by Damian Bloom
I flip to the last page. But there was one thing Jane knew for sure. For as long as she lived, she would not cease to love Harold, wherever he was.
Goddamit!
My teeth grind hard enough to hurt. What kind of maniac ends a love story in a tragedy? I thought Grandma weeded out all these books from her collection before gifting it to me.
I barely resist the urge to hurl the hardcover across the room. When Peter walks in, he finds my face puckered and my hands curled into frustrated fists. “Happy…birthday?” He stops in the doorway. “Why do you look so constipated?”
My fingers dig deeper into the heels of my palms. “Sad ending.”
Eyebrows rising, Peter points to the Notebook poster I’ve framed and hung up on my wall. “Your favorite movie makes you bawl every time.”
“That’s an exception! It’s not sad. It’s touching.” I slap the book down on my nightstand, then push it away as far as I can reach. “There’s a difference. They still end up together.”
Peter shrugs, not invested enough in the conversation to pursue it any further. “Whatever you say.”
Still clad in his checkered pajama pants and a NASA T-shirt, golden brown wavy hair tousled by sleep, Peter sleepily waddles to the bed and hands me a messily wrapped present. At one corner, the crinkled wrapping paper is already coming undone. “I tried my best.”
His spiky stubble pinches my face when I give him a tight hug. My brother isn’t the best at making things pretty, and I do believe this must be his best work.
I tear the wrapping paper off in two smooth motions. “A new Kindle!”
“It’s just like the old one,” he says, meaning the one he borrowed and accidentally dropped off his balcony.
“Thank you, Peter,” I say, pulling the gadget out of its box. Damn, I missed having one of these. “I love it. And I bet my eyes will be happy to take a break from reading on my phone.” I give him another hug that he’s earned with his thoughtful gift.
Pleased with himself, Peter lies down next to me and crosses his hands under his head. “So, what’s the plan for today? How are we celebrating your birthday?”
“Uhm, what time is it?”
“Nine-ish.”
“Well, I’m visiting Grandma Hattie. You should come, too. She’d be happy to see you.”
He picks up the cursed hardcover I wanted to burn only ten minutes ago and turns it over in his hands. It’s too old to have a blurb on the back. “Yeah, okay.”
“Then I’m going to work,” I continue, powering the Kindle and connecting it to my Amazon account. “And that’s about it.”
Peter rolls his eyes at my answer, then opens the book and takes a whiff of the antique paper smell. “Wow, Luis, don’t get too crazy.”
“Don’t you start…” Baring my teeth, I hold a pillow up to his face, threatening to smother him. This steals a few chuckles out of him.
“But before anything else,” I say, “let’s have breakfast.”
I take a quick shower, then meet Peter again in the kitchen, where he’s scrolling through his phone and popping cashew nuts into his mouth. After I crack three eggs into a pan, I pour myself a glass of orange juice.
“Why don’t we go out drinking tonight?” Peter offers. “My treat.”
I go through the effort of tilting my head to the side like I’m considering the option, even though I’m not. Not really. “I don’t know…I was thinking I’d break your present in tonight.”
He sighs, shoulders already rising to flank his ears. “I know I should give you a break today, but ugh…you piss me off sometimes.” Trying to sweeten his words just a little, Peter drops a kiss on my forehead. “It’s your birthday today, and all you plan to do is hole up inside your room with a dozen novels. Why don’t we do something fun for a change?”
“But I am doing something fun. I’m doing a special birthday readathon.” The excitement in my voice doesn’t manage to warm up Peter’s expression.
“Didn’t you just do one, like, last week?” Peter snatches my glass and gulps down the rest of the juice. “What’s so special about this one?”
“It’s special ‘cause it’s my birthday, duh.”
He presses a hand to his forehead like the conversation is giving him a headache. “You won’t be young forever, Luis. I don’t want you to look back on these years and feel you missed out on so much because you didn’t care to pull your nose out of your books.”
Rummaging through a cupboard for flour gives me a good excuse to turn my back to him. We’ve had this conversation so many times already.
“You keep waiting for your ‘one true love’,” he says, and even if I can’t see the air quotes, I can feel them. “Where is he supposed to find you? Hiding in your bedroom?”
Behind Peter, Keith tiptoes into the kitchen, soundless like a feline. He startles my brother when he wraps his arms around his shoulders, but he quickly makes up for it by giving Peter’s cheek one of his sweet good-morning pecks. “What’s this all about?” he asks, picking up on the tense atmosphere. “Did I walk in on a sibling fight?”
Peter rubs a hand over Keith’s forearm, pressing his back into his best friend’s chest. “Nah, I’m just begging this dork to live a little, but he won’t listen to me. Because he never does.”
Peeling off of Peter, Keith rolls his eyes just for me to see. “Happy birthday, dork,” he says, then hugs me tight and sniffs the breakfast over my shoulder. Bacon’s now frying in another pan. “You’re making breakfast for us?” He pinches me. To Keith, pinches are punctuation marks. “It’s us who should spoil you today.”
I shrug, redirecting my attention to mixing the pancake batter while keeping a watchful eye on the bacon and the eggs frying on the stove. “You know I enjoy it.” Maybe it’s another thing I picked up from Grandma, but there are few things sweeter than feeding the people you love.
Keith pokes his ever-paint-splattered fingers into my sides, tries to tickle me, but cuts it off when I begin to squirm. He and my brother then start setting the table.
Little by little, our other two housemates spill into the kitchen, most likely coaxed out by the delicious mix of scents. First, Tanner, who besides having to duck when he walks through the kitchen door, also has to slightly bend his knees to hug me. When Eric waltzes in a few minutes later, breakfast’s ready.
Eric wolfs down two pancakes before I can even blink. “You take such good care of us,” he mumbles, mouth full.
“I’m too scared you guys would starve if I didn’t,” I say, dipping a tortilla chip into the guacamole.
Peter grimaces, but then they almost all nod in agreement. If I didn’t cook from time to time, these big babies would probably live exclusively on pizza.
Tanner eyes me from under a few strands of glistening wet blond hair. “So, Luis, did you change your mind about the party? You can go as crazy as you want. I’ll deal with the neighbors if they decide to be a problem.”
Peter scoffs.
“Uhm, thanks,” I mutter, keeping my gaze down on my plate, “but the answer’s still no.”
“He’s busy with a readathon,” my brother says, doing a lousy job of hiding his annoyance.
“What’s that?” Eric asks.
“A fancy word for being boring.”
I slap Peter’s arm. “Will you shut up? Why don’t you make yourself useful and bring the milk?”
Peter sticks his tongue out. “Why me?”
“You’re closest to the fridge. And because I say so, and I’m the birthday boy.”
The fridge door slides open with a squeak. “Oh, wow, there’s cake,” Peter says.
“Hands off, that’s for Grandma.”
Eric’s forehead creases in confusion. “You baked your grandmother a cake for your birthday?”
“Today’s her birthday, too.”
He wipes at a subtle sheen of orange juice that glistens on his upper lip. “Oh, right, I keep forgetting.”
Tanner lifts his orange juice as if proposing a
toast. “To Luis. May this year be the year he finally loses that pesky V card.”
I gasp, almost choking on a piece of pancake. With a level of dexterity I didn't think I was capable of, I then fling the rest of it at him, and it hits Tanner square in the face before slipping onto the vanilla-colored kitchen tiles. Tanner chuckles as he wipes at his face with the back of his hand. Retaliation comes in the form of a flying slice of white bread. I duck just in time, so it ends up slamming into Peter’s ear.
Thus, chaos ensues. As our breakfast flies in all directions, everyone’s yelling and laughing and cursing.
“Hey,” Eric shouts, egg yolk shining in his dark curls. “Luis made this food for us. Stop playing with-” Before he can finish his thought, I stick a rolled up pancake into his mouth.
“Oh, it’s on now,” he says, chewing it down, as he dips his fingers into some whipped cream he then proceeds to smear on my face.
Ten minutes later, our kitchen looks like a battleground. Food crumbs cover the dining table and the floor. The tiles shimmer with slippery danger.
“Now I’ll have to take another shower,” Peter whines.
Keith shoots him a teasing wink. “If you need help, my hands are free. I need to shower, too, anyway.”
My brother shakes his head and shoves him playfully. Keith’s smile wavers on his lips. Not for the first time, I think of how there supposedly is a grain of truth in any joke, and I wonder how big the grain in Keith’s jokes is.
I rub the sticky skin on my cheek. “Okay, guys. While you have fun cleaning up, I’ll take another shower and get going. Grandma’s waiting.”
I tread carefully on the tiles, not wanting to end up with a bruised ass on my birthday.
Tanner’s got his thinking face on—deep forehead creases, lower lip sticking out in a pout. “Wait,” he says when he finally reaches the end of his thought. “Is this the fortune-teller Grandma?”
I rest my hands onto my hips and frown. “She’s not a fortune-teller.”
Peter waves a dismissive hand while he licks some whipped cream off the other one. “Yeah, it’s just stories.”
“They’re not stories either,” I protest. If I were closer to him, this would earn him a slap on the back of the head. “She’s got a…gift.” Skeptical looks dart around the room. “Really. She just can’t control it. But everything she’s predicted so far has come true.”
Everyone’s eyebrows twitch with disbelief—even Peter’s, although he should know just as well as me that what I’m saying is true. It’s a well-known fact in our family that throughout her life, Grandma Hattie has, at times, warned those around her about things she couldn’t have possibly known—unfaithful partners, unfortunate business choices, disease. Things that hadn’t happened yet.
“I don’t understand it any better than you all do,” she always says. Her visions strike like lightning—quickly and without warning. She doesn’t even remember them afterward. But those who have witnessed Grandma’s visions know how valuable these rare peeks into the future are. Sometimes, I wonder how many of her visions might have struck while she was alone and have gone unreported.
For all the time I spend with her, I’ve only ever seen it happen twice. Once, when she told Aunt Penelope she’d have twins instead of the one boy that the doctor had announced, and another time, when she said cousin Bob who drank a lot would have a health scare. That time, it was only me and her, which meant I had to be the bearer of this worrying piece of news to the rest of the family. Luckily, after a trip to the hospital later that year, Bob changed his ways, and he’s still alive and kicking.
Peter has only been there for one vision, the one about the twins, and I guess enough time has passed since then for his logical mind to brush off the experience.
I’m on my way back to my room, leaving a trail of sticky footprints behind, when Eric shouts after me. “We didn’t give you our presents.”
I take another glance at the time on my phone and grimace. “Let’s leave it for tonight, okay? I don’t want to rush it. Besides, I’d rather not hug anyone like this. Especially you stinky lot.”
Eric sticks his tongue out, Tanner flips me off, and I snicker.
“Love you, guys.”
Overall, it’s been a fun start to my twenty-third birthday. As I rinse the crumbs out of my hair in the shower, Grandma’s voice rings in my ears. “You, my dear, believe in magic.”
Today, it feels like magic could wait right around the corner.
2
Adam
“And…we’re live.” I wave at the camera and watch the number of viewers increase on the screen. 800, 820, 840. Already much more than for any of my usual Write with Me live streams. “I see there’s already a small crowd, but we’ll wait a few more minutes so that everyone can make it.”
Comments chase each other off the screen as almost a thousand people type in their hello. Barely lit up by two unobtrusive floor lamps, the room is appropriately dark, but the darkness swallows too much of me, so I adjust the ring light until my viewers can see me properly.
It’s a rush, knowing all these hundreds of people have at least heard of me and my work. Some of them have bought and read my books repeatedly. They’re dedicated enough to my work to tune in for this live stream.
I read a few comments. “When’s the book coming out? Deadly Steps is coming out in three months, on the 6th of January.” I have plastered the information all over my social media, but it pays to remind people, anyway. “Make sure you guys check the book tour dates I posted on my website to see if I’m coming to a city near you if you want to meet up.”
I skim further through the hoard of messages. “Theya245 is asking if we’re doing any writing sprints today,” I tell my audience. “No, Theya, not today. Today, I’m reading the first chapter of Deadly Steps for you.”
Ooh, exciting, she writes, before the never-ending outpouring of comments swallows her words.
I smile into the camera. “Glad you’re excited about it.” The black button-down shirt I’m wearing threatens to tear over my arms and chest. I only bought it a couple of months ago, and it fit right at the time, but I suppose I’ve either grown since then, or my upper body is still swollen after this morning’s workout.
Do Emma and Stephan end up together?
I reach for the closest trinket I can get my hand on—the flea collar I haven’t yet managed to put on Hector—and begin fidgeting with it while I consider an answer. Ugh. I can’t say I didn’t see these questions coming. I expected them as soon as I hinted at the attraction between the two characters in the last book. At the time, it seemed like a good idea simply because my writing is usually so devoid of romance. I felt cool for trying something new. But now, I’m starting to regret it. I didn’t mean to continue exploring their relationship. My next release in the series—the one I’m reading to them from today and that will hit the bookstores in just a few months—only worsens my situation by teasing the readers with more subtext-laden comments between the heroes. I have no clue what I was thinking when I wrote myself into this corner.
“Just so you know, guys, I’m not allowed to tell you anything more about the story than what you’ll hear in the chapter I’ll be reading now.”
I hope Emma tells Stephan how she feels about him in this one, one viewer writes.
A string of comments agrees with the sentiment.
Leaning back in my leather desk chair, I repress an uncomfortable grimace. “Many of you seem to be very intrigued by a potential romance, huh? I didn’t take you guys for such avid romance readers.”
I don’t know if there’s more sarcasm in my tone than I planned, but some viewers pick up on my feelings.
You don’t like romance, Adam? someone asks.
Uh oh, someone sounds like a romance Grinch. There goes our hope for a Stephan and Emma romance in the series, I suppose.
The conversation goes by so fast that it’s hard to keep up. The readers express several guesses on my stance on love, both in fict
ion and my private life. I suppose the internet really is the land of suppositions.
Do you believe in love?
Are you single?
Maybe I should restrict the comments. Outside, the sky shifts into dark blue, enhancing the ripening shades of orange in the trees. I buy myself time and cover half my face with a mug of cinnamon-apple tea, which is still too hot to drink.
I wipe my mustache and clear my throat. “Hey, guys, the conversation is turning a little personal. For the record, I’m not against romance, and I don’t hate love.” The live chat beep-beep-beeps with messages. “However, I have to admit I’m not the biggest romantic.”
Massive understatement, but by now, I’ve learned how to speak to a crowd to turn as few people away as possible. I believe in love about as much as I believe in magic or the Tooth Fairy. But that’s the kind of polarizing opinion you keep to yourself if you’ve got a large online following.
“You guys will have to wait and see what’s in store for the characters in the rest of the series. I can’t give anything away.”
The chat continues to go crazy. Every second, it dings with a few dozen messages. People are debating love in the most unexpected place—the YouTube chat of a thriller writer. Can’t we talk murder or stalking or something, I wonder, rubbing the back of my head.
There is no such thing as love. That’s all fantasy for people who can’t deal with the meaninglessness of life, someone that goes under F4ITHLESS writes.
Completely agree, another comment says. People will use and abuse and control each other and then call that love.
I nod to myself, secretly agreeing.
You guys make me sad, another person comments. Real love exists, and people can be selfless. But you’ll only see it when you learn to be selfless yourselves.
That sounds like a load of bull, I think. Not in the mood for any more cheap philosophies on love in my comment section, I decide to put an end to the chitchat. I lift my hardcover copy of Dangerous Steps—number four in the series that has given me the career I’ve always wanted. A little over 1300 people are watching the live stream now. “Okay, guys, should we get started?”