will not allow my female to buy me clothes."

My heart hitched happily at him calling memyfemale, but I waved him off. "Don't worry."

"I do though. You're already doing so much for me. I can pay."

Dubiously, I waited for him to return to Grampa's room from where he retrieved his pants. From inside hidden pockets, he pulled something out and offered it to me on his palm. "Will they accept that?"

Incredulously, I stared at a handful of the rarest diamonds I had ever seen—not that I had seen many diamonds in my life, but one look at the sparkling rocks was all it took to know they were special.

"Where…" I waved my hand. "Never mind, Galexor, this is a small fortune." I had not the faintest idea about the value of them, but what he held out had to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe a million.

I picked one. "We'll take this one to the jeweler in town. He'll probably cheat you," I warned.

"Will he give me Earth money for it?"

"Most likely not even half of what this is worth," I cautioned again.

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

"Don't tell me they grow on trees where you come from," I said jokingly.

"Not quite, but they're easy to come by. A quick analysis before I left indicated they were valuable here."

"People kill for them," I agreed.

"Why? They're just rocks, they're not even big enough to sculpt into anything, they don't hold a charge, they—"

"Are very pretty," I interrupted. "And women like to wear them on their hands."

"Really?"

"Don't the women of your…" I almost said country, but that wasn't quite right. Galaxy? Universe? Species?

"I suppose they like to wear pretty gems," Galexor allowed, "but they're usually more colorful than this."

"It's in the sparkle," I explained and held the diamond up. As pretty as it was though, it hadn't been cut like the others I had seen on Earth.

"Hold on," I moved back into Grampa's room, where Grandma's old jewelry box stood in a corner. Technically it was mine now, but I had never taken anything out to wear it. I had been too afraid to lose a piece of her or my mom.

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