Текст книги "How to Repair a Mechanical Heart "

Автор книги: J. Lillis

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter Eighteen

Sim washes off him fast, like the cheap makeup Bec and I bought for past Halloweens to magic ourselves into little suburban vampires. I watch his hair and face reclaim themselves, the blue hair gel and silver greasepaint streaking the white shower tiles and swirling down the drain.

“Bran,” he murmurs.

“Mm.”

“Can I open my eyes now?”

I take a deep breath. It’s okay.

“Yes.”

I feel good when I say it, but when his eyelids actually open I back up a step, clutch the washcloth against me. The hotel shower stall feels smaller, stifling. Am I too hairy? Not hairy enough? Did he imagine I was cut like a marble statue underneath my big t-shirts? Why didn’t I do crunches this week at the campground after he fell asleep?

His eyes trace the droplets branching down my chest.

They stop at my waistband.

“Brandon. Cutie.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re still wearing your boxers.”

“I am.”

“Is there something you need to tell me?”

“No.”

“Are you actually a Ken doll?”

“Nope.”

“Is your dad a secret superhero and you have a bionic penis and you make up this big religious-paranoia back story because it shoots laser beams and has the strength of a bulldozer?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it.”

“I’ve never done this.” I watch water whirl down the drain between my feet.

“Showered in boxers?”

“Been naked‌…‌with someone.”

“Well, obviously. However, when you said let’s take a shower, I naively assumed‌—‌”

“I know I know!” I draw my arms across my bare chest. “I’m sorry. I felt great and then‌…‌It’s new. You know?”

“Look, if you want to wait more‌—‌”

“I don’t.”

“But maybe you’re too‌—‌”

“No! No, listen.” I shove my wet hair off my forehead. I can’t screw this up. I won’t let bad thoughts in. I won’t. “It’s just, when I think about‌…‌sex or whatever, it’s kind of like on TV.”

“Vanilla and hetero?”

“No, like, there’s some kissing I guess, and then it fades out.”

He gets this stupefied look. “That’s all you picture?”

“Kind of.”

“Ever?”

“Mostly.”

“Even your dirty robot dreams?”

“Especially those.”

“Oh-kay. Wow.” He weighs the full pathetic horror of my PG-13 dream-life. “So is that‌…‌all you want, or is there‌—‌”

“No no. I want more.” My eyes wander down past his waist and oh my God I saw it crap crap don’t freak out it’s normal it’s beautiful it’s

“Eyes up here for now.” He tips up my chin and kisses me lightly. “Let’s not frighten you further, darling.”

“I’m not.”

“You are, but it’s fine. We can work with this.”

“Okay.” I’m starting to shake. A good shaking. I think.

“So what do you think you’d like?”

“I don’t know.” I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Don’t freak. I won’t judge.”

“I know. But it’s like, I don’t even have the words.”

He pauses. Long pause. Then I hear the shower door creak open, and I feel him slip away.

I twist the water off and scramble out of the stall. He’s pulling on a white bathrobe, raking his hands through his wet hair with purpose. I’m losing him. For crap’s sake. I can’t even take a half-naked shower with someone without‌—‌

“Come on, Bran.” He throws me the other robe.

“What are we doing?”

He peers at me over his shoulder and grins.

“Imitating art.”

***

I follow him into the bedroom. He flops onto the first bed and grabs the open laptop.

“Um‌…‌”

“So you know this happens in every fandom, right?” he says. “Especially real-person shipping?”

“What?”

“Here, sit here.” He pulls me down next to him and kisses my cheek. “There’s always that fic where they find all the fic their fans wrote about them, and they pretend to be all shocked and horrified at first, and then they read it together‌—‌”

“In some fancy hotel room.”

“With cute matchy-matchy bathrobes. And then they get drunk on cheap champagne, and as their inhibitions melt away they end up‌—‌”

“‌—‌acting out their favorite scenes,” I sigh.

“Exactly.”

“Oh my God.”

He hits his bookmark tab and scrolls down to the bottom. “I think this one was kind of hot. The one where we do it in the bowling alley‌—‌”

“Abel!”

“It’s useful, Bran. Trust me! This way you just point to the stuff you want to try‌—‌oh. Except that.”

“What?” I hide my eyes.

“Right, I bookmarked this fic to laugh at it. Sorry.” He giggles. “This sorcha doo person needs an anatomy lesson. Did you read this one?”

“I skim the sex scenes.” I uncover one eye, see the word slick, and re-cover fast.

“Yeah, in that position, your first time, in a bathroom stall? I think dizzying heights of ecstasy are out.”

I cringe. “I figured.”

“And honestly‌—‌I hope you’re not disappointed when I say this.”

“What?”

“I don’t think I can unbutton your shirt with my teeth.”

“That’s okay.”

“Here, this one’s pretty good, though.” He clicks on retro robot’s “You Can Drive My RV” and scrolls down. “The part that starts Abel’s back hit the wall with a thud? Definite possibilities. Just look.”

“Yeah, I can’t.”

He leans over and nips one of the fingers that cover my eyes. I grin. He nips another one, and another one, until I smack him away and coax my eyes back on the screen.

I make myself read the words this time, instead of skipping to a safe part. The first few lines are like medieval torture, but then the shock wears off and it’s pretty okay, not much different from the Cadsim fanfic I used to sneak. It’s creative. Ridiculous. Funny. Sort of hot, if I ignore the fact that they’re straight-girl masturbatory fantasies about us. We spend the next half hour taking our time with it: laughing at the bad scenes, poring over the good ones. I go through my backlog of embarrassing sex questions, all of which Abel answers with casual directness, like a wet and sexy stranger giving directions to the post office.

“Okay.” Abel stretches and cracks his knuckles. “So definitely that bit from the steampunk AU except minus the brass goggles and mechanical claw, and then we mix in some ‘Three Little Words.’ And‌—‌what else?”

I scroll down shyly to “How to Repair a Mechanical Heart.”

“Chapter 18,” I say. “I’d like to start here.”

“Is this the one where we conjugate the verbs?”

“Yeah. But the scene right after.”

He skims it. “Nice. A little overheated, but whatever. Okay. We’ll keep these up for inspiration, but we’ll improvise too. Plan subject to modification at any time, depending on our mood and your comfort level. Sound good, Captain?”

I nod fast. “Yep.”

He tosses the condom on the nightstand. “When and if, okay? Don’t look at it; it’s like a little foil packet of intimidation.”

He reaches across me and snaps off the lamp, so the only light left in the room is a gleaming rectangle of laptop screen. He pushes that off to the side. Cold prickles tick across my neck. All my elevator bravado whooshes away.

No more jokes.

We’re doing this. For real.

Oh God.

“So first,” he murmurs. “I’m supposed to tenderly reveal your sculpted chest, as if unwrapping a gift.” He kisses me, whispers in cinnamon against my lips. “Lie back for this, okay?”

Okay. I sink into the cool white pillow. I can do this. Obey commands. I glance at hey_mamacita’s words on the laptop, blurred and unreadable from here. He tugs at the tie on my bathrobe and slides the terrycloth off my skin: chest first, then the rest of me. He unpeels my boxers, still damp from the shower, in one fluid move. Like I needed a reminder he’s done this before. Many times. And there’s no way I won’t disappoint him.

“How’s that?” His fingers trail down my chest and up again, lingering on‌—‌God I hate the word “nipple” so much, I can’t even. “Good?”

I swallow the rock in my throat. “Good.”

“I can’t see your eyes. Are you freaking?”

Status: Naked. On bed. With boy. Systems overheating. Sudden doubts multiplying. Meltdown imminent.

“No,” I lie.

“Now, that scene you like has you taking the reins pretty early on, remember? I mean, if you’re too nervous we could change that, but I have total faith in you.” He’s shrugging off his own robe, tossing it on the floor. It’s too dim to see much but I shut my eyes anyway. “What do you think?”

My throat creates some affirmative syllable.

He drops down on the pillow beside me and sweeps me on top of him. I go taut with the warm shock of skin to skin, the huge undeniable fact of his hardness insisting itself next to mine. I think I have to pee. I wish I could brush my teeth again. What if I do everything all wrong? What if I die of happiness and then go right to hell? A vague panicked stop stop stop wheels through my head and I’m gripped with the worst fear of all: what if I run away?

“Your scene.” Abel brushes damp hair off my forehead. “You take over.”

“I don’t know what‌—‌”

“Yes you do.” He pecks two kisses inside my hand and presses it to his heart. I feel its warm steady knock against my palm. “You do, sweetheart. Relax.”

The word sends a thunder of calm rolling through me. My fingers twitch to life. hey_mamacita whispers in the sultry, cocksure voice I imagine for her: With bold nimble hands he bolted Abel’s wrists to the smooth white sheets and braved the distance between their lips. It was shorter than he’d imagined. Because now he was free.

I let her words fill my head, guiding my first moves.

And then, in the pale glow of the laptop, I start to write my own.

Chapter Nineteen

We lay together in the wrecked white bed, sprawled side by side like action figures someone just got done playing with. Except I’d never mistake myself for plastic, not now. It’s like Sim said in Episode 2-15, after he first got the chip: I was never fully aware of my body before. Now every part of me is alive. Electrified. Am I wrong to feel joyful, Captain? Is it foolish not to fear pain yet?

I feel Abel still awake, fiddling with the sheets beside me. We’re on the same page, I guess, trying to sidestep morning-after awkwardness by not sleeping at all. I wish he’d talk first. I don’t know how to break the seal. I have some sincerely stupid questions‌—‌like, I’m not sure what we did tonight actually counted as losing my virginity‌—‌but that’s kind of a question for Dan Savage and not really sexy afterglow talk, which I still have no clue about even after a hundred Cadsim and Abandon fics and really all I want to do is pull a guitar out of thin air and serenade him with “Here, There, and Everywhere,” like I do in Chapter 18 of “How to Repair a Mechanical Heart.”

Abel taps my cheek. “Hey‌…‌?”

I turn my head, smile. “Hey.”

His eyes flick down to the space between us. I look down and see what he’s done.

Plastic Sim and Plastic Cadmus: tucked snugly under the sheet together. Spooning.

I crack up laughing.

“So?” Abel says.

“So.”

He cringes cutely. “How‌…‌was it?”

I would write horrible fanfic. The mechanics blur; the last thing we did blasted my mind inside-out and left me clear and calm and goofy-dreamy.

“Great,” I tell him.

“Well‌…‌mostly great. Right?”

I hide my face in the pillow. “Sorry I couldn’t do everything. I just‌—‌”

“No no! Oh God, that’s not what I meant.” He knocks on the back of my head. “I meant that one part where I freaked you out. I just didn’t know you hated feet so much.”

“Neither did I.”

“That’s what’s so fun, though. Figuring all that stuff out.” He walks his fingers under the covers. “On the other hand, I discovered your inner thigh is especially‌—‌”

“Ooh! Stop.”

“What? It’s cool. Next time I’ll bring some feathers and we can‌—‌”

I kiss him to shut him up. We are both imperfect in so many ways right now‌—‌his hair sticking up like angry-rooster hackles, the fuzzy morning taste in my mouth‌—‌but I don’t care. We smile when we break apart.

“So be honest: what’s going on in your head right now?” He crooks Plastic Cadmus’s arm tighter around Sim. “Good stuff? Bad stuff?”

“Good. All good.”

He cocks his head.

“I mean it.” I lean over the action figures and kiss him again. And again.

“Okay, ‘cause if you’re going to cry or drop to your knees and pray or whatever, do it now so I can‌—‌”

“Did he do that?”

“Who?”

I roll my eyes. “Him. Jonathan.”

Abel picks at his thumbnail. “There was definite weirdness. Yeah.”

“Well, I am completely fine.”

“Really? Hundred percent?” He reaches over and hooks my pinky with his. “I’ll also accept ninety-five. Or ninety‌…‌”

I consider my answer. Bad thoughts still creep around in my subconscious; I’m not dumb enough to think one night with Abel’s blasted them away. But for now I’m too happy to let them get close. I’ve got a force field around me made of Abel’s kisses and hey_mamacita’s evangelical ranting and the steady blue thrum of my mechanical heart.

Thank you, I venture. Thank you thank you thank you. I send it out to the universe, to Abel’s loving creative higher power that wants everyone to be happy. Right now that seems so incredibly possible.

“Okay, you’re pausing way too long,” says Abel.

“Well. I do have one confession,” I tell him.

“Sure. Sure, get it out.” He unhooks our pinkies and shifts under the sheet, bracing for full-on Catholic-boy freakout.

“It’s about Cadmus and Sim.”

“Oh!”

“I might sort of‌…‌” Say it. Get it over with. “‌…‌thinkit’salittlebithotnow. Just a little!”

I bite my knuckle, awaiting judgment.

Abel lets out a deep relieved laugh. He pulls a pillow over his face and crosses his arms over it.

“You too?” I tug the pillow.

“Uggggghhhh,” he moans.

“Since when?”

“Dunno. I guess since the coffee shop marathon?” He shoves the pillow away and props himself up on one elbow. “The stupid cave scene felt different. I like, watched you watching it. Watching him. And I started‌…‌” He sighs.

“Feeling things?”

“To my horror. Yes.”

“There were twinges?”

“Definite twinges. Oh my God, Brandon.” He shakes his head at our spooning action figures. “Are we turning into‌…‌Cadsim shippers?”

“It’s possible.”

“What about the dumb bet?”

I shrug. “Call it off.”

“Just like that?” He does a low whistle. “Miss Maxima would‌—‌”

“Who cares?” I twist Plastic Sim’s waist and tweak his legs so he can cuddle Cadmus with maximum efficiency. “Why waste time feuding with the Cadsim girls? I’d much rather hang in the Church of Abandon.”

Abel studies me. A grin sneaks across his face.

“What,” I say.

“What? Nothing.”

“You’re plotting.”

“Is it that obvious?”

I shove at him with my foot. He rolls off the bed and goes for his big black bag, humming that Blondie song about hearts of glass. I pull on my boxers from last night.

“Don’t look,” he says. “Close your eyes.”

I hear the contents of the bag shift and clink; he’s got enough souvenirs and truck-stop junk and retro shirts in there to fill a Goodwill. A plastic pop: a marker uncapping? I wait till I feel light cotton whap my face, and then I pull it off and unfold it.

A white v-neck undershirt, ABANDON Sharpied across it. He’s got one to match.

“What are these for?”

“We’re making a vlog post.”

“Here?”

“Yes sir.”

“What for?”

He whispers in my ear, even though no one else is in the room.

“Oh no. No no. We can’t.”

“It’ll be epic.”

“They’ll die.”

He slips the shirt over my head and kisses my nose.

“In a good way,” he says. “Trust me.”

***

He turns the camera on.

“’Morning, Casties. It is now‌…‌five a.m., Pacific time, and Brandon and I can’t sleep. We have a very important announcement that will be of great interest to quite a few‌…‌”

He keeps talking. I barely hear a word; I’m just watching his lips move, mystified that I kissed them and can do it again whenever I want.

“‌…‌so first of all, to Miss Maxie and the rest of the Cadsim girls: We’d like to call a truce with you. It deeply, deeply pains us to admit this, especially since we’ve seen better writers in the 7th Heaven archive on fanfic.net, but whatever: Cadsim is kiiiind of hot. Okay? We said it. So I guess we’re all playing on the same team now. Miss Max, we know you’re going to be at the next con in Salt Lake City, so we’d like to invite you to ask the cave scene question at the Della Wolfe-Williams Q&A, presuming you still want to know the answer. And in the interest of burying the hatchet, we’d like to invite you to lunch with us after.”

He elbows me.

“Definitely,” I say.

“Long as you don’t expect us to rec your fanfic or anything. Which brings us to our second purpose‌—‌right, Brandon?”

“Uh‌…‌I guess.”

“Don’t chicken out. Look right into the camera and say hi to the Church of Abandon‌—‌oh, right, ladies. We know about you. We have for a few weeks, and we’d like to inform you that you’re living every real-person-shipper’s dream: your fanfic totally brought us together last night.”

He’s spreading it on so thick. I pull the sheet over my head.

“It’s true!” Abel pokes me. “As of 9:48 this evening, Brandon and I are officially Doing It. Ladies, our love lives were ready to stall out, but you inspired us to unprecedented heights of passion with all your wackadoodle sex melodramas and extraneous adjectives.” He yanks the sheet off me and he looks so adorable with his mussy sex hair that I have to laugh. “Bran. What do you say to our freako fairy godmothers out there?

I shut my eyes. “Thanks guys.”

Abel tugs off his ABANDON shirt. “We’re going back to bed now.”

He switches off the camera and tackles me, laughing, and I can’t believe we said that and did that and there’s no way in hell we’re posting it on Screw Your Sensors. But then he leaves a trail of soft electric kisses down my chest and slips my boxers down again, and by the time he’s done I wouldn’t care if Xaarg himself poofed into the room and challenged us to a life-or-death game of WordWhap.

I lay there sweaty under the sheet, trying to catch my breath. Abel crawls over to the laptop and uploads the vid. He rubs his hands together and grins, which is supposed to be cute but gives me a sinister chill.

Twenty minutes later, while we’re molding Plastic Cadmus and Plastic Sim into X-rated positions and crafting an impromptu photo essay, we get a direct message from our former enemy at the Cadsim fanjournal: Miss Maxima: laughing so hard I legit peed a little. YES. I will meet up with you lovebirds for lunch in Salt Lake. I’ll even buy. See you then, boys.

You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to it.

CastieCon #5

Salt Lake City, Utah

Chapter Twenty

I want to make a sweater out of this week and wrap myself up in it until it falls apart.

If someone made an Abandon fanvid of the road between Long Beach and Salt Lake City, collaging our good times to a chirpy pop-country song, this is what it would be like:

Scene 1: Vegas. We score last-minute tickets to a cheesy jukebox musical with all 80s pop songs. Abel holds my hand and hums along as guys twirl in neon tanks and acid-washed jeans. We make out shamelessly at the end of the big “Don’t Stop Believin’” number and I pretend we’re in a movie and all the clapping is for us.

Scene 2: Afternoon hike in Fishlake National Forest. I impress Abel with my arcane Boy Scout tree expertise and he makes a ring for me from a twist of sneezeweed stems. We dorkily reenact the cave scene with Plastic Sim, Plastic Cadmus, and an improvised shanty of slate rocks.

Scene 3: A kiss in the rain. A good montage has to have one. On a campground picnic table, wearing stick-on mustaches from a truck stop.

Scene 4: Bill & Ray’s RV Repairs. Dad found these guys online and prearranged a complete checkup, “just to be safe.” While they’re inspecting the brakes and fixing the busted windshield wiper, Abel and I go around back to watch a rose-and-orange sunset sprawl above Pleasant Grove, Utah, the kind of happy train-set town with rodeos and Heritage Festivals every five minutes. I sit on a rusted riding mower with my guitar and strum his favorite Madonna song (”Like A Prayer”), and I swear these two birds soar over poetically at that very second, settling together in the scrubby grass to feast on a discarded Honey Bun.

It’s Friday now, one day from CastieCon #5. The Sunseeker’s whipping down I-15; we’ll be at our campground near Salt Lake within a few hours. Bec drives with her hair in pigtails and the Futureheads on the speakers; Abel and I sit crosslegged on the bed in the tiny back room. We’re wearing matching white baseball caps that say I GOT LUCKY IN VEGAS in glitter, and beside us on two paper plates are remnants of the world’s unhealthiest lunch: leftover truck stop biscuits and gravy, plus a fried-egg-and-cheese scramble with onions and tomatoes from a roadside stand near Victorville. There’s tomato juice on my Castaway Planet shirt and Utah dirt under my fingernails. I’ve never been happier in my entire life.

He takes a deep breath. “Should we do it?”

“Now?”

“It’s been so long.”

“Three days.”

“Okay. You first.”

“No, together.”

“On three. One, two‌…‌”

We whip out our phones. The no-media rule Abel thought up was great in terms of first-boyfriend-bonding, but it’s Day 3 already and our fingers have been itching since Vegas. 72 hours without email or Facebook, not to mention the Cadsim fanjournal, the Church of Abandon, or the newsfeed at the main Castaway site, is kind of like seeing how long you can go without peeing or using the letter A.

“Susannah’s in Tucson with my mom,” Abel reports. “Just did her twentieth book signing. She tweets ‘i miss u, have fun u should kiss brandon.’”

“Aw. Tell her you are, right now.” I lean over and give him a peck. “Okay, new rumor: Sim might have an evil clone next season? Whaaat?”

“Not true. Darras debunked it last night, apparently.”

“When?”

“Twitter party.”

“Thank God‌…‌Oh, damn. Got a college orientation email.”

“Begone. We’re not thinking about that.” Abel waves it away. “Ahhh, retro robot. How I’ve missed you‌…‌”

Great. Four emails from my parents. I click one.

Hi Sweetie,

We haven’t heard from you since Sun. nite – tried calling you twice today but your phone was off. PLEASE make sure you call us tonite!! You know how we worry. Are you and Becky having fun? Hope you’re really getting a chance to enjoy your alone time together, you 2 are so good for each other. Dad says to tell you, you can take her out for a special dinner anywhere you want. It would be our treat.

Be very safe! Remember, we love you.

Mom (and Dad)

P.S. Helped Fr. Mike with the ice cream social yesterday – he says a big hello.

I reply Sorry! All’s well, having fun! and delete their email fast. Not going to bother me.

“You’re missing some quality flailing over here,” says Abel.

“Yeah?”

Remember, we love you. What was that? The sneakiest guilt trip ever.

“What’s wrong?” Abel says.

“Just‌—‌annoying emails.”

“Well, the night after our little afterglow video went up, there was an all-night party post that hit thirty-six pages by morning.”

I grin. “We are legendary.”

“The bards sing of us. whispering!sage wrote a series of haiku about how their community brought us together.”

“Wow!”

“Then a_rose_knows tried to make the #abandonship hashtag happen in our honor.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Several reports of heads exploding, lady parts combusting‌…‌doomerang theorizes that she’s actually dead and this is her heavenly reward‌…‌lone detective pops in her cynical head to say we’re clearly playing them like a fiddle and laughing our asses off.”

“Mm. I don’t care for her.”

“Me neither. You will also be pleased to know that due to our hookup, sorcha doo melted into a pink puddle of happiness and is now typing with her disembodied eyeballs.”

“This pleases me.”

“It’s so great, Bran. Everyone capslocked the whole entire night and they posted gifs of fireworks and Kermit the Frog flailing, and‌—‌Oh.”

Abel’s whole face changes. His eyebrows push together and he cocks his head. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing, just‌…‌” He hands me the phone, tries to keep it light. “Their fearless leader appears to be M.I.A.”

retro robot:

Um, so‌…‌I hate to stop flailing for even a second, but WHERE IS OUR MAMACITA?? Has anyone heard from her?

whispering!sage:

omg literally not a thing. like I said, she was supposed to meet up with us at the ball but she never showed.

sorcha doo:

u guys. that’s weird. really.

a_rose_knows:

I know. BIZARRE. Packs of rabid wolves couldn’t keep her from this place after official Abandon hookup. It is known.

amity crashful:

I’m worried, people. I gotta admit.

A little chill flashes down my back. The biscuits and gravy sink in my stomach.

“You don’t think‌…‌” Abel clutches my arm. “‌…‌her head literally exploded, do you?”

I tap the second page of comments. I scan it, scrolling fast with my thumb.

“Two hot boys are being sought for manslaughter in connection with the cranial detonation of one hey_mamacita,” Abel says into a salt-shaker microphone. “The boys should be considered armed, dangerous, and extremely‌—‌”

“Oh God. Look at this.”

retro robot:

Guys. Guys. Look. HER JOURNAL’S GONE.

amity crashful:

no.

sorcha doo:

ok I’m seriously freaked now. WTF??? :-(

lone detective:

It’s true. She pulled all her Abandon fic down. Every single story. It’s like she never existed.

amity crashful:

omg you guys. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK is going on?

lone detective:

She abandoned Abandon. Heh.

I find her last post, from right before the Castaway Ball, and try to click through to her personal journal. I get a blue screen with an error message.

This journal has been deleted and purged.

She’s vanished. Every single chapter of “How to Repair a Mechanical Heart”: gone with the rest of her.

“O lamentations,” Abel sighs, hand to forehead. “hey_mamacita doesn’t love us anymore.”

I try to swallow. “Guess not.”

“Maybe Miss Max ordered a hit on her.”

“Heh.”

“Whatever shall we do without her literary genius to write us into being?” he snorts.

I hand his phone back and wipe the sweat off my palms, playing it off like I’m scratching my knees. I can’t let him see I care. Not this much. “Hope she’s okay,” I shrug.

“Are you kidding? She’s probably passed out from happiness somewhere.” Abel flops on his back and hangs his tongue out the side of his mouth. “I mean, what else is she going to do? We’re together now. Mission accomplished.”

Or maybe‌…‌

“What if something bad happened?”

“Pssh. Like what?”

“What if we embarrassed her when we told them we knew about them, and she got in her car all upset, and then‌—‌”

It would be your fault.

“Yeahhh, okay,” Abel smirks. “And what if she stayed in her house five minutes longer to watch our post, and then when she got to Starbucks the guy in front of her took the last scone so she had a bran muffin instead and choked to death on a raisin?”

“I’m serious.”

“I know. That’s your whole problem.” He kisses me on the cheek and yanks my Vegas cap over my eyes. “I’m sure your little fic friend is fine.”

“Why would she stand them up, though?”

“I don’t know.” He swings his legs off the bed. “She probably got bored. Maybe she found some repressed Star Trek vloggers who are even hotter than us and‌—‌ow! Dammit.”

He rubs his heel.

“What?”

He shakes his head, grabs something off the floor.

“Ugh, these things are so cheap. Can’t believe I paid ten bucks for one. Think fast!”

He throws it to me. It’s the mechanical heart from the Castaway Ball, a wide jagged crack exposing its insides.

“Do us both a huge favor, okay?” Abel says.

I flip the switch. The blue heart-light stutters, then winks out.

“Don’t get superstitious.”