When Rick grabbed her by the hand, his palms were sweaty but she didn't seem to notice. The sky was black but for the cones of yellow light coming from the streetlamps above them. The way Diane's straight orange hair seemed to glow as it curled up at her shoulders, how her skin was so perfect in the moonlight, how her skirt billowed with every click of her Mary Jane shoes against the sidewalk, giving him the briefest glimpses of her thighs… She was beautiful in an innocent, nerdy way and it was so nauseatingly earnest it was always threatening to distract Rick. She was a good little Catholic girl-next-door but if the rumours were to be believed, she was also a freak in the sheets, already having lost her virginity to Craig Donahue two grades above them. What kept her in the orbit of a loser-ass like him, he had no idea. But she was and he had to make the best of it.

When Rick finally found it, hidden somewhere behind a tree in the park with the invisibility shield on, she jumped then approached it slowly as if it was a wounded animal. 'What is that?'

'I've been working on it for years. It's finally finished,' Rick beamed.

'Is that… Is that a UFO?' She snickered.

'You making fun of me?' His fingers involuntarily curled into fists and his cheeks flushed.

'No,' she said softly with a gentle touch to his arm.

'Okay cos this is—this is some serious sci-fi shit. This is the real deal. I'm gonna be w-winning the Nobel prize sooner or later.'

She smiled. 'It's very… you.'

'C'mon, let's go for ice cream.'

She laughed. A cute little breath of air. 'Sure, alright.' She was humouring him. That was okay. She'd see soon enough.

Rick set to work fiddling with the controls as Diane gingerly strapped her seatbelt on. 'Hold on tight,' he said as he moved the stick shift into lightspeed and they both heard the sweet, sweet whistle of his quantum engine revving up.

They were still in the troposphere when Diane was screeching her lungs out like a slasher film victim. It wouldn't be long before she'd lose her voice. The two of them were squarely pressed into the seats by the sheer force of the velocity until they finally left Earth's atmosphere and entered zero gravity in outer space's twilit void. Anything Rick forgot to tie down was suddenly floating up above them along with Diane's hair.

Rick unbuckled his seatbelt. 'Stop-stop screaming! Templeton! Templeton, everything's okay, Jesus, relax.'

Diane clutched at her chest before her big green eyes beheld the glass dome's view of the stars around them. She gasped. 'Sanchez… holy shit.'

'Heh. Yeah.' Rick shrugged, suddenly self-conscious.

'It's beautiful,' she whispered. Diane looked at the stars and Rick looked at Diane. She turned to notice him staring. 'Hey there.'

His heart caught in his throat. He wasn't sure what to do with his hands. She scooted closer to him. Her gaze burned through him. Knowing this wasn't what he was supposed to do, he changed the subject. 'You know, that's not even the best part.'

She raised a fine brow. 'And what's that?'

'The best motherfucking ice cream in the galaxyyyyy! To Gloppy Drops'!'

They sat in a booth with leather seats in the brightly lit parlour that upon first glance looked no different than one on Earth. It had a chrome bar with matching stools, a hand-painted menu, a jukebox and colourful tiled floors. The only thing out of place was the hideous alien clientele that Rick could tell Diane was politely suppressing a gasp as they walked past.

They sat across from eachother reading the menu. Rick set his down. 'I'm thinking about Vixian ice with glorprian syrup. You?'

'Hmmmm. Strawberry milkshake!'

'Pfft. Lame. You know this place has hundreds of flavours you can't get anywhere on Earth, right?'

'What can I say,' she shrugged with a pointed look of mischief in her eyes. 'I like what I like.' When the waiter with three eyes and fins came to take their order, Diane handed him her menu and folded her hands on the table with a contented smile. There was something about her unshakable confidence that lingered in Rick's mind.

He led her back to the UFO and drove in complete silence until he landed at her door, sparing only a few glances her way, watching as her wide eyes drank up the changing sky. When the car stilled, she smirked at him. 'What's gotten into you, hotshot? Cat got your tongue?'

He kissed her. If she pulled away, he would dedicate the next year of his life to erasing her memory, maybe even commit suicide or exile himself to another galaxy. But she didn't. She was warm, she smelled like clean laundry, and her little sigh as she leaned into him was the greatest sound he'd ever heard.