Текст книги "How to Repair a Mechanical Heart "

Автор книги: J. Lillis

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HOW TO REPAIR A MECHANICAL HEART

by

J.C. Lillis

Published by J.C. Lillis

Follow J. C. Lillis on Twitter @jclillis

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Copyright © J.C. Lillis, 2012

First e-book edition: September 2012

Cover design: Mindy Dunn

Cover illustration of linked hands by Andrea Sabaliauskas

E-Book formatting: Guido Henkel

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Chapter One

Sim and Captain Cadmus huddled close in the crystal spider cave, their secret hearts thudding with untold passion.

I scroll down fast, my own secret heart thudding more than I want to admit. Plastic Sim shoots a plastic glare of judgment from his perch on the gooseneck lamp clipped to my bedpost. I know what he’s thinking, but I can’t help it. Replace “Cadmus” with “Brandon” and this fanfic graduates from terrible to tolerable in 0.3 seconds.

Abel doesn’t have to know.

Summoning all his courage, Cadmus gently touched the arm of the cerulean-haired android, his breath hitching in the eerie, dim light of the cave. “Hey, Tin Man,” he rasped. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but‌…‌I think I love you.”

My kneecaps tingle.

Sim’s smooth, impassive face betrayed no emotion, but his mechanical heart glowed blue in response. “Captain,” he intoned. “I would like to reciprocate, but my sensors tell me‌—‌”

“Screw your sensors,” said the captain, just as he had before, the day their ship first crashed on this red planet of terrors. His brawny hand massaged the android’s thigh. “Who cares what they think? Who cares what anyone thinks?”

“That is a useful perspective.”

I pull my laptop screen closer. I grab Plastic Sim and clutch him to my chest, like Gram with her blue moonstone rosary beads.

A crystal spider bayed in the distance. Cadmus knew it was now or never. Sim’s silver eyes glittered, the red sensors on his collarbone pulsing in the dark. Cadmus let his rough fingertips trail down Sim’s face, wanting to kiss him and be him all at once, and in their warm electric closeness the android smiled and murmured‌—‌

“Kathy! Get the door, willya?”

I slam my laptop shut. Plastic Sim clatters to the floor, right by the suitcase I packed and re-packed three times. Five words from Dad downstairs and I’m back to the real me: a dumbass on solar-system sheets, sneaking forbidden Castaway Planet fanfic and putting off leaving for a six-week trip I sincerely should have said no to. I wriggle out of bed and rescue Plastic Sim, slip the action figure in the pocket of my cargo shorts.

Then a different downstairs voice:

“May I come in?”

I freeze with my hand on the suitcase.

Footsteps shuffle; the front door whines shut. I hold my breath. It can’t be him. It was Dad doing an impression, or the hot new weatherman on Channel 12. If there’s a God and he still likes me even a little, he wouldn’t let this happen. Not when I’m already freaked about this trip.

“Brandon?”

Mom downstairs. I picture her peeking around the banister, still in the funny apron she wore to make our pancakes this morning. If God wanted me to cook, why did He invent restaurants?

I clear my throat. “Yeah.”

“Come on down, okay?”

I hear the visitor again: Oh Kathy, did you make this awesome wreath? and Greg, how’s that garden? My mouth goes sandy. This is happening. If I were Natalie I’d find a way out of this; Mom would knock on my door two minutes later and I’d be halfway down the street with my earbuds in and my fists jammed in my pockets, the fire escape ladder still swaying from the windowsill.

I pull in a breath. It hurts.

“Be right there,” I yell.

I yank on my favorite Castaway Planet shirt‌—‌blue with red letters, freshly ironed with the Steamium I got for graduation‌—‌and trudge downstairs. My suitcase bumps behind me. The living room smells normal, like syrup and coffee, except there he is on the flowered couch with his wide white smile and the rumpled curls that make the girls check The Thorn Birds out of the library. My teeth clench. Mom and Dad perch on either side of him, like benevolent henchmen. A breeze from the open window ruffles Dad’s bonsai on the sill, three snowrose trees with tiny perfect leaves shaped like teardrops.

“Look who stopped by,” says Dad.

“Hey, Brandon.”

“Hi, Father Mike.”

“Congrats on graduation.”

“Thanks.”

“He was out here visiting Mrs. Trugman, and he came by to give you a blessing for your trip,” says Mom. “Isn’t that nice?”

Father Mike power-shakes my hand. “Bec’s mom mentioned it to me at the potluck, and‌—‌”

“She did?”

“Yep. Wow, so just the two of you‌…‌”

I unclench. Thank God. If my parents found out Abel was coming too, they’d lock me in a windowless tower. He met them once and the next day I heard Mom on the phone with Aunt Meg saying “I’m just glad they’re not in the same school‌—‌can you imagine?” They don’t know thing one about our vlog. When I disappear to record new posts with Abel, they think I’m strumming Coldplay covers at open mike night with a couple other guys from the Timbrewolves.

“Just the two of us,” I nod.

“And I think it’s great,” Father Mike says. “Nothing like a drive across the country to clear your mind, you know? Make you think about things a whole new way.”

“That’s what we thought,” Dad nods.

“You and Becky were always so close.”

“Still are. They still are,” Mom smiles.

Father Mike sips from Mom’s Grand Canyon mug. “And I understand you’re going to some‌—‌what, fan conventions, right?”

“For Castaway Planet.”

“Wow. Great show. I catch it now and then.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure, sure. Love its vibe. Sort of retro sci-fi, a little campy, but a really powerful allegory, you know?” He tilts his head and nods at me. “I think everyone feels lost on a scary planet sometimes.”

He wiggles his fingers to illustrate scary. I think I’m supposed to smile.

“Father Mike, would you like some blueberry pancakes while you’re here? There’s leftover batter.”

His blue eyes crinkle. “That would be excellent. Thanks, Kathy.”

“Greg, can you help?”

“Hm? Oh! Yes, sure.”

Don’t leave me don’t leave me I say with my eyes but of course that’s the point, and they vanish into the safe yellow kitchen. They have no clue. When I met with Father Mike before Christmas for an informal counseling session, they asked me how it went and I blushed and muttered fine. I could have told them about the stuff he said, could have blamed my leaving St. Matt’s on the creepy “must-read” book he lent me. But I kept quiet. Because under their sweet candy shell, I know they’re bitter enough to agree with him.

I fix my eyes on the family-photo wall. Mom and Dad at senior prom, wedding at St. Matt’s, me and Nat mugging in pirate hats, the four of us on Sunset Beach in matching white shirts and chinos.

“How’ve you been, bud?” he asks me.

“Fine.”

“Still miss you on Sunday.”

I nod.

“I see those great parents of yours in the pew all by themselves.”

I look at the floor.

“It’s been what‌—‌four, five months?”

“I guess.”

“That’s a long time.” He holds up a hand. “I’m not judging. I just think you must feel lonely. We miss that guitar of yours in folk group.”

My face burns. He steps up to me and puts his hands on my shoulders. He’s wearing a blue polo shirt tucked into khakis and he gives off a childish smell, like Wonder bread and school antiseptic.

“Brandon, I want to tell you something, okay? Something I maybe didn’t make clear enough when we talked. Can you look at me?” I can’t meet his eyes. I settle on his left nostril. “The Big Guy upstairs still loves you. He understands what it’s like to be a young boy, these swarms of strange feelings filling up your heart‌…‌” He knocks a fist into his chest. “He’s on your side, you know? And as long as you pray for the strength to live life the way he asks, he will give you that gift. I know he will. I kinda have an ‘in’ with him.”

He grins and nudges me, and when I don’t do anything he nods until I nod back. I hate giving in. I want to be casually profane like Nat is when she comes home from Bennington and tries to shock us with stuff from her Theology of The Simpsons class. I want to say I left church for a reason, and I’m not coming back. But when Father Mike walks in a room I’m ten years old again. I’m traveling the altar midway through Mass, lowering my brass candle snuffer over one, two, three flames while he watches from his big chair with a gentle smile, making sure I’ve got everything right.

“Can I give you a quick blessing?” he asks me.

“Okay.”

He thumbs a cross on my forehead and starts in with this intense Lord, defend Brandon prayer. I wonder if this is a stealth exorcism. Plaid flashes in the kitchen doorway and I know Mom and Dad are listening in, hoping to God it does the trick but ready to set their jaws and keep loving me if it doesn’t. I don’t know which makes me feel worse.

“Amen?” he says.

“Amen,” I whisper.

“That was really nice, Mike.” My parents slip back in the room reverently, like he’s just made me a saint. Mom hands him a short stack of pancakes on my favorite blue plate.

“My pleasure.”

“You just worry so much. His first trip without us,” says Dad.

“Well, he’s a man now. He needs independence. He’ll make good decisions, I know it.”

He winks at me.

“I have to go,” I say.

Mom and Dad descend on me. Hug from Mom, shoulder pat from Dad, desperate last-minute directives from both:

“Call us every night.”

“Always lock the door.”

“Be good to Becky.”

“Don’t let her drive on back roads. She’s not as experienced as you.”

“Remember what we practiced: slow down for trucks, conservative on turns‌—‌”

“He knows, Greg.”

“And don’t blow your savings on food, all right? Mom stocked the RV for a reason.”

“Okay.”

“And can you do me a favor, sweetie?” says Mom.

“Sure.”

Please rewire your brain circuitry so we can go back to normal.

Mom doesn’t say that, not out loud. Instead she goes to the lampstand and pulls out an old TV Guide. David Darras smolders on the cover in his Sim costume, the same picture I used to keep under my mattress and take out at night for inspirational purposes. Iconic white suit, pale silvery skin, ice-blue hair. Mom gives the cover a shy smile and tucks a blonde curl behind her ear. It weirds me out. I never thought she paid attention to Castaway Planet.

“If you do meet David Darras,” she says, “can you get this signed for me?”

“Oh, the perfect man.” My father does a dreamy sigh.

“Will you shush!”

“Brandon, it’s time you knew. Your mother has a crush on an android.”

They all crack up, Mom and Dad and Father Mike the loudest of all. Coffee sours in my stomach. If a nice little anxiety disorder wasn’t programmed into my motherboard, I’d say So do I and watch them implode. Instead I take handshakes and back-slaps, one more ten-dollar bill from Dad in case of emergency.

“Brandon?” says Father Mike.

“Yep.”

“Remember everything I said.”

“I will.”

The Sunseeker’s parked at the end of the driveway, gassed up and gleaming like it’s waiting for Dad’s hiking gear and field guides, Mom’s plastic bin of nonperishable snacks, Nat’s heavy black boots and graphic novels. I lug my stuff down the walk and shove it all in. My suitcase, my guitar, the pouch with my savings and graduation cash, the Phillies duffel bag I’ve had since I was nine. When the RV door clangs shut, I hurry to the bushes at the edge of our yard, kneel down in the dirt, and throw up as quietly as possible under the lowest branches. Then I pop two mints and slip Plastic Sim in my shirt pocket, where I can see him. I have a twenty-minute drive to turn back into the person Abel thinks I am, and I need all the help I can get.

Chapter Two

Abel McNaughton lives in a house that’s like ninety percent glass. It’s across the river on the west shore, halfway up a mountain in a development where you can’t see houses from the road, just pine trees and gated driveways. The McNaughtons have custom-made redwood gates that are never closed; the one time my parents picked me up here, my mother said the gates were an awful waste of money and weren’t redwoods an endangered species? She had a lot to say about the house, too: so much glass, too hard to keep clean, and any lunatic could walk right up to it and see into all your business.

I spot Abel as soon as the house comes into view. The fourth wall of his bedroom is one big window, so it’s like I’m seeing him on a giant TV. Black silk robe, pajama bottoms with neon squiggles, white hair a spider-plant mess. When we did our season finale recap three weeks ago he’d just re-bleached it; he used too much gentian violet and loved the surprise purplish tinge. “It’ll fade in a day, but whatever,” he’d said, shrugging on his vintage Purple Rain shirt to match.

I shift the Sunseeker into park by his mom’s neglected petunia bed. Abel doesn’t notice me. He’s standing in the doorway of his walk-in closet tossing clothes at a huge black bag, and the fact that this is probably the first and only packing he’s done all week makes me want to deliver an athletic kick to the seat of his pajamas. He’s talking to himself. At least I think he is. Then I see this big tanned hand shoot out from the closet, wagging Abel’s acid-yellow Jesus vs. Mothra tee. Abel grins and yanks the guy into view‌—‌tan and tousled, shiny green shorts, a bad bicep tat I guarantee says something stupid in Chinese. Of course they start kissing, because even though Abel and I are just business partners I know exactly the kind of business he gets up to when I’m not around, and now they collapse on the closet floor and all I see are four feet nuzzling and I know they’re whispering sexy things I can’t imagine without feeling unzipped and turned inside out.

HHREEEEAAOONNNNK. Crap. I lift my elbow off the horn, but it’s too late.

Here comes Abel. He’s creeping up to his window like Elmer Fudd hunting wabbits, shading his eyes in the late-morning sun. He points down at me, and then he rips his robe open and does a goofball shimmy, pale belly pressed to the glass. My eyes squinch shut. I see the cover of the book Father Mike gave me, the clean blond boy thrusting a fist in the air: Put on the Brakes! The Cool Kid’s Guide to Mastering Sexual Temptation.

Come in, Abel mouths. He makes a frantic camera-cranking gesture. Vlog post. Now!

I gesture back. Aren’t you busy?

He wiggles his fingers above his head and patters them down on his shoulders. Greenshorts is getting in the shower, I guess. I climb out of the Sunseeker, hoping that wasn’t some obvious sex code for five more minutes. I don’t want my cover blown.

Abel and I met last October in a Castaway Planet fan forum. I was shytown with the Sim-in-the-snow icon, he was x_offender with the shopped icon of Cadmus in a Speedo. This was right after I had The Talk with my parents and word spread at school; I hadn’t gotten any black eyes or hot-pink FAGs on my locker, but guys I’d known since kindergarten were suddenly keeping their distance or talking to me in a weird stilted way, as if I were an alien whose friendliness might just be a cover. Nights when I wasn’t on Bec’s couch picking at popcorn and snickering at telenovelas with her, I was shut up in my room, hiding out in the forum with other Casties. The Abel thing happened fast. I wrote a rant about the “deep and irrefutable stupidity” of Cadsim fanfic after Episode 4-14, he thought it was funny, we spent a few days chatting about Castaway Planet and old sci-fi B movies, and then we figured out we lived twenty minutes from each other and he asked me to co-run his vlog with him. He sent an actual invitation to my house on cream stationery with a plea in fancy script: Abel McNaughton requests the honour of your collaboration on “Screw Your Sensors,” the Internet’s third most popular Castaway Planet fan vlog. Please please please be my awesome business partner!!!

No guy ever called me awesome before, so the lies started pretty much the second I hopped up his marble front steps. I told him I’d been out for six years instead of two weeks. My parents were one hundred percent fine with me, just like his. Aftershocks from twelve years of Catholic school? None at all, and I’m certainly not a freak who has panic attacks in Dairy Queen bathrooms after a guy tries to kiss me. I even invented a tragic heartbreak to shield me from his matchmaking: some pre-med sex god named Zander, who had me dreaming of a picket fence and two adopted kids before he dumped me for a bartender and ruined me indefinitely for all other men.

If Abel found out about the real me, he’d start gazing down from a lofty throne of pity, so I have to be careful every second I’m around him. I keep it cool and mysterious, like Sim. His dry little comments. His ease in his own synthetic skin. His decision to cut out his evolution chip, so he could enjoy nice safe friendships without all the terrors of falling in love.

I wind my mechanical heart and open his door.

***

“You ready, partner?” he says.

“We’re unveiling now?”

“We have to. The girls’ve been trolling us all morning. Wait’ll you see.”

Abel and I hunch in front of his laptop at the glass kitchen table, next to a stack of cruddy glasses and plates I very much want to scrub. He’s crunching Cookie Crisp from a china bowl that probably cost more than my car. His limited-edition Plastic Cadmus grips the pocket of Abel’s robe with his super-ripped hero arms and I side-eye him; even three inches tall, Cadmus is a smug bastard. No one’s home besides us, as usual. Abel’s dad’s at Mercy fitting someone with a new heart, his mom and little sister are in Boston on their book tour, and his brother Jacob’s at some school in New York for musical geniuses with bad attitudes.

“Don’t worry. You look lovely.” Abel slides on his shades with the red steel frames, an exact replica of Cadmus’s. “You’ve got that cute all-American khakis-and-flip-flops thing going on. You’re like Volleyball Ken.”

I sip my water. “Now with Eye-Rolling Action.”

“Do I have sex hair?”

“Ew.”

“Brandon, seriously. Wait’ll you meet Kade. Best five days of my life!”

“Please spare every detail.”

“Cynicism gives you blackheads. Studies show.”

I tip my chin at the laptop. “Let’s go.”

He grins and hits record.

“Bonjour, fellow Casties.” He musses his hair and turns on his best news-anchor purr. “It’s your two favorite recappers, coming at you live from my kitchen on May the twenty-ninth, a day that will forever live in infamy. Say hello to my distinguished fellow commentator, Brandon‌—‌”

“Hi guys.”

“‌—‌currently obscuring his cute little abs with the baggiest Castaway Planet t-shirt in recorded history.”

“It’s comfy.”

“What are you hiding under there?”

“Secrets. Many secrets.”

Abel rips off his shades and cocks an eyebrow. I let out a snort. I picture a handful of strangers watching this at home, thinking my secret is cool and mysterious like a jagged scar across my chest, and not dull and heavy like I gave up church but not the angst.

“Anyway, guys.” Abel pops one last Cookie Crisp. “Today we unveil that Super-Secret Summer Spectacular we’ve been teasing y’all about, ‘cause we know how our fifteen fans like, follow our every move and have shrines and shit.”

“My shrines are bigger,” I grin.

“Whatever. Here’s the deal. You real fans who come here and watch our episode recaps every week are A-plus, right, ‘cause you love Castaway Planet as much as we do and you’ve got more than ten brain cells to your name. But as we all know, there’s one faction of the fandom‌…‌”

“One very vocal faction.”

“‌…‌that is, and we say this with love, STONE COLD CRACKERS WITH A SIDE ORDER OF CRAZY FRIES. I am referring, of course, to‌—‌”

He plunks Plastic Cadmus in front of the camera. I do the same with Plastic Sim.

“‌—‌Cadsim shippers.”

I perform a cartoony shudder.

“Guys, I don’t know if you’re following our ginormous flamewar with Miss Maxima and her minions at the Cadsim fanjournal,” sighs Abel. “The slash fiction was bad enough, but these rejects have been calling it canon since the crystal-spider-cave episode, and that we cannot abide. Look, maybe it’s semi-tempting to think they had secret sexytimes when they’re stuck in the cave and there’s that ‘meaningful look’ and the fadeout, but people? Captain James P. Cadmus is a blazing hot male specimen who can kill a sixty-pound alien spider with his bare hands, and Sim is a freakin’-damn ANDROID‌—‌”

“Who’s way too good for Cadmus.”

“That statement is too ludicrous to acknowledge,” Abel huffs, petting Plastic Cadmus’s plastic head. “Anyway, our feud with the crazypants Cadsim girls? Officially ends this summer. We at the Screw Your Sensors vlog have made a wager. Hold up the CastieCon tickets, Bran.”

I fan them out. Abel explains the bet, which basically goes like this: we hit the five tour stops the Castaway Planet convention makes this summer, go to the Q&As with all five main cast members plus the showrunner, and ask them what they think Cadmus and Sim did in the cave scene after the fadeout. If a majority of them agree that no hookup happened, the Cadsim girls have to run an all-caps disclaimer on every one of their fanfics, forever.

“Brandon, tell them what it says.” Abel slides me a printout.

“PLEASE NOTE: A legitimate Cadsim hookup has been definitively disproven by the cast and creator of Castaway Planet, as well as professional Internet gods Brandon Page and Abel McNaughton. I freely admit I am a dingbat with zero respect for canon or for Cadmus or Sim as characters; I just want to see hot boys get it on. Read at your own risk.”

“That’s right. However, on the extreme off chance we lose? Miss Maxima, the Queen Bitch mod of the Cadsim community, will select a scene from one of their rotten little fanfics and we’ll act it out on camera‌—‌”

“‌—‌Within. Reason.” Why did I say yes to this?

“Right. Strictly first base, pervs. We’re gay but not for each other.” He scrolls through the Cadsim fic archive on his phone. “For instance, we won’t do the one where Dr. Lagarde plants a ‘sex chip’ in Sim’s brain and he and Cadmus do it in a hammock.”

“For crap’s sake.” I facepalm.

“Nor will we perform the futurefic where they’re back on Earth and get stuck in an elevator during a blackout.”

“Or any other elevator fic.”

“Or hurt/comfort fic.”

“Or alternate-universe steampunk fic.”

“So we better make damn sure we come out on top.”

“Sim likes the top.”

It just shoots out. I feel my ears redden; when I slip and say something flirty, it sounds like an elephant trying to bark.

Abel cracks up and stops the recording right there. He hits upload before I can object.

“On that note, Tin Man,” he says. “I have a little‌…‌surprise.”

He reaches in his robe and rummages. My left leg starts jittering. Last time Abel surprised me it was my birthday, and he slipped a special card under my windshield wiper: Sim’s head taped to a cutout of a gym rat in a leopard thong.

This time it’s just a small silver envelope.

“Open it,” he sings.

“What is it?”

“A lock of David Darras’s hair.”

“Wha‌—‌”

“Open it, doof.”

I unstick the flap. Inside are three more tickets on heavy silver paper. Two robots waltz in silhouette between an embossed P and F.

“What’s this?”

Abel bounces in his seat. “I totally splurged,” he squees. “You, me, and Bec have VIP tickets to the 4th Annual Castaway Ball! At the Long Beach con! With special guests David Darras and Ed Ransome!”

My stomach twists. The thing about Darras barely registers. Stories from the Castaway Ball pop up in fandom all the time. Dance-floor dramas, bathroom gropings, afterparty orgies in smoky hotel rooms.

“Why‌—‌” I force a Sim face. Indifferent, slightly amused. “Why would we do that?”

“Well, clearly we’re going to win the bet, so you won’t be making out with me anytime soon. However, I thought a whole ballroom of hot dorks in cosplay would be a lovely consolation prize.” He presses Plastic Sim to my lips, making a loud smoochy sound. “We’re going to find you a Sim, my dear. And get you over that Zander douchelord, like finally.”

“Oh.” Panic flushes through me. I knew he’d pull something like this; he’s tried to set me up with three different guys since January. “That’s‌…‌nice, but‌—‌”

“Nope! No more excuses.” Abel waves Plastic Sim like a magic wand. “Befoooorrre the stroke of midnight at the nerd prom, yoooooou, Brandon Gregory Page, will meet a beautiful boy on the dance floor and break the sinister spell of celibacy with the Kiss of True Love. Or True Lust. Whatever.”

Put on the Brakes!, Chapter 4: Celibacy and happiness‌—‌can they go together? You bet! You can still have a full and fulfilling life while obeying a special call to abstinence‌…‌

“Thus it has been decreed,” Abel proclaims, “and therefore on this life-altering journey, you, Brandon, will be my project, and I shall help you‌—‌”

“‌—‌Stop dressing like a frat boy?”

Abel and I turn around. Bec’s grinning in the doorway with her suitcase and the bowling ball bag she keeps her camera equipment in. Just seeing her makes me exhale. She looks pretty and practical: cargo pants, blue tank top, no makeup on her round freckled face. Her curls are forced into two stumpy braids, and she’s got on the faded rainbow friendship bracelet I gave her when we were fourteen. Her Zara Lagarde action figure clutches her belt loop, little plastic machete tight in one fist.

“Mon petit pamplemousse! Love the braids.” Abel blows her a kiss. She blows one back on her way to me and we fold into a hug. It’s so easy. We look like brother and sister‌—‌some brown-haired blue-eyed Dick and Jane in a kids’ book from the fifties‌—‌and she feels soft and friendly as Mr. Quibbles, my old stuffed penguin I would die if she told Abel about.

She tosses an arm around my neck. “So what’s Abel decreed for you?”

“Nothing,” I mutter.

“Everything,” Abel says. “Life. Love. Sex. Rebirth.”

“Ooh. Can I have some?”

“We can all have some, Rebecca.” He raises Plastic Sim’s arm and traces a cross on her forehead with it. “We can all have some.”

She snorts. “Did you make special brownies again?”

That Kade guy’s shuffling around upstairs. I hear him at the railing now: Abe‌…‌seen my shoes?

“Hold please, Bec.” Abel tosses me Plastic Sim. “Brandon can fill you in on his renaissance while I dress my boy.”

He bounds upstairs, humming the Castaway Planet theme. Bec’s smile snaps off. She sticks her hands on her hips and looks me up and down.

“What’s wrong?” she says.

“What? Nothing.”

“Bullshit. You ironed your t-shirt.”

“I did not.”

“Your shorts look ironed too.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Are you pussing out on this trip?”

“How mad would you be?”

“Um, furious?” She grabs the front of my shirt. “I cannot be in my house this month, Brandon.”

“Why not?”

“My mother and sister are hosting a book club. Eight choir ladies plus wine spritzers plus a stack of Amish romance novels.”

“Ugh.”

“What’s the problem?”

I slide her the tickets to the Castaway Ball and fill her in, the whole terrifying find-me-a-guy plan. Between the lines, I appeal to her time-honored status as my best friend. The one who knew I was gay a year before Nat talked me into coming out, the one who buoyed me up with sensitive grace and good humor through the parent talk and the Father Mike meeting and the dark nights of the soul when I lay awake at 1 a.m. pondering the existence of God and praying for a sign that he was real and sympathetic and still pretty much okay with me.

She cracks up laughing.

“You have to help!” I smack her arm.

“How?”

“Tell him I won’t be over Zander for another year. At least.”

“Oh, Fake Zander? I don’t‌—‌”

“Shhh!”

“Whatever.” She grabs a pear from the fruit bowl and takes a big messy bite. “You can’t stay fucked up forever, can you? You need to start putting yourself out there and getting humiliated like the rest of us. Only then will you be a Real Boy.”

I glower at her. “What kind of friend are you?”

“A heartless one.” She drops a sticky kiss on my cheek. “I love you, though.”

“Aww! Ken and Skipper.”

Abel’s grinning in the doorway. Two tanned hands knead his shoulders and he pulls in Greenshorts, who isn’t Greenshorts anymore because he’s got on frayed army pants and a white V-neck that’s a little damp and clingy. His light brown eyes and skin are fanfic-flawless and he’s all lean muscle. I imagine a conversation with him, a one-sided ode to 12-minute workouts and wheatgrass shakes.

“So Kade, this is Bec, our lovely and amazing cameraperson‌—‌she’s only a moderate Castaway Planet fangirl but she’s putting up with us anyway. And, uh, you’ve seen Brandon online.”

“Uh-huh.” Kade squints at me, stifling a yawn. “You hook up with this one?”

“Noooo. No no no. Tell him, Brandon.”

“Not my type,” I say.

“Obsessed with his ex,” Abel whispers to Kade.

“Right, right,” Kade grins. “You don’t do guys with baggage.”

“I merely assist them. He’s my summer project.”

Kade looks me over again and elbows Abel. “Babe,” he stage-whispers.

“Hm.”

“He looks like that dude from the movie.”

“Which one?”

“The one we watched at the party. That hit man with amnesia‌—‌”

“The main guy?”

“No no no‌…‌the little dude.” He drops his voice low. “With the‌…‌ears?”

“Oh my God,” Abel snorts, raining cute smacks on his shoulder. “Brandon, don’t listen. He’s awful!”

My ears burn like Kade’s thrown a hot spotlight on them, but he’s already jumped to the next thing: kissing Abel in a place I never thought about, the spot where the strong line of his jaw curves up to meet his earlobe. Abel kisses him back like no one else is in the room. When Kade turns his back, his thin t-shirt gives me glimpses of more tattoos I suspect are inversely proportional to intelligence, including a chicken with wings of fire and NO REGRETS spelled out in barbed wire. Bec traps me in this tractor beam of pity that’s deeply unnecessary since I couldn’t care less who Abel’s playing Perfect Boyfriends with, so I cross my eyes at her and grab the laptop again.