"Guys aren't allowed to marry other guys, Baby," Adam tries explaining, "It's like a custom on our planet that everyone follows. When people get married, they have to be of the opposite sex. "

"I don't understand," Baby replies, seeming puzzled if not a little upset about the recent news. "How do you raise families? How do you have children? "

I couldn't believe we were even having this discussion. And the more Adam tried to explain, the dumber it sounded. I mean, who decided that crap anyway?

I start thinking of Cooper Anderson and his boyfriend talking about going to college together and moving into the same house, but that was it. That's where their story ended. They didn't get a wedding. Instead, they got a bunch of shitty people calling them horrible names for holding hands and kissing while they walked down the street.

What kind of fucked up world did we live in?

"Well, you can still have a family together, and you can still live together under the same roof, " Adam admits. "It's just more restricted, you know?"

"Oh Adam, that's extremely saddening," Baby murmurs, and I can almost hear the tears in his voice. "I'm so sorry that you and Kevin can't be married and have offspring."

Oh my God.

"Look," I grab Baby by the shoulder and I turn him so that he's looking up at me with those wide eyes of his. "We're not married. We're not ever going to be married, you got it? So whatever you just did with that dumb flower? It doesn't mean anything!"

"I'm sorry, I just assumed..." Baby squeaks out, growing more and more flustered by the minute, "You two quarrel like a pair of Aarguian Swine in the throes of passion. Half the time I can't tell if you're flirting or genuinely angry at one another."

"It's okay, Baby," Adam assures him, "Kevin has this thing where he wants everyone to think he's straight." He rolls his eyes as he says this, much to my fucking displeasure. "But he'll literally power walk across the school to watch the boy's track team run laps in their tiny shorts, so I seriously doubt what he says at this point."

"Y--You goddamn asshole!" I stammer, my face heating like a furnace at this point, "I should beat the crap out of you! No, wait. I'm gonna do worse, Kavinsky! I'm gonna ruin your fucking life!"

"Come on Baby, let's find you some clothes, then we'll come back and grab Cluck Norris before we go." Adam ignores my threats and loops an arm around Baby's shoulders, leading him towards the hatch in the floor. "My mom has some things in her closet that you can borrow. You're both about the same height."

Piece of shit.

I follow Adam and Baby downstairs, angry and a little wounded at this point. But that all goes away as soon as we're downstairs in the rest of the apartment. 

Now that the sunlight was shining in, the place didn't look so shadowy and crowded. It had touches of decorations from India on the walls and pictures of Adam's family all over the place. A giant portrait of an elephant with like, a million arms was hung up behind the sofa, and the baby clothes and stuff had been put away, so I guessed Adam's mom had come outside at some point.

We all crowd into Adam's mom's bedroom and he takes Baby over to the closet and opens the door, clicking on the light to reveal a bunch of crazy-looking outfits. There were khaki pants, a few neutral-colored dresses, and then the rest were bright reds, pinks, and silks.

I flop down on the mattress like I owned it and close my eyes.

"Wow!" Baby gasps, and then he pulls out a sequined pink dress and holds it up to his chest. "This is so pretty!"

"Oh! My mom wore that to a party once and never touched it again. She said it made her look like Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles," Adam laughs, and then he pulls out a pair of jeans and a yellow shirt that said, "Bowling BALLS," in huge letters. "Hey, Kevin? Can you find Baby a pair of shoes while I help him get dressed? They should be by the front door."

"Fine. Whatever, Kavinsky," I sigh, and then I clamor off the bed and head back into his apartment, my nose and eyes throbbing at this point. I hadn't even bothered looking at my face since last night, but I was pretty sure I looked like hot shit.

I go grab a pair of sneakers from the front door, but as I'm passing the little table for the Kavinsky's to throw their keys and spare mail, I see a pile of letters scattered there on top. Which, would have been normal if the stack hadn't been taller than a paperback novel.

I grab a few of the letters and I start flipping through them.

Most of them were stamped with late notices and said stuff like pay immediately, or, this is the final warning. And the rest were addressed to Adam's mom all the way from Europe.

That's where Adam had said his dad had run off to.

So what the hell was going on with that?

I hear laughter erupt from the bedroom, so I grab the sneakers and walk back over, my thoughts whirling now. What was Adam Kavinsky hiding? Why had his dad's picture been all blacked out?

"Try this on," Adam holds out the BALLS shirt towards Baby when I get back. Then both of them laugh when the alien boy struggles to put the thing on and almost slaps Adam across the face. 

"You know, you kind of remind me of a jellyfish," Adam muses and he grins at Baby once he pulls the shirt on over his head. Both of them are sitting in front of the closet now. "They're from a genus called Cnidaria. Some of them glow, some of them change colors. And there are literally thousands of them out there that we haven't even discovered."

Baby is quiet for a long moment and then I watch him reach out and take Adam's hands.

I stay where I am, watching them from around the corner of the doorframe, then I see a soft glow emit from between them before something drifts up through their fingers.

It was a goddamn glowing jellyfish. A Man O' War or something crazy like that, with long tendrils.

"Oh!" Adam gasps, the light reflecting in his eyes when he gazes up at the glowing creature, just hovering there, bobbing gently as if it were caught in a sea current. "Baby, is this for real?" He demands, "How are you...?" 

"It's a piece of one of your memories," Baby explains gently, "We're connected, Adam."

I drop the sneakers that I'm holding and I leave the room, looking for my cigarettes in my jacket pocket. A few minutes later, I head for the door leading out to the staircase and I start down, my hands shaking a little, my head pounding like crazy.

I start smoking even before I hit the last step, exhaling, trying to calm myself down. What I had seen back there, I couldn't explain. I had been fine with Baby being blue and all, but I guess I just hadn't expected him to be so close to Adam Kavinsky of all people. They were connected? How? I was the one who had babysat him last night.

I crunch out to the gravel parking lot and I'm just standing there watching an old couple come out of Noon with doggie bags full of leftovers when I see this black car pull up right beside me. 

It was nothing new, we got rich tourists sometimes that decided to stop to pee on their way to Roswell.

The thing was, there was a label painted on the side that said, FBI in big-ass obvious letters.

"Kevin Quinn?" A ginger-haired guy questions me as he steps out of the car with his partner, "Can we have a word with you?"

I look up at the window where Adam's apartment is and I see him and Baby peeking through the blinds at me. 

And I knew I couldn't let these FBI guys go up there, otherwise, Blue Boy would be toast. And I mean, they would totally cut him up in a lab somewhere and force him to jump through hoops. 

"Is this about the shoplifting?" I question instead, "Because I've stolen so much shit you wouldn't even believe it."

"You...what?" The FBI agent takes one look at me, and then I take off running, the sound of their shouts and footsteps following me as I crash towards the restaurant like a bat out of hell.

And if I was gonna be honest, this is where everything really started to fall apart.