Summary:
Tentacular Tales #1
A sexy alien living incognito on Earth meets a sci-fi loving nerd who wants to rock his universe. What could possibly go wrong? Besides the unexpected tentacles and the accidental Mating Courtship Ritual, that is....
RIVER SULLIVAN
As a bona fide sci-fi nerd and total X-phile—the truth is out there—I’ve always believed in aliens. Duh. But I never thought I’d actually find them on Earth–let alone right here in Las Vegas! Now I’ve stumbled onto a big freakin’ secret and found my very own hot AF alien. I’m head over heels, but he’s being a total grump and holding back. How do I make him realize a geeky sunshine guy like me is just what he needs in his life? Did I mention he also has tentacles?!?! #HolyHentaiFantasyBatman #SwoonworthyAlien #SignMeUpSugar #MakeItSo #VivaLasVegas
KAI GENARO
The last thing I need in my life is a chatterbox twink who’s determined to woo me and could expose the secret existence of aliens on Earth to all humankind. Everything about him annoys me, including his stupidly attractive halo of golden curls and his bright green ‘come hither’ eyes. To make matters worse, he’s been recruited to work for the alien Alliance on Earth, and I’m assigned to keep him out of trouble. I don’t care how attractive he is. I don’t date humans! Except, my tentacles may have accidentally started the Mating Courtship Ritual with him…
It’s Not Unusual To Be Loved by an Alien (Tentacular Tales #1) is a (102,000 words) M/M sci-fi rom com featuring an adorkable twink with unexpected secrets and a slight obsession with extraterrestrials, the reluctant alien he wants to make his boo, tentacles with a mind of their own, zany extraterrestrial shenanigans in Sin City, and enough humor to fill an entire spaceship. This is the first book in the series. There is no cheating, and this book ends with a HFN. Never fear, the series guarantees readers an HEA by the end!
Chapter One
“There’s a big universe out there. You’ve got to keep an open mind and a watchful eye if you’re going to explore it.”
—Captain Starblade, The Tentacular Tales of Captain Starblade,Ch. 1
RIVER
I’m about ninety-eight percent sure my new neighbor is an alien.
That’s why I’m following him super-covert-Mission-Impossible-style down a deserted highway at 3:00 a.m. on a Wednesday night as one naturally does if one’s a believer in all things extraterrestrial.
“Don’t you have work in a few hours?” Uncle Benji asks from the passenger seat as he pops a cannabis edible gummy into his mouth, chewing on it with an air of nonchalance.
Benji, like me, is still wearing his pajamas since we had to vamoose to follow our new neighbor/secret-alien-in-our-midst tonight. I’m stylin’ in my super-sexy TARDIS PJs, while Benji’s sporting his favorite ratty orange cardigan over a faded Beavis and Butthead T-shirt and striped cotton pants. Like all of his well-worn clothing, they’re liberally flecked with a rainbow array of paint from past and present paintings he’s been working on. His long, lustrous brown hair, tinged with gray, is pulled up in a messy man-bun, looking like something that took hours to perfect but only took him ten seconds to create. It’s like he’s a freaking runway model or the lead in a sexy shampoo commercial. Even though he’s in his early forties, his mane of hair, turning a stunning silvery gray, brings out his pale green eyes and makes him appear mysterious.
In contrast, my hair is a wild nest of crazy blonde curls with a mind of their own. I’m lucky if I can get a comb through my mop of hair most days. It’s so cosmically unfair.
The truth is Benji doesn’t care about things like his appearance. He’s a total Gen X hippie pothead. A lot of people dismiss him as ‘too quirky,’ but he’s an incredibly successful artist—and the best partner in crime. Especially when it comes to stalking possible aliens.
I hunch my shoulders at his question about work. “No. They didn’t renew my contract.”
Benji hums thoughtfully. “Why not? I thought it was a done deal after the probationary period?”
I sink down into my seat, keeping my eyes fixed on the tail lights I’m following. “Apparently, I don’t fit into their ‘cohort dynamic’ or some corporate buzzword bullshit.”
What my now former boss had added ‘off the record’ was that my co-workers thought I was super fucking weird—I never should have talked about my alien neighbor at work—and that my technical writing veered into ‘unnecessary flamboyant embellishment’ or ‘poetic whimsy’. Sue me for trying to make technical writing more interesting. I know I would enjoy a bit of whimsy the next time I have to put a stupidly complicated desk together.
“They didn’t even give me the chance to change or improve anything.” I scowl. “Nope. Just let me go instead.”
Benji clucks. “They sound like a bunch of dickbags.”
I can always rely on him not to judge. His solidarity is touching, and I feel momentarily better. We’re totally one another’s kind of weird. Even if stupid, boring coworkers don’t get me, Benji does.
“Maybe this is a good thing? I was so fucking bored there. Technical writing seemed like a smart way to make money until my fiction career took off, but it’s utterly mind-numbing.”
Benji strokes his short beard and yawns. “It’ll be okay, Tigger. I make more than enough money from my art. I can help you out for a while until you find something better. It’s all good.”
I give a resigned sigh. Benji has called me Tigger since I was a toddler. I’ve always had a lot of excess energy. But as a child, it was even more over the top. According to Benji, the mix of my enthusiastic talking-a-mile a minute personality, and my tendency to bounce all over the place with an unmatched level of boisterousness, solidified the dreaded Nickname-That-Will-Not-Die.
Even my parents had started using it before I lost them.
“I have some savings. Until I find something else, I’ll be able to get by on that for a while. I already get to live with you rent free. That’s more than enough.”
“As they say, mi casa es tu casa.” Benji shrugs. “The house is paid off, anyway. It was your parents’, and now it belongs to both of us.”
“Thanks, man.”
I dart a glance at him, a familiar warmth blooming in my chest as I watch him pop another edible with a contented expression on his face. I always marvel at how chill he is about so many things in life. Granted, I’m sure being semi stoned most of the time helps, but still. He has the looks of a scruffy Keanu Reeves à la Ronin and John Wick but the utterly laid-back personality of The Dude in The Big Lebowski.
More than a few of my friends have had the hots for him over the years. I’m not surprised, but it’s always weird as fuck.
Tonight, as usual, Benji seems entirely at ease even though we’re on the trail of a bona fide extraterrestrial—a brother from another planet—hiding among us. For Benji, it’s apparently just another night.
He pops a third gummy in his mouth and chews it with a mellow smile. Looks like he’s trying to taste the entire rainbow this evening, so I’ll need to keep him on task.
“Did you bring your Polaroid?” I ask for the umpteenth time. I don’t want to leave anything to chance.
Of course, I have my cell phone, but I sure as shit don’t trust capturing evidence of alien life on digital technology alone. Too many ways for stuff to get wiped or altered. Polaroid pictures are a pretty good, if hella ancient, back up option on the fly, and…well…we really didn’t have time to grab anything else on the way out of the house. Hate to admit it, but this tailing adventure was a wee bit rushed.
Benji gestures toward the rucksack at his feet. “The Polaroid’s ready to rock and roll, kiddo.”
I nod, feeling a bit more reassured. “Good. You need to be ready to use it once you can get a clear shot,” I remind him.
He gives me a slow thumbs up and a hazy smile. “I got you covered on the photography front tonight. Don’t worry.”
I mostly believe him. My uncle isn’t exactly the most reliable guy in the world, especially now it looks like the edibles are kicking in, but at least he’s also a believer.
In aliens, I mean.
He leans back in his seat with a slightly fuzzy gaze, the picture of serenity. “It’s like we’re on our very own X-Files adventure.” He giggles. “I still remember when I introduced you to that show. You immediately had the hots for Fox Mulder.”
My nostrils flare. “Excuse me, but you also thought he was hot like fire.”
“Nah. Krycek was more my type—dark, suave, and dangerous.” Benji gives a lazy shrug. “But I wouldn’t have kicked Mulder outta bed, if you know what I mean.”
I snicker and nod at that undeniable truth. It was seriously amazing being raised by my gay uncle after my parents died. Coming out was not even a thing at home. We had a lot of shared interests—including the megahot men of sci-fi movies and television.
I roll my eyes and unleash the snark. “Bitch, please. You’d be lucky to bag Skinner.”
Benji arches an eyebrow at my teasing tone, a glint in his eyes—an even paler shade of green than my own. “Hey, I’m down for that. Now that I’ve hit my forties, I can totally appreciate the understated sexiness of Skinner. He was actually pretty damn hot. And most definitely rockin’ a fit bod under those suits.”
I shake my head as I ponder this revelation. “Maaaaaybe? I still say my number one bald heartthrob will always be Captain Jean-Luc Picard.”
We immediately high five in agreement.
“Classy. Can’t disagree with you there,” Benji murmurs, then snorts. “Dude, I still remember when you wanted to create your own queer X-Files fan convention. You took your love of the show to a whole new level with that one.” He muffles another giggle-snort behind his hand.
I sniff and straighten in my seat. “Okay, sure, maybe I had a slight obsession with the X-Files and Fox Mulder in my middle school years, but that’s neither here nor there. Also, I still stand by my plan for Rainbow Foxy-Con 2013. It would have brought together all the queer fans and celebrated our respective loves for Scully and Mulder—or both. No bi erasure permitted.”
Benji slowly shakes his head in what I like to think of as complete awe of my ingenuity and brilliance. “It would have been amazing to witness, that’s for sure.”
“No shade, honey. But, who needs Rainbow Foxy-Con when we have a real life alien in our very backyard!” I wiggle in my seat and grin.
“It’ll be the story of a lifetime if we can prove neighborman is an extraterrestrial. It’ll change everything, kiddo.”
“Exactly. We may not have any actual evidence of alien life yet, but that’s all going to change tonight.”
As if to prove my point, I hit the accelerator of my old hatchback and doggedly follow our sketchy new neighbor’s trail as we move deeper into the desert, leaving the bright lights of Vegas far behind. Thankfully, our quarry doesn’t seem to notice he’s being followed.
Mr. Tom Jones, as my neighbor introduced himself—an obviously fake name if I’ve ever heard one—moved into the beige stucco two-story house right next to us three months ago and pinged our radars from the get-go. Ever since then, we’ve been covertly observing him.
We’re not creepers. We’re astute detectors of anomalies that could be extraterrestrial in nature.
Sure, on the surface Mr. Jones appears human, but that doesn’t mean squat. We’ve watched enough sci-fi movies and TV series between the two of us to know plenty of aliens look just like us. Hello. Timelords anyone?
But I digress.
Mr. Jones, I’m sad to say, is not a sexy-as-fuck Timelord. Why does reality never live up to my fantasies? He’s actually a rather ordinary-looking guy with a bad penchant for dressing like his namesake. You wouldn’t immediately see him and think—Boom! Proof of alien existence on Earth right here, folks.
But his behavior is really fucking bizarre.
At first, it was little things that seemed out of the ordinary. Like the strange looking satellite Mr. Jones mounted on his roof shortly after moving in. The thing is massive. Look, I’m not a nerd for nothing. I know a thing or two about satellite dishes, and I’ve never seen one like this before. When I tried to ask him about it, he laughed and told me he had insider connections with a friend in Japan who hooked him up with the latest satellite technology that hadn’t even made it over here yet.
I don’t think so, Mister Alien Neighborman.
Benji suspects the device is actually a beacon to our neighbor’s comrades in space. I’m inclined to agree.
But what made us most suspicious of Mr. Jones was the fact he never turns his AC on.
In Vegas.
In the middle of summer.
“I like it hot!” He told me with awkward finger guns and a chuckle one day.
I like it hot? Seriously? I do not exaggerate when I say Sin City turns hotter than Satan’s asshole from May to November. In high summer, no one, and I mean no one, can live without AC. It’s a legitimate health hazard. Buffy the Vampire Slayer got it wrong—if a Hellmouth were ever to open here on Earth, it would happen in Vegas. Temperatures regularly stay in the 110s here, the sun beating down with scorching ferocity. You can cook eggs on the freaking sidewalk, for fuck’s sake. There are plenty of YouTube videos to prove it. Despite all this, Mr. Jones not only doesn’t turn on the AC in his house, he also spends all day outside in his backyard without seeming to break a sweat. Meanwhile, the rest of us melt just walking from our homes to our cars.
Super. Fucking. Sus.
I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t connect the dots at first until one night when I was talking with Benji about all the oddities we’d observed with our new neighbor. Tom Jones was out for the evening doing who-the-hell-knows-what, and we were outside on our patio watching the night sky together when Benji took a hit off his favorite bong and then said, out of the blue, “Dude, maybe he’s an alien?”
And that was the eureka moment.
My jaw dropped open in amazement, and everything started to click. A lightbulb turned on in my brain, burning bright enough to rival the neon lights of Vegas. Quite frankly, I was amazed I hadn’t thought of it first. That was when our covert alien investigation was born. We’re doing this in the name of science—and for all our fellow conspiracy-loving alien believers, of course.
We’ve been observing Mr. Jones for weeks now, watching for anything unusual or any noticeable disruptions to his schedule. And tonight, it finally happened.
I’ll admit I didn’t expect the perfect opportunity to materialize quite so soon.
Shortly before 3:00 a.m., I was jolted out of sleep when I heard the unmistakable sound of Mr. Jones’s garage door opening. It’s been in need of some WD-40 for a while, producing a horrible, cringe-worthy screech every time it opens and closes.
I practically levitated out of bed, shoved my glasses on my face, and raced downstairs. After all, there are only so many opportunities in one’s lifetime to find evidence of alien life on Earth.
“Benji!” I shrieked as I flew into the living room. “He’s going somewhere!”
My uncle’s a bit of an insomniac, so he was actually awake on the couch drinking a beer and watching old reruns of some weird animated show from his teenage years called Daria.
He blinked at me. “Dude, are you sleepwalking?”
I hopped from foot to foot. “He’s getting away!”
“Who?”
“Mr. Jones! Didn’t you hear his garage opening just now?”
He took a slow sip of beer. “My bad. I was totally absorbed in my show.”
We both heard the car start next door and the loud notes of a Tom Jones song—oh the irony!—blasting from the stereo. We were in luck. Our unusual neighbor hadn’t left yet.
I tapped my foot. “No time to waste. We have to tail him.”
Benji blinked at me owlishly and belched.
“I’ll explain in the car,” I said, yanking him up off the couch and dragging him toward our garage.
I turned to my dog, a bizarre looking mutt of advanced years who can best be described as a cross between a miniature hairy Wookie and a feisty Terrier. He lay comfortably stretched out on the couch. Amidst all the commotion, he had deigned to crack one eye open to observe us.
“You stay here and guard the house, Chewy.”
He let out a chuffing noise in what sounded like annoyed agreement before closing his eye. Poor little guy doesn’t enjoy having his sleep disrupted at his advanced age.
Once Benji and I got in my car, I hightailed it out of our sleepy suburban housing complex, barely managing to catch our quarry’s trail as he exited the neighborhood and turned onto the main road.
“Tonight we get definitive proof aliens do exist. Fuck yeah!”
“Right on, man.” Benji reached into the rucksack he’d brought along and pulled out a battered CD case. “I got some perfect tunes for us.” He slid the disc into my CD player, the relic of a bygone era, and a testament to the fact my poor car is older than I am.
The familiar opening chords of the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” started playing, and I grinned back at him. “Awwww, yeah!”
Our heads nodding along to the unstoppable beat, we bombed along the highway—high on the thrill of the chase and our quest for truth.
We’ve been following Mr. Jones for a good while now, though, and some of my initial excitement has waned, especially as we’re getting farther and farther away from civilization.
Living in Las Vegas is a surreal experience on an almost daily basis. But, it’s also easy to forget the city is basically out in the middle of nowhere in the desert. Hop on the freeway, and it’s not too long before you leave the bright lights of civilization far behind and find yourself alone in the desolate, dusty vastness with nothing more than rocks, dirt, and cacti to keep you company.
I glance at the busted-up digital clock on my dashboard, the numbers hard to read without squinting. We’ve been following Mr. Jones on the I-15 N for forty minutes or so, but my heart starts pounding like the bass in a Britney dance song when I see his blinker signaling his intent to get off on exit 75.
“OMG, he’s going to the Valley of Fire.” I’m barely able to contain my renewed excitement.
Benji whistles, his pupils huge, as he gives me a dopey grin. “What do you wanna bet we’re heading to the freaking mothership?”
The very idea sends prickles of exhilaration through me, and I bounce a little in my seat. “You think? Holy fucking shitballs. That would be epic.” I pause for a moment, considering. “But how do you suppose he’s hiding it out here?”
Benji ponders this, but then shrugs. “Aliens got their damn cloaking devices and shit, right?”
“According to Star Trek at least. And Star Wars.” I nod to myself. “So, basically sci-fi gospel.”
“Exactamundo.”
It doesn’t take long before we leave the interstate and merge onto the more remote highway leading to the Valley of Fire. But, after about ten minutes, Mr. Jones pulls off onto a dirt road heading to Who-the-Hell-Knows-Where.
I glance over at Benji. We give each other a silent nod of agreement, and I prepare to follow.
“Turn off the headlights. We gotta be stealthy and all.”
“Good call, OBenji-Wan Kenobi.” I flip off the lights, allowing darkness to further engulf the world around us as we bump down the road, the shocks on my poor car squeaking in protest with every dip and pothole.
The farther we drive, the creepier things get. Out here, far from the bright lights of Vegas, it feels as if we’re being swallowed up by the blackness of the night. As my eyes adjust, the moon casts enough of a pale glimmer I can sort of see where we’re going. Barely.
Mr. Jones’s tail lights are a faint red homing beacon in the distance leading us toward whatever we’re going to discover. Possibly something no human has ever witnessed before.
A thrill courses through my body as I whisper, “I want to believe.”
Benji pops one last gummy in his mouth—presumably for good luck—before putting the packet in his cardigan pocket for later. I guess he’s finally starting to get serious now we’re closing in on our target.
I gently tap my cell phone screen on the mounted dashboard holder only to have my worst suspicions confirmed. No signal. We’re in a dead zone. This can often happen in parts of the desert, but considering what we’re doing, it gives me the willies.
A thought enters my brain unbidden. And, it’s one I realize really should have occurred to me much sooner. Nervous sweat forms between my shoulder blades, and I shiver as a drop trickles down my back.
“Uh, Benji?” My voice didn’t just squeak, did it?
“Yeah?”
“You don’t think Mr. Jones is…a dangerous alien, right?” I clear my throat, my mouth dry. “He’s not, like, bent on replacing us with pod people?”
He stares at me, eyes widening. “No idea. Let’s hope not.”
I let out an awkward chuckle that catches in my throat. Maybe following Mr. Jones on our own was a bad idea? It’s an inconvenient moment to realize we aren’t equipped to handle potential alien invaders. And haven’t I seen enough movies to know this could be an actual possibility?
But before I can worry about this startling prospect any further, Mr. Jones’s tail lights disappear around a rocky outcropping ahead, and my attention returns to the task at hand.
We hold our breath as we continue to follow at a safe distance. When we reach the rocky outcropping, I gulp. “I’m going to slow down. We don’t know what’s around this bend, so let’s be cautious.”
“Smart thinking, Tigger.”
I slow my hatchback to a crawl. As we creep closer, we spy our target a short distance down the road, stopped at a metal gate.
Squinting in the dark, I watch from the faint illumination of his headlights as he unlocks the gate before hopping back into his car and driving through. I inch forward in pursuit.
Then, as Mr. Jones’s car passes beyond the gate, it seems to disappear into thin air.
I slam on the brakes. “What the actual fuck?”
“Whoa. Careful, man.” Benji rubs at his eyes and stares at the empty desert before us. “What the—?”
We turn and mirror each other’s slack-jawed looks of confusion.
I blink. “What the hell happened?”
Benji shakes his head. “No idea. That was some trippy shit, though.”
Pulling my glasses off, I rub my eyes before putting the frames back on and squinting at the spot where our neighbor disappeared.
I wasn’t hallucinating. That was for real.
“Alien technology. It’s got to be.” I tell Benji this with growing conviction. “Some kind of cloaking mechanism like we thought. There must be something awesome past that gate.”
“Most likely,” Benji agrees. He leans over, plucking his Polaroid camera out of his bag. “I’m ready, young Padawan.”
I nod with the appropriate solemnity for this once in a lifetime event. “Let’s do this, OBenji-Wan.”
With my heart hammering, I pat my steering wheel. “Come on Serenity, don’t fail me now.” I nose her forward and turn onto the dirt path where we saw Mr. Jones disappear. Upon closer investigation, the gate only extends over the dirt trail, and Mr. Jones left it open in his haste.
Score.
From our vantage point though, there’s a whole lot of nothing beyond the gate. Just desert rocks, dirt, and scrub brush. At least that’s all I can see in the faint light of the moon.
Taking a deep breath, my hands gripping the wheel until my knuckles whiten, I tap the gas. I resist the urge to squeeze my eyes shut as we cross the boundary.
And that’s all it takes. One moment we’re surrounded by the arid desert landscape with nothing around for miles, and the next we’re looking up at an imposing concrete edifice I can only hypothesize is a covert alien base.
Armed men and women in strange uniforms patrol the perimeter of the building and staff the checkpoint entrance several hundred yards ahead of us.
And there, beyond the base, looming impossibly large in the background, is a freaking spaceship. It looks like something out of my Star Trek and Star Wars fantasies. Only cooler, if that’s even possible.
I can’t help the loud gasp that escapes my mouth. Even after all these years, a tiny part of me never thought this moment was possible. Tonight, we’ve hit the motherfreaking jackpot.
“Wicked.” Benji’s whisper drifts off as he lifts his Polaroid and snaps a picture.
My hands are shaking as I raise my cell phone and capture half a dozen digital pictures of my own. “We just hit the damn mother lode.”
Benji snorts. “Mothership, more like.”
We immediately high five one another in solidarity.
“I’m going to start recording this motherfucking moment of a lifetime.” I turn the video recording function on as I direct my phone back at the checkpoint in time to see a guard wave Mr. Jones forward in his vehicle before glancing in our direction.
Abort! Abort! My mind screams at me.
Of course, my brain’s a few milliseconds too late because that’s when a blaring siren starts going off.
Benji and I turn to one another with matching expressions of dawning horror. “Shiiiiiiiiiiit.”
A loud rapping at my driver’s side window has me jumping and shrieking like a three-year-old in Target.
An armed guard in a blue and gray uniform materializes out of nowhere, pointing his big—that’s no euphemism—deadly-looking weapon at me. “Out of the vehicle. Hands in the air!”
I gulp and let out another strange, yet totally manly, squeak. I sure hope these aliens are friendly, or I’m afraid our luck may have run out.
Chloe Archer writes queer sci-fi and paranormal rom coms with laugh out loud humor because she’s all about bringing the funny-sexy back. Oh, yeah!
She currently call Minnesota home, but has lived abroad in places like Montreal, Edinburgh, and Tokyo. She’s hoping to relocate to Scotland permanently in the next few years if the stars align.
Chloe is a fur mama to two adorable Yorkies, Jasper and Teddy, and she loves them in a crazy dog mama kind of way. When she isn’t busy writing, she enjoys visiting friends and family, traveling, reading, binge watching movies and TV shows, and practicing her karaoke skills. She does a mean cover of Pat Benatar and Cher, or so she’s been told.
Tentacular Tales Series
