My skirt was ruined, that much I could guess. I just wanted to go back to the hotel room and get out of these heels and take a hot shower to get all of the con grime off me. There was a book in my suitcase just calling my name—the new Starfield: Resonance companion novel.
I’d rather be saving the galaxy with the insufferably kind Carmindor than be on this balcony praying for the night to end already.
“A shot in the dark, right?”
The voice startled me.
I glanced up to the guy, because it certainly wasn’t the couple playing tongue hockey who asked me. He was unnervingly tall, but then again I was known for two things—being stubborn, and being short. “What?” I asked.
He motioned to my costume. He wore a very well-put-together General Sond costume, complete with beautiful long white-blond hair and a crooked smile, and a mask that covered just enough of his face to make him look alluring and absolutely unidentifiable. “Your cosplay,” he followed up. He had a strange accent. I couldn’t place it—but it sort of sounded like those fake American accents you sometimes hear on TV from actors who are very clearly not American. It was too hometown, too clean. “A shot in the dark?”
I glanced down at my costume. “Technically I’m cosplaying the title of the thirty-seventh book in the extended-universe saga of Starfield, A Shot in the Dark by Almira Ender.”
His eyebrows jerked up over his mask. “Oh, well, I stand corrected.”
“It’s a really deep cut, though,” I quickly added.
“Oh, I do see it,” he replied, cocking his head. He pointed down to the hem of my skirt. “The little Starfield logo trim at the bottom. That’s a very nice touch.”
“You think?”
“Of course. There’s thought to it.”
“I just didn’t have the money for a nice costume,” I replied, motioning to his very, very nice costume, and then realized my mistake. “Oh God, that sounded like an insult! I didn’t mean it that way, I promise. I’m just, you know, saving up for college and all, and—” I forced myself to stop talking, I babbled when I got nervous.
“No, no, I didn’t take it that way at all!” he said, though his voice was full of thinly disguised laughter. He leaned closer to me—just a little—enough to whisper, “You want to know a secret? This costume isn’t mine. It’s for my job, so they let me borrow it for the night.”
“Just tonight?”
“Well, this weekend.”
“That must be quite a cool job, then, if you have to dress as Sond for it.”
He smiled again. “Yeah. So, did you come out to escape the socializing, too?”
“I know I’m going to sound boring, but I’m not really big on parties,” I said.
“That does sound boring.”
“Hey!”
“I was agreeing with you!” He laughed. “I’ve never known anything else. Parties, socializing, loud music, and lots of people. It’s a place I can get lost in.”
“Yeah, I hate that feeling.”
“I love it,” he replied, closing his eyes. “It’s like being invisible.”
I didn’t know what to say, but I wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder. We barely knew each other, but it felt like he had just admitted something to me that he’d never told anyone else before. Maybe he realized that, too, because his shoulders went rigid. I stilled my hand to keep it by my side.
“What’s home for you?” he asked.
I gave a one-shouldered shrug. Home, to me? If I was going to scare him away, I might as well start with the most boring part of me. “A small town and a quiet library, where sunlight slants through the window just right, making everything golden and soft and…” I trailed off, because I hadn’t thought about that in a long time. Not since the funeral. “My mom used to call them golden afternoons.”
“That sounds magical.”
“It is. You should visit. Maybe I can tempt you to the dark side with hot chocolate and a good book.”
He smiled, and there was a delicious dare tucked into the edges. “That sounds like a challenge.”
“Oh no,” I replied, returning that devil-may-care smile, imagining what he would look like in a certain slant of golden light, curled into a wingback chair with my favorite book. “It’s a promise.”
“I can’t wait, then,” he said earnestly. Then something caught his eyes behind me, and I began to look over my shoulder when he said, “This might sound a little forward, but would you want to go for a walk? With me?” He outstretched his hand.
I thought about Quinn and Annie dancing the night away, and about the book waiting for me back in my hotel room, and how improbable this was, and for the first time in my life—
I pushed those thoughts aside.
I took his hand, because this moment felt like a dandelion fluff on the wind—there one moment, walking the streets of Atlanta and eating Waffle House, and talking on the rooftop of one of the hotels until the sun rose and all of the cosplayers down below were stumbling their way home, the memory so visceral I can still smell the strange scent of his cologne, lavender mixed with oak, and then, well—
Gone.
* * *
—
BUT EVEN THOUGH HE’S GONE, I can’t get him out of my head a month later when I should totally be over it by now, as I scan my math teacher’s box of jumbo condoms at the Food Lion where I work. I try not to make eye contact as I read off the total and he pays, also avoiding eye contact. He leaves the grocery store as quick as the clip of his shined loafers will let him.
I massage the bridge of my nose. Minimum wage will never pay for the years of therapy I’ll need after this.
Maybe I can put some of this—any of this—into the college essay I’ve been failing to write for the last week, but what college admissions officer would want to read about some lovesick fool ringing up condoms for her calculus teacher? Right, like that’ll win over admissions.
Suddenly, from the other side of the cashier kiosks, Annie cries, “It’s here! It’s here!” as she vaults over her checkout counter and comes sliding toward mine.
Already?
Every rumor on every message board said that it would drop at six—I check the time on my cashier screen. Oh, it is six. I quickly key out of my register so the manager won’t yell at me for goofing off on the job—technically I’m on break!—and turn off my cashier light even though there are two people in line.