Beck’s hand felt warm in mine, and I swung it to and fro, unable to wipe the wide smile from my face. Super wide, like pinching my eyes and cheeks wide. You ever had a day where everything went completely perfect? Like the birds are just singing and everything is going right? So me today.

First, I woke up in time to see the sunrise. Normally not something that would’ve made me happy, but Beck wakes up every morning to watch it. He says it reminds him of his home planet, Luyah. Apparently there, the sun is blue, but just as it crests over the horizon it glows a brilliant yellowish red, as if it bleeds before turning to his normal color. Every morning he wakes up to see it, and every morning I sleep through it. Beck never woke me up. At first, I thought it was because he wanted to be on his own, but I realized it was more because he didn’t want to wake me up. But this morning, I woke up on my own, and found him sitting out on the balcony, completely entranced.

A great way to start my morning.

Then, at work, I got a table that tipped me twenty dollars for a six dollar meal.

Finally, I got out right at three, no table staying over chatting, no extra table to bus, no rush of customers coming in. Once that clock hit three, I grabbed my tip money and I was out of there.

“Careful,” Beck said, glancing my way. His purply eyes glittered in the sunlight. “You smile any wider and your face is going to freeze like that.”

I squeezed his fingers, amused that he knew that expression. “Honestly, I wouldn’t mind it. Today has been such a great day!”

My uniform was a dirty blue button-up dress with a tan apron slung over the top of it, but now it draped over my arm, swinging with my steps. I still left my hair wound in its bun, and I couldn’t wait until I got to Cassian’s house to run their hairbrush through it and let out around my shoulders. But not even this slight headache was going to get at me.

“If your face froze like that, it’d be hard to kiss you so much,” Beck went on, lifting our hands to press a kiss to my knuckles. “I still say you should leave Cassian with Mrs. Whatever-Her-Name-Is and come home.”

I chuckled a little. “I can’t leave Cassie with Mrs. Rivers all day. He’d probably give her a heart attack. Worse, she’d probably leave him as soon as her soaps came on.”

Beck frowned a little. “Soaps? Like to wash your hands?”

“Soap operas. And I’m not going to show them to you, because I’m sure you’re going to become addicted to watching them.”

Beck pulled at my hand and stopped me, gently pulling me to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk. We were on a portion of town that was sparse with houses, but from here I could see Cassian’s house, small and yellow with the ugly purple mailbox. Beck’s back was turned to the street, and he stood over me, smiling ever so slightly. “I think you’re amazing, you know that?”

And this day just keeps getting better. “Are you trying to manipulate me into coming home with you?”

“If manipulate means what I think it means, then no.” Beck let go of my hand to frame my face, fingers gentle on my skin. “I think you’re amazing. You go to work, you babysit—”

“All very normal, mundane things—”

“And you used to do it all on your own.”

“I’m just Superwoman,” I confirmed, nodding. “Kiss me now and consider yourself lucky.” I waited on my tip-toes, but he never leaned closer. Beck’s slight smile faded, but the light in his eyes lingered behind, like smoldering coals of a fire. The corners of his lips pressed tightly together, and I reached up to touch them. “What?”

I could still remember the day Beck confessed the truth—well, ‘confessed’ wasn’t the right word. More like I found out. We’d just spent our first night together, at the apartment we lived in now—his at the time—and I’d gone into one of his closets. Filled to the brim with sparkly technology and various lights and buttons, I’d stared, torn between freaking out from how cool it was or how freaky. When I confronted Beck about it, he paled, all of the blood falling from his face.

He didn’t look that way now, not dead pale, but the memory came back to me, like a feather tickling the air.

“Can we do something tonight?" he asked me now. "And not what you're thinking. Well, we can do that, too, but something special." I raised an eyebrow. "N-Not that that isn't special—it is—jeez."

"What did you have in mind?" I smiled, squeezing his shoulders. "We did cookies last night. Is that not enough?"

"I’ve never felt like this before,” Beck said, fingers smoothing across the skin at my neck. “With you. And I want more. More of you, your stories, of the little sticky-notes you leave around the house to make me smile. I want more." He took a step closer, minimizing the already small space between us. “You’re going to do great things, you know that?”

I looked up into his eyes and watched as the color transformed from the purple color they normally rested at to a light, light blue. The change in eye color wasn’t normally a depiction of his mood—they weren’t mood rings—but more changing as the day went on. Starting from a beautiful purple until darkening into a gunmetal gray. The sudden change now, to this new color, made no sense. “You’re saying all of this because…?”

“Because I love you,” Beck said, and finally his smile came back to life, a sun parting behind a cloud. “And I can't wait to have more."

I wrapped my arms around his neck. “You are trying to get me to come home with you.”

Beck didn’t answer me with words; he pressed his mouth to mine. I jerked in surprise at the sudden sparking connection before pulling him closer, spurred on by his confession and his mere touch. My skin felt hot against his, like I’d been out in the summer sun and he in a snowstorm. I gripped the front of his shirt, holding him close, never wanting to let him go. “I’m going to be late,” I said against his mouth, unable to fully pull away. “I’m already late.”

“What’s another minute?”

Yeah, what’s another minute? Kissing this incredibly hot boy—man—alien—in the middle of the street while wearing my work uniform. I had to smell like greasy fries, and my makeup had to be smudged or wiped off completely, but he couldn’t care less. Because I was amazing and I was Superwoman.

I pressed both of my hands against his chest and shoved—lightly, but enough that he had to take a step away from me. I took a few steps away from him, pressing my hands to my head, trying to shake the fog there. “You are no good,” I threw at him, unable to keep the grin off my face. Gosh, I truly was never going to stop smiling. “No good at all. A nuisance, really. A distraction. Bad, Beck.”

Beck laughed, his usually musical laughter, but no sound came out. And when his lips moved…no sound came out.

I took a step toward him, reaching out, and—

Smacked face first into something solid.

I ricocheted backward, pressed a hand up to my forehead. “What the?” I reached out again, feeling around until my hands hit something hard and solid.

Something invisible.

The invisible wall spanned as far and as high as I could reach, my palms looking as if they were pressing against firm air. My eyes lifted to find Beck’s light, light blue ones, almost translucent now, looking back at me.

Just like before, when I first found his closet full of alien paraphernalia, his face paled, all of the blood rushing from his cheeks. Before, when I found his closet, he’d looked more surprised than anything, before blending into relief.

But now, on the other side of this invisible barrier, the emotion in those eyes was nothing like then. Now, the only emotion I recognized was panic.