Page 30 of My Christmas Alien Mate

She inhaled deeply, and I realized she was on the verge of tears, and I rushed to her side, pulling her into my arms. "Hey, no tears. Tell me what's going on."

Amber sniffed and if I hadn't been so concerned, I would have found another reason to adore her. "My grampa, I didn't know… he borrowed money from the bank to pay for my school."

"You have to pay for your school?"

"College, yes," she nodded.

"College?"

"It's where you go for higher learning, for jobs that require more than hands-on training," she explained.

We had that too, but I had never even considered who paid for it, the Galactic Union I assumed. When we began our career path, everything was paid for, room, board. All that was expected was to keep up with grades, and even for that help was available for free.

That wasn't the issue though, and I remained quiet on that. "So your grampa borrowed money?"

"Yes, he was paying it back from his social security income, which is money the government gives you when you get too old to work," she added before I could ask. "But, when he died and I didn't get the job I was expecting to get hired on for, I defaulted on the loan, and now… now the bank wants to take it all back."

"What can we do?" I demanded. "I have enough diamonds. I can help."

She sniffed sweetly and looked up at me. "I can't ask that of you."

"You're not. I'm offering."

"It's too much money. I could never accept that," she protested, but I saw a glimmer of hope in her eyes and latched on.

"You can pay me back if you insist. Just remember those diamonds hardly cost me anything."

She wiped her eyes and stared up at me in wonder as if nobody had ever tried to help her.

"I'll do anything for you, Amber," I added, hoping to convince her.

"Oh, Galexor." She snuggled into my chest. "Let's not talk about this for a few days, okay? Let's just enjoy each other's company."

That I could easily do. "It'll be my pleasure."

We returned to melting chocolate and cutting out more cookies in various recipes of doughs. One I found especially intriguing was gingerbread. It tasted the best to me too.

"What profession did you learn that you can't find a job for?" I asked as I smeared blue icing on a snowflake shaped cookie.

"Programmer and app development," she explained. "It was just unfortunate that a few major companies went bankrupt right after I graduated. Now the job market is flooded with people like me. Only the others have more experience under their belts than me."

She took a minute to show me on her phone what a programmer and app developer was.

I gave her a once over. "Don't take this the wrong way, I don't doubt your intelligence for one second, but you don't strike me as a data person."

She laughed., "Funny, that's what most of my coworkers and professors said too. But none of them could tell me what I struck them as either."

"This." I spread my arms indicating the kitchen. "You have been cooking for and feeding me since I arrived, now you're baking for the entire neighborhood, and you seem to truly enjoy it."

She stared at me thoughtfully. "Actually, I've always liked baking."

"What made you decide on programming then?"

She thought about it for a moment. "I always liked the idea of creating things, and with programming, you kind of bring things to life. And I'm not a big people person, so…" she trailed off.

"So you hid behind your laptop," I finished.

"I wouldn't say hid…" She mixed another batch of icing, adding food coloring to it that created the deepest green I had ever seen. "But, yeah, I get your point."

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