Page 21

“Well, he had clearance to come to the wedding so he must have had the right answers, but I didn’t oversee any of those short-term visas, so I have no clue. I’ve never met him before.”

Titan hummed. “So this Joe came to Earth for the bonding ceremony and now wishes to return for a longer amount of time? Why? Earth is very stupid. Look at this.” He lifted up the file again.

“Trees are crucial to your environment, yet you willingly murder them to create paper instead of using your technology. You have all the resources you need to have a very healthy, efficient planet, but you simply do not use it for reasons unfathomable to me. Why would this Joe wish to come to Earth when Darvrok 6 is much better?”

“You’re here,” Ezra pointed out.

“But I have reason to be here. I have a job, and I have you.”

“You don’t have me,” Ezra said defensively. “I’m running out of ways to explain to you that I don’t even like you. Should I have you teach me how to say it in Darvrokian?”

Titan dutifully rattled off a sentence in Darvrokian.

Ezra sighed. “Look, if you came all the way to Earth just to hook up, that makes you pretty ridiculous. Get over me, Titan. We have good sex, but that’s all it’s ever going to be.”

“Perhaps,” was all Titan said, which gave Ezra the feeling he hadn’t heard what he was saying at all.

Ezra scowled and prepared himself for a long and frankly annoying conversation, but was interrupted when the door opened, admitting three men into the room.

The first was Kyle, who smiled cheerfully at Ezra, then reined in his expression to something more professional as he turned his gaze onto Titan, which gave Ezra a slightly mean feeling of superiority.

Kyle, as usual, took his place by the door and did not approach the table.

The other two men were Joe and his military escort.

The escort was another carbon-copy, crewcut man like the ones who drove Ezra around the desert.

It could have even been the man who had driven him and Titan to the consulate that morning, he had no earthly idea.

He silently led Joe to his seat, then left the room without so much as a greeting or a farewell.

Joe was… well, even for an alien, he was a sight to behold.

He was in his human form—which impressively had the correct number of limbs, eyes, and hairy bits—and was dressed like he had just come from a frat party, if the frat party’s theme happened to be “get dressed in the dark.” A baseball cap that read “It’s Five O’clock Somewhere!

” in which the “O” was a martini glass tramped down his dark, messy hair, and flip-flop sandals with rainbow toe socks covered his feet.

He had on a shirt with a giant rhino on it that just read “HORNY” in big block letters, which he’d matched with bright green bicycle shorts that were much, much too tight.

“Sup?” Joe said. He slung one arm over the back of his chair and nodded at Ezra and Titan. He had a scraggly beard that reminded Ezra of why he didn’t try to grow facial hair—it wasn’t that he couldn’t do it, it just didn’t look good. “How’s it hanging?”

This immediately threw Ezra. The aliens who came through this conference room were usually in the beginning stages of learning English, and even the best among them rarely knew any amount of slang.

“Uh,” Ezra faltered.

“How is what hanging?” Titan asked with a frown. Case in point.

“Listen, gang, here’s the sitch,” Joe said, moving so that he was leaning forward now with his hands laced in front of him on the table.

“I like this planet. I think it’s a very cool place to have hangouts, if you know what I am saying.

I read up on all the rules. I know that it’s totally uncool to let anyone kn ow where I’m really from, so if I get any babes or dudes, I’ll be sure to keep my human disguise on the whole time…

if you know what I am saying.” Joe then winked at Ezra. Ezra wished very much that he had not.

“Uh.” Ezra seemed to have forgotten everything he was supposed to ask this man. Titan, however, appeared totally unfazed.

“Your paperwork says that you are a relative of mine; however, I have no recollection of having met you before. Is this a true statement?”

“Heck yes it’s a true statement. We are brothers from another mother, Titan, my man. If you know what I am saying.”

“I do not know what you are saying, no,” Titan said, head tilted to one side.

“I’m your cousin, I think.”

“Oh. All right. You could have simply stated this.” Titan clicked a pen and made a note in the margin of Joe’s paperwork.

While Titan was writing, Joe turned his attention to Ezra. He said, “I like your look, my man. You look real human, with like, the hair and everything.”

“It would be more polite for you to refer to the ambassador as ‘dude,’ Mr. Johnson,” Titan said, not looking up from his notetaking. He still pronounced the “H.”

Ezra felt like he was going insane.

“Why are you interested in visiting Earth?” he asked Joe, trying to regain some semblance of control over the situation.

“I just love new cultures, dude. Love getting to know new people. They said that Earth was open to visitors and I was like, heck yes, I am down for clowning, you know what I am saying? Do you like Earth, dude? Has it been a good place to live your life?”

“Has it… I mean, yeah? I don’t know any different, but Earth has been pretty good to me.”

“What are your favorite parts about it?”

“My favorite parts about Earth?”

“Yeah, dude. I wanna hear about Earth from the perspective of an Earthling.”

“Usually I ask the questions, not the other way around,” Ezra pointed out.

“Well, I’m a wild card,” said Joe. He then did what Ezra suspected was meant to be finger guns, but he pointed his thumbs out and then used all four fingers instead of only one.

“Right.” Ezra glanced at Titan for help, but Titan was just watching him expectantly, waiting for him to answer the question.

Ezra rubbed the nape of his neck with a grimace and said, “I guess my favorite part of Earth is the people. Everybody’s different and has their own stories. I dunno, humans are cool.”

Joe snapped his fingers, startling Ezra, Titan, and Kyle all at once.

“See,” he said, pointing at Ezra. “This dude gets what I am saying.”

The rest of the interview went about as well as the beginning, with Joe answering with the wildest English Ezra had ever heard, and occasionally peppering in questions of his own, such as, “What’s your favorite food to eat on Earth, dude?” and “Do you have any good human childhood memories?”

By the time Ezra had told him, “We’ll contact you soon about the status of your application,” and Joe had saluted him and left with his escort—who had essentially materialized outside the door the moment the interview had finished—Ezra was more exhausted than he’d ever been after vetting a client.

He tilted his chair back and threw an elbow over his eyes, blowing out a huge breath of relief that it was over.

After composing himself, he lifted his arm just high enough to cast a look over at Titan, expecting him to be equally worn down from the bizarre back-and-forth, and maybe regretting his change in career.

Inste ad, he found him stamping something onto the front of Joe’s file.

“What are you doing?” Ezra asked.

“Well, it is clear what the decision is about Joe Johnson,” Titan said, very businesslike. “The interview was thorough, and we are both in agreement, I am certain.”

He then held up the file, and there on the corner were big red letters spelling out the word “APPROVED.”