“Jess?”
I look up and am assaulted by liquid brown eyes and amazingly long eyelashes. The human is tall and angular, like a lot of the J-Pop singers Bran likes, with thick dark hair and black-rimmed glasses and…oh.
Oh no.
He is very very hot. Hot like I-want-to-be-stuck-in-an-elevator-with-you hot, not we-are-now-mortal-enemies-because-I-just-spilled-my-coffee-on-you-while-not-paying-attention hot.
He’s holding a phone in one hand and a wallet in the other, and the front of his once-pristine tee and neat black pants is absolutely drenched.
Worse yet, I recognize him at the exact same moment that he recognizes me.
“Really?” is all I can say to Jessica Stone’s assistant.
A subtle, almost vulnerable look crosses his face before his expression closes like a vault slamming shut. He scowls. “Do you even look where you’re going?”
“You snuck up on me!”
“Snuck up? I was standing here the whole time!”
“Yeah, on your phone.”
“The fact that I can stand and text and you can’t see me isn’t quite my fault,” he snaps, picking his wet shirt off his stomach.
I grab a handful of napkins to mop up the floor. People are beginning to turn and stare. A barista armed with a mop and bucket is heading in our direction.
He crinkles his nose. “Ugh, hazelnut…”
I pause. “What’s wrong with hazelnut?”
“Besides that it’s all over me?”
“Trust me, it adds character.” I stand up, tossing the sopping napkins in the trash.
We glower at each other. What an infuriating—awful—irritating—ARGH! The fury coming off us both is as thick as the Georgia humidity. You could try to cut it with a knife but it’d only cobble itself back together, like some Scooby-Doo slime monster.
And here I thought he was hot?
He opens his mouth to say something but then his phone rings. It’s a generic tone—of course it is. White T-shirt, black glasses, skinny slacks, default ringtone.
Ugh, Muggles.
He’s probably just as horrible as his boss. Like goes with like, as they say.
The barista pulls out the mop, which I take as my cue to escape. I grab my half-intact tray from the counter and beat a hasty retreat.
I don’t stop until I’m back at my hotel, where I discover that, as fate would have it, I’ve lost my keycard.
* * *
MILO OPENS THE DOOR TO OUR room and leans against the doorframe. “Lost your key, eh, sister dearest?”
I scowl and push inside and he closes the door behind me. I dump the vegan tacos on the desk, put the remaining coffees beside it, and sink down onto one of the queen beds. Bran and Milo have the other one, but I doubt they’ll be sleeping here. They’re already packing for a night out watching Demolition Man. There are entire convention rooms where they play sci-fi and fantasy movies all night long.
Bran, sitting on the edge of the other bed as he scrolls through Twitter, looks up. And blinks. “Mo, what the hell happened to your shirt?”
It’s only then that I realize I’ve got hazelnut latte trailing down my favorite hoodie. My scowl deepens into the bowels of hell. “I ran into this good-looking guy who turned out to be the spawn of Satan.”
“The Hellmouth has opened.” Milo nods solemnly and shoves a taco into his face. It’s there one minute and then gone the next. Like Pac-Man chomping up those little white dots. I don’t even think he tasted it.
“So,” I go on, tearing my eyes away from Milo as he rips into yet another taco, “I accidentally spilled our drinks all over him, and the dude just went off on me. He was so nasty. I honestly felt like, if the last few years hadn’t made me It’s Fine fireproof, then I’d be a roasted main course of Imogen Lovelace.”
Bran sighs and lounges back on the bed. “That’s a pity. Sounds like it would’ve been a pretty memorable meet-cute. I’ve read it on AO3 at least a dozen times.”
“Right?” I echo his wistful sigh. “But alas, true love has eluded me yet again.”
“Oh merciful heavens,” Milo moans from the chair, the wrapper carcasses of five tofu tacos littering the floor around him like tombstones in a graveyard. He leans back, one hand on his stomach. “I have been revived by tofu and fake cheese.”
“I didn’t take that long,” I say, folding my arms over my chest, and my coffee stain, crossly. “Although I don’t know why you wanted vegan tacos.”
Bran rolls his eyes. “Because it’s from the Pumpkin and your brother is extra.”
“Hey, you’re dating him. What’s the Pumpkin?” I ask, handing him a coffee that he didn’t order but I know he wanted. Americano with extra water.
“You are a goddess,” Bran replies. “You know, the Magic Pumpkin?”
My stare must be brilliantly blank because my brother adds, “The food truck Geekerella worked at?”
I give him a surprised look. “That was that food truck?”
They nod in unison.
I remember a young woman with blond hair and purple glasses working the register while a green-haired woman prepped tacos in the truck’s tight kitchen. No Geekerella in sight. “Huh.”
Milo takes out two tacos for me and shoves the rest into his Spider-Man backpack. “All right. We got blankets. We got water. We got food. Got my eye mask,” he adds, pulling a Carmindor-themed eye mask out of his back pocket and putting it on. The eye pads sit on his forehead, making him look as though he has a pair of Darien’s dreamy peepers above his real ones. “Anything else we need?”
“What was the news you guys were talking about?” I ask.
Milo and Bran shoot each other the same unreadable look. “Didn’t you see Bran’s text?”
“No, I was carrying tacos and coffee, remember? What news?”
Quickly, Bran takes out his phone and shows me a tweet with a photo. A grin spreads across his lips and he says, “Monster, someone’s leaking the Starfield script—and rumor is, it’s real.”
WITH AN EXASPERATED SIGH, I FALL back onto the bed, holding my phone and scrolling through the @s and RTs. The script has to be fake, but the internet is going insane. Again. And with more comments come more trolls and more fanboys bemoaning my existence. The first time the sequel script “leaked,” earlier this year, it turned out to be a reject from the first movie. I got sent hateful comments for surviving at the end of the film. The three times after that they’ve just been fakes.
Honestly, though? I’d kill for one of them to be real just so Diana can finally confirm whether or not I’m in the damn thing.
@Fantasticwho
SOMEONE IS LEAKING THE SECOND STARFIELD SCRIPT
@sayjess @notthatdarien @calvinrolfe4real @dudebroamon
@Scifibytespodcast
A scene of the sequel script leaked!!! I AM SHOOK.
@starfieldscript337
EXCLUSIVE: photo of a page from the long-awaited sequel!
CARMINDOR fills the doorway, refusing to let the NOXIAN GENERAL pass in the hallway. The tired GENERAL gives him a dangerous look.
NOXIAN GENERAL
Your Highness, your treaty with us is already thin.