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“What is going on here?” Kelly demanded, though he found it difficult to be too upset with the scene. To be certain, Taste This Café was not a stodgy dining establishment. Manny’s stunts notwithstanding, Kelly enjoyed a joke and playful banter with his regular customers often, but this wayward Klingon-type character was definitely a first.

The alien man turned sharply toward Kelly, the fangs slipping slightly from his mouth as he cast a delightful snarl. “You are the one called Kelly Landry, proprietor and pastry chef of Taste This?”

“I am.” Kelly folded his arms and regarded the muted merriment of the crowd surrounding them, as if all of them were in on some practical joke aimed at him. “Is the mothership in need of our catering services? I’m afraid to inform you there’s a two light-year wait to be included on our schedule.”

Snickers sputtered forth from tightened smiles. The uniformed visitor, unfazed, held up a blue sheet of paper. “Mr. Landry, I have a warrant for your arrest,” he said with all seriousness. At least he was talking in a normal tone, and not with some mechanical “Mork from Ork” accent. “I am to escort you immediately to Federation Headquarters for interrogation.”

“Are you now?” The man looked harmless enough, but all the same Kelly took a step backward into the safety of his surrounding customers. Like hell was he going anywhere with this Star Trek reject, though Kelly was certain he could take the well-built weirdo with two choice chops if necessary.

“I’m being arrested? On what charge?” Kelly asked.

Alien Man said nothing, but thrust the paper toward him. Kelly studied the futuristic-style font of the amateurish flyer, which announced Kelly’s crime. “Well, it appears I’ve been accused of making the best damn chocolate chip cookies in the Alpha Quadrant,” he said to a spate of mild applause and agreement. He held up the flyer, bordered with designs of tiny starships and phaser guns, for all to see. It was a sophomoric attempt, something from a high-school printing program.

“I fail to see how this is an offense worthy of arrest, though,” he told the man. “If my cookies are the best, why arrest me? Why not give me the key to Saturn?”

“Or Uranus,” Susan sniggered under her breath. One step to the side roughly blocked his daughter from view. Kelly ignored the impatient tapping on his shoulder. Alien Man shrugged and held up his gloved hands. “It is considered an offense if the Prime Minister of the Federation fancies himself a gourmet chocolatier,” he said, “and is insulted that anybody would dare insinuate that another person’s cookies are better than his.”

“So arrest the person who made the insinuation.” Kelly curled the fake warrant in his hand. “My cookies are good, but they don’t align the planets.”

“You don’t really know that.” The man’s voice was nearly a purr. Kelly’s heart hitched and bobbed in response, as if the stranger were a cat enjoying a favorite toy.

A snorting sound alerted him to the fringe of the crowd. Susan now leaned against the counter, arms folded. “Hard to be humble, isn’t it? Nobody bakes better than my dad. Just ask anybody who’s been coming here for the past five years.”

“Cuff ‘em,” cried a lone voice in the back, to much laughter.

“That’s certainly an option,” Alien Man said, innuendo unmistakable in his drawl.

Kelly rolled his eyes. He couldn’t believe how seriously the people around him were taking this. His own daughter, too. Was there so little excitement in their lives that they felt the need to defend his culinary skills with this semi-masked man?

This semi-masked man who was most definitely peering at him with interest underneath that ridiculous prosthesis. The stranger’s gaze burned on Kelly’s skin, and for a brief moment Kelly felt truly uncomfortable, almost vulnerable, in his presence. He was handsome, and appeared interested. Of course, his own perception was more than likely influenced by seeing Manny and Julio going at it like rabbits.

I’ve got to get back to work.

Kelly slapped the paper to the man’s chest. The light jolt he experienced on contact surprised him enough to back away and duck behind the order counter. Fortuitous timing, too, Kelly realized with the sudden jerk of his cock inside his pants. Again? What was wrong with him today?

It had been too long, that had to be why he reacted this way. Any man’s touch, no matter how odd the man, seemed to suffice.