I'm not a fan of fancy restaurants, but it's the only place that serves the double chocolate ice cream malt cake Brendon has been jonesing for, which as been a three month ordeal. He didn't want to go alone so he supposedly didn't look like a greedy idiot for ordering an entire cake instead of a slice like normal people.

I don't know what it is about fancy restaurants. Maybe it's the overpriced food, maybe it's the portions the size as my fork, maybe it's the waste of gold sheets they drape over bagels and lasagna, again the size of the utensils I have to use to eat it.

But I humor him and arrive a little earlier than we'd agreed. He's standing by the table waiting, and he waves and then sits down when he sees me.

The entire establishment reeks of money and privilege. The white walls are adorned with gold framed oil paintings hung above mantles furnishes by a single vase or signed celebrity photograph. The floor is made of marble tiles, grout substituted by gold lines, the underside of the chair legs pushed upwards by thick bits of fabric. I desperately want to swing like an animal from the chandlers dangling from the vaulted ceiling.

I'm severely underdressed. I'm wearing jeans and a button up shirt instead of the three piece suits every other man is wearing. Each woman is clutching a small handbag to the waist of their floor length gown. My sneakers also have permanent scuff marks, and blood droplets all over them from fights when I was on anxiety medication that only increased every ounce of aggression. I didn't have the time to change since I wanted to arrive early, but I should have, because it's impossible to be earlier than Brendon.

"You got here sooner than I thought. I guessed another twenty minutes but it was only five." He says as I take the seat across from him. There's a single pale candle lit in the center of the bland tablecloth, held by a silver pot and nothing else. It's intended to be minimalistic, but it just looks stupid.

"Yeah. I really wanted to surprise you, but that didn't work out as well as I hoped it would. Your punctuality never ceases to amaze me."

He hides a flustered smile in his elbow. "I wanted to make sure they booked the table right. Last time they didn't, and we couldn't even go inside."

I remember that day, three years ago. It was a rough one ended with an excruciatingly long Yelp! review. It was never really finished. "I told you I booked it correctly this time. Did anyone come by to get an order?"

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "No. They're ridiculously understaffed, and the waiter said it could take a bit. You're stuck with my shitty small talk skills."

"Your small talk isn't shitty. I have a great time talking with you, always."

"At the office this morning, I tried to talk to my lab partner about the various things a forensic investigator could use to identify a dead body in case our experiment went wrong and we needed to dump the test subject in a dumpster and then into a lake." He rests his chin on his palm and stares at me, waiting for me to admit he's right. He's not boring or anything like that, but it sounded like that discussion really wasn't the best path to take. "He didn't talk to me until the test experiment was over. Shitty small talk skills."

"I'm not agreeing with anything, but I will say I guess you're lucky to have me. Reporters make great small talk."

"I know. That's why you do all the talking, and I stand and reassuringly nod in agreement in the background." He smiles fondly and starts nudging my shoes underneath the table before he rests his chin on his hands and sets his elbows right in front of the empty plate. "So anyways, how was work?"

Brendon and I have a pact between us — if either of us shares any secret information, it stays between us, no matter what. He hasn't really spilled anything to me because he kind of knows I'd end up breaking my end of the deal eventually, but all in all the pact is more for me then it is for him. "Apparently I have a super important interview tomorrow with someone super famous and it's super confidential. I'm not allowed to know who she is until I'm on my way. I don't know how I'm going to prepare or what I'm going to say or how to act. It's fucked."

He nods but his eyes quickly fill with realization and a bit of concern and panic. "Taylor told me to clean up around the lab because she's having an interview tomorrow. Do you think...?"

No. Absolutely not. I would never interview someone like her unless she was allowing me to see everything she conducts in her obnoxious skyscraper headquarters, and that would never happen. "Not a chance. I'd never fucking... I'm not, okay, I'm just not. I don't want to talk to that rich and stuck up ass."

His brow furrows and he's reaching for my hand over the able and squeezing my fingers. "Hey, I know you don't exactly like her, but it'll be such a good interview, especially because you're so good at conducting them. And Taylor is the total opposite of what the media sees. She's so sweet and truly cares a lot about us; she is just... incredibly passionate about her work and she's the kindest person you'll ever meet, but it reflects sometimes in weird ways."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I still don't like her."

"Okay, you don't have to like her. But do you remember when she gave me two weeks off for Christmas and New Year's Eve? And all the times she sent me home when I was sick and out of days? And when she gave me tips on how to act for our first date all those years ago? She was the real wing-woman. I bagged myself a finance."

"I am a great finance."

He smiles, reaches for my hand across the table, and squeezes tightly. "My point is, she's really not as bad as you think she is. Taylor is fantastic, you just have to get to know her. You know how it is for women in the workplace; she has to prove herself all the time, but that's not who she is."

"Yeah, well, I don't even know what she does." I say under my breath in the hopes he doesn't hear me, but he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Babe, you know I wish I could tell you—"

"Our confidentiality agreement literally means I wouldn't do anything with whatever you tell me. It stays between us. I would never ever want to jeopardize your job."

"It's a complete secret. Everything about it is private; I don't even know half of the people working on the other part of the project. I trust you with my life and so much more, honey, but that subliminal knowledge would make its way into the microphone eventually, and then I'm fired from the best job I've ever had. I love you very much, but this is just one thing I can't tell you. I'm so sorry."

He's not as sorry as he says he is, only because he's totally right and it's not something to apologize for knowing. I am a snitch at the worst times, even with the agreement. It always finds a way to slip its way out, and I can't place the blame on anyone but myself. "It's okay. I understand."

"...I can tell you about what happened at lunch?"

I don't say anything. I don't even look at him.

"Cool, grumpy pants. I'm going to tell you anyways. Taylor ordered all of us Chinese takeout from the little place down on Main Street, and they messed up the order beyond repair. Everyone ordered a different thing, and they gave up and we all got teriyaki chicken with plain white rice. It was, like, a three hundred dollar order."

"Three hundred? What'd she do, buy for the entire staff?"

"Yes. Isn't that what I said?"

I don't see why they couldn't call and have them take it back, but alright. I do like to hear about her struggling, so I smile and I have to fight back a snicker, but I end up laughing because that is Brendon's go-to order from any Chinese food restaurant; the bleakest and most common rice and chicken there is. "Did you get to keep any of them at all or are we going dumpster diving tonight?"

"There are twelve full boxes in the refrigerator at home. We have dinner for almost a week."

"When did you stop by home? I thought you drove straight here."

"She let me go early to keep them cold," he pauses and smiles slyly, "and I got you a present on the way home. I stopped by the mall."

A present either means two things; it's a sexual innuendo, or it's a gift with no meaning other than he thought I'd like it. It's really a tossup with him, every second of every day of every year. I've been dealing with the spontaneity for five years now and I'm still not used to it completely.

A while ago, he bought me a keychain toy of a candy-pooping dog, and winked when he called it something exciting that I'd use until it broke. Needless to say, it was not what I was expecting in the slightest. "Please tell me now if it's sexual in any way so I can just try to prepare myself."

"Oh my god, it's not, it's a heated blanket so you can finally stop putting your cold feet all over my back at night."

I do that so he'll wake up and scoot closer in the middle of the night because he tends to drift to the edge of the bed, but okay. There are easier ways to move him but it gets him going the fastest. "That's so thoughtful."

"I know. I have to put up with your cold ass feet because you're so wonderful, I really don't think I can find anyone else that'll match up to you at all."

"You are pretty lucky to have me. I'm fantastic."

☢️

In the middle of the night, I wake up in a cold sweat. Brendon's curled up across the bed, hugging a pillow instead of me. He sleeps heavily — I didn't expect him to notice I'd had a nightmare, let alone get up and shake me awake.

I dreamt about bombing the interview. It has to be Swift. She's too controversial and I express my hatred for her every opportunity I get; they'd have to tell me beforehand if it was anyone but her.

There's a published timeline of her life and loosely phrased accomplishments drifting around the web. A prodigy in the scientific field, she carved a path out for herself early and dedicated her life to space exploration. A large portion of the things her revenue is spent on is not included in her company's records — she brags about the money she has to donate to projects, but in very fine print on the percentage based spending chart, she states that not all the funds used are included. She's up to something. I want to know, the public deserves to know.

He doesn't stir after I slide out of bed and slip down the stairs to the kitchen. The only sound in the house is the hum of the heating system kicking through the second story.

On his chair at the table sits his blue backpack, embroidered with the Life Foundation logo in white and bright green for the leaf pattern underlining it. The only things he keeps inside are his laptop, a huge Manila folder stuffed with various documents, and then a little neon yellow envelope filled with his personal information in order to properly and efficiently return the backpack and its contents in case he lost it.

I unzip the largest pocket where his laptop sits, just waiting for me to break into it. Even though it's password protected, it can't stop me from accessing his experiments and research. Every password he has ever made recently is the same, the date of our anniversary, and it takes me a grand total of fifteen seconds to infiltrate only because I accidentally type the last two digits of the year instead of the entirety of it.

Hidden in the thousand icons scattered around his desktop, I find a link to an unnamed folder. It's filled with PDFs of experiment reports and results, just what I want. The most recent one holds a hundred page essay about every single detail. I don't have time to read it all, but I do sift through the "overview" section. 

"Overview: Various projects have detected and sent back high-definition photographs of SYMBIOTES (see item one) on a singular asteroid stuck in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. It seems to have become caught in the gravitational ring after being projected from another planet outside of our solar system — hence the detection of life. The surface appears to be crawling with thousands of different Symbiotes and the bodies of their past unidentifiable alien hosts. They seem to feed off each other for food and energy, but they separate and leave each other alone when presented with sufficient resources.

"The main purpose of sending a crew out to collect specimens and record qualitative data is to determine whether or not harnessing their abilities with the help of a human counterpart would prove useful in aiding the country in potential future wars as well as major advances in the scientific world on multiple levels.

"The results of the expedition conclude as follows; no crew member survived after a symbiote broke out of its capsule and sabotaged the mechanical components of the ship. One astronaut, Laura Parks, is still missing, but it most likely dead due to the hostility of these creatures. See item two for the transcript and photos of her last audio and visual communication with base.

"Seven of the nine symbiotes collected remain, one perishing without a host for a fairly short amount of time, the other assumed to have taken hold of Parks. The remaining seven are currently in rigorous testing and it is unknown when it will be completed. The next step is a progression from animals to humans for experimentation in order to witness the full power of the symbiotes."

The stairway light turns on and I shut his laptop, slide it back in the bag, and rip open the nearest bag of chips just as he reaches the final step.

Brendon peeks around the corner, holding a bathrobe shut over his chest. "What're you doing up?"

I turn around and hold up the chips. "Just a late night snack. The portions at the restaurant were super tiny and I guess I didn't order or eat enough tonight."

He's suspicious, but he nods anyways and doesn't think much else of it. He's exhausted. "Come back to bed. Your feet are cold, but the rest of you is super warm, and I kinda miss you a lot already."

"You haven't let go of me all night."

"We both have to work tomorrow, on a Saturday. We'll only have Sunday together instead of the whole weekend."

"Alright, alright. I'll be there in a minute, okay? I promise I won't be too much longer." I watch until the light turns off and I hear the bedroom door creak shut, and I grab a pen and a piece of paper so when I wake up, I can confirm it wasn't a dream.

Putting lives in danger.

Human testing.

Information withheld from public.

Aliens.