Heroine Worship

by Sarah Kuhn

  Annoyance melted into something else entirely as Evie led my mom out of the kitchen, arms linked, heads bent together. They looked so close. Like a perfect mother-daughter duo. If I’d snapped a photo, it would have been worthy of a greeting card.

  I’d been cropped out again, and the photo was better for it.

  I suppose it was no surprise that my mom might prefer a daughter like Evie, someone who was kind and thoughtful instead of loud and hurricane-like. I shook off my sudden stew of feelings and turned to Bea. I couldn’t get distracted. It was time to put my latest idea/mission in motion.

  “So. Bea,” I said. “Now that you know about your reverse empathy, I think you should get some practice actually using it.”

  Her brow crinkled. “Practice? I mean, I’m not even one hundred percent sure how it works.”

  “This is the perfect way of figuring that out,” I barreled on. “It’s just a little thing, a way of getting your feet wet. When Evie’s in the room, see if you can project a general feeling of calm. See if you can project it out enough to soothe her.”

  Bea’s brow crinkled further. “Without telling her? ’Cause that has definite sisterly piss-off potential.”

  “That’s why you keep it subtle,” I said. “So she won’t even be able to tell you’re doing it. She’s about to be a bride and we have to work as a team to make sure she maintains emotional balance. Especially in the face of an invisible puppy demon. It’s for her own good.”

  “Well . . .” Bea hesitated, her eyes conflicted as her desire to maintain honest sisterly relations warred with her scientist’s desire to experiment with her new talent. “I guess I can do that. Like you said, I’ll keep it subtle.”

  “Perfect.” I nodded, triumphant. Once again, I had managed to accomplish a lot in a fairly short timespan.

  Line up more personal appearances to ensure continued validity as a superheroine—check!

  Figure out a way to keep best friend calm and bridal ready—check!

  Maintain emotional equilibrium in the face of an unexpected and extremely aggravating visit from my mother—

  Hmm. That one was still check pending. Maybe it always would be.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FOR THE NEXT few days, I kept myself on high alert, just in case the unseen puppy demon decided to rear its incorporeal head. The rest of the team, meanwhile, threw themselves into heavy info-gathering mode. But nothing showed up on the scans from Rose’s team, and our inbox stayed empty. We talked to the redhead bride again, but she had no new feelings of unbridled rage to report. Meanwhile, Bea took it upon herself to track down and interview the various citizens who’d reported their own feelings of rage during demon attacks in the past. But they, too, had nothing new to offer.

  The threat hung in the air, persistent, menacing, uncertain. I kept steady watch for it, but I was also determined to stay on task with my maid-of-honor duties. I made feverish lists, appointments, and spreadsheets of things that needed to be done. Or, more accurately, I enlisted Bea’s help in making said lists, since I was unaccustomed to performing such assistant-like tasks. That had been Evie’s job.

  Still, I was confident in my ability to make the most fabulous choices in all facets of wedding planning. In addition to telekinesis, I prided myself on possessing the superpower of impeccable taste.

  I hadn’t been able to talk much to Evie herself, though. Every time I tried to approach her about the wedding, her bedroom door was shut or she slipped away before I could show her one of my many spreadsheets or she just straight up didn’t answer my texts. I assumed she was processing everything: being engaged, the bridal tent incident, finally telling Bea about her superpower. It was a lot, and the good friend I was set on becoming knew it was probably best to give her space.

  Three days after our apparent truce, Scott and I were about to go through our first major test as co-engagement party planners: cake tasting. We were crowded around one of the white marble tables at Cake My Day with a bounty of sugary treats spread out in front of us.

  After Bea forwarded me the details of the personal appearance request at Cake My Day (which were quite scant—just the time of the event and the suggestion for Evie’s flambé demonstration), I’d had a brainstorm. According to Evie, we were still set for money for a while. So instead of having Bea bill for my usual appearance fee, I’d requested the bakery provide desserts for the engagement party and wedding. They’d get excellent product placement at the parties of the year, and we’d get the city’s most elegant desserts for these sure-to-be-epic events. Win-win.

  Letta Wilcox, the bakery’s ever-mopey owner, agreed to the idea immediately and even conveniently scheduled things so we could come by for the tasting right before my fabulous appearance.

  “So you’ve got red velvet with cream cheese frosting, vanilla with buttercream, and my personal favorite, double dark chocolate with mascarpone whipped cream,” Letta was saying. She pointed to each cake sample in turn, her monotone delivery at odds with the sweet swirls of pastry in front of us. I tried not to stare too longingly at the pillowy cakes topped off with the bakery’s signature sparkle-infused frosting. I’d fallen off my usual superheroine diet plan while I’d been injured, but I’d managed to get back on the mostly carb-less horse recently, even with all the multi-course breakfasts. Much as the public adored me, they also had a tendency to take notice whenever one of my costumes started looking even a tiny bit snug. Although maybe they wouldn’t notice as much these days since they were so captivated by Evie’s impending nuptials and badass fire power.

  Still. It would do me no good to slack. Excellent discipline was a hallmark of my superheroine success, and I would do well to remember that. Even if I did have the occasional craving for sugar and starch, for chocolate and French fries, for my mom’s fried rice and xiaolongbao.

  “Thank you, Letta,” I said. “And really, excellent job with the remodel.”

  Cake My Day had been home to a vicious demonic cupcake attack right before I’d hurt my ankle. The cupcakes had trashed the place, but now it seemed restored to its former glory, gleaming white surfaces with gold accents and sparkly pastries everywhere. Even a few of Letta’s beloved porcelain unicorns had made a triumphant return. Not all the clientele was back, however—other than me and Scott, the only two people in the place were a pair of ladies huddled around a table near the back. Like us, they were sampling a variety of cakes. I took note of their stylish dresses, red and white numbers that appeared to be from the fifties, the skirts poufed out thanks to liberal use of petticoats. I admired people getting dressed up for seemingly mundane outings. Perhaps they would stick around for my appearance.

  Letta responded to my compliment with one of her non-committal shrugs. “It was all the construction guys. I didn’t really do anything.”

  “Always a big bundle of joy, that one,” I muttered as she shuffled off.

  Scott chuckled and I tried not to let my surprise show. Even though I’d basically forced him out of his detached demeanor, I still wasn’t used to getting more than a blank look.

  He offered me a fork. “Ladies first?”

  “No, you go.” I waved a hand and picked up one of the spreadsheets Bea had made for me. “Let’s see. For the engagement party, we still need to finalize flower arrangements, decorations, and make sure the invitations get sent out on time.”

  “So we need to do all the same stuff for the engagement party as we do for the actual wedding?” Scott forked up a huge bite of red velvet and cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “The engagement party should be like a preview of the wedding, so yes,” I said. “Maisy will surely write it up, as will other outlets. It must be perfectly executed.”

  “Hmm.” Scott licked frosting off his fork, then pointed it at me. “And when you say invite list—I mean, we’re really just inviting the people who live with us, right? Evie, Nate, Bea, Lucy? Can’t we just tell them w
here to show up?”

  “I thought I would include Rose as well. She and Lucy have a mutual attraction.” I shrugged. “I think they could be a good match. They complement each other—that whole opposites attract thing.”

  Scott laughed, his eyes widening in disbelief. “Wait. You, Annie Chang, are playing cupid?”

  My spine stiffened, and I gave him a cool look. “Why is that funny?”

  He grinned at me, shook his head, and shoveled more cake into his mouth. “Because you’ve always been firmly anti-romance.”

  “I have not!”

  “You were the only eighth grader in history who tried to stage a protest against ‘any and all Valentine’s celebrations’ at our junior high.”

  “That’s because those ‘celebrations’ were unfair,” I sputtered. “The administration did away with the perfectly good rule they had going in elementary school, where if you were handing out Valentines, you had to give them to everybody.”

  “And what?” he snorted. “Nobody gave you any?”

  “No,” I shot back, my face getting hot. “Nobody gave Evie any.”

  His grin faltered.

  “I mean, not nobody,” I corrected. “We both got a few. But she didn’t get one from that idiot Jay Tran—you remember, she was desperately in love with him for years.”

  “I remember. I took her to prom when he somehow ‘forgot’ to ask her.”

  “Right.” I felt my flush intensify, my cheeks burning up. I remembered because that prom date—and the fact that they’d ended it by losing their virginity to each other—had triggered years of jealousy in me. Even though Evie had told me over and over again that the sex between them had been dreadful, I couldn’t quite shake the idea that she’d always been his first choice, and when he’d kissed me, it had been because she wasn’t there.

  “She was devastated,” I said. “I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing.”

  “I stand corrected. Your protest was actually very . . . nice.”

  “I am capable of being nice,” I said, going back to my spreadsheet. “No need to sound so surprised. And don’t talk with your mouth full—it’s disgusting.”

  He gave me a big, cakey grin, teeth ringed with crumbs and frosting. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. With his mouth full.

  “You are a child,” I said, suppressing my own smile. I paused and studied the grid Bea had made for me. “I was also thinking,” I said hesitantly, “that I could invite my parents.”

  Scott nearly choked on his mouthful of cake.

  “Your parents,” he said, sounding out each syllable. “Don’t they always make you feel bad about yourself?”

  “Why are you complaining?” I said, keeping my tone light and shoving aside the memory of my mother getting under my skin just three days ago. “They love you.”

  It was true. I may have always disappointed them, but my parents had taken an instant liking to the scrawny little white boy Evie and I started bringing home with us in sixth grade. He charmed them like he did everyone, with an easy grin and those eyes that never stopped teasing. He was the only person in history who could get away with calling my mom “Mrs. C,” like some kind of old-school sitcom reject.

  “I can’t fault them for their excellent taste in their daughter’s white dude sidekicks,” Scott said, flashing me that easy grin. “But you’ll be stressed out from planning this whole event, and we still have that puppy demon floating around. I don’t know if it’s the best thing for you—”

  “I know what’s best for me,” I said, in a tone that indicated the subject was closed. “Anyway. They care about Evie. She’s the closest thing I have to a sister. And it might be nice for her to have some parental type figures around since hers . . . aren’t.”

  I made a check mark next to my parents’ names. It was what was best for Evie. For the event. And that’s what was important. I felt Scott’s eyes boring into my skull, so I made some other random marks on the spreadsheet, pretending to study it further.

  “Annie—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it!” I snapped. “It will be fine.”

  “No, I just meant—will you put that thing down and look at me, please?”

  I lowered my spreadsheet and looked at him warily. He held up a forkful of dark chocolate cake and smiled again, but his eyes were softer, less teasing.

  “I was going to ask if you want to try some of this? You haven’t had any.” He waved the fork under my nose. “It’s really good.”

  “I trust your judgment.” I batted the fork away. “I don’t need to taste it.”

  Undeterred, he offered the fork to me again. My eyes couldn’t help but lock on the cake. It looked all moist and melty, with blobs of frosting oozing around it. The scent of chocolate wafted up, sweet and decadent. Dammit. Dark chocolate was my favorite: that undertone of bitterness, that hidden depth of rich flavor.

  “Come on.” He waved it closer to my face. “Just one bite.”

  “I have to fit into my bridesmaid dress,” I protested.

  He brought the fork closer. Now the scent of chocolate felt like it was shooting straight to my taste buds. I could practically feel the gooey cake/frosting combo on my tongue. My mouth watered.

  “You work out like ninety hours a day,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

  “There aren’t ninety hours in a day, genius.” I’d meant for that to sound cutting, but it came out breathy and hushed, almost like I was . . . turned on.

  Which I most certainly wasn’t. Not even a little bit.

  He leaned in, and I was suddenly very aware of the fact that his chair had scootched up next to mine. How had that happened? I was sure we’d started off sitting on opposite sides of the table. Why was he so close? The scent of the cake mingled with what I knew was the scent of his skin. Chocolate, ocean, sunscreen, frosting. It was like summer and dessert and everything good, and I couldn’t help it. I licked my lips.

  “It’s so good,” he said. “It melts in your mouth.”

  He leaned in closer and I got that heady, drugged feeling, that same feeling I’d had in the closet. Like I was all nerve endings, incapable of processing logical thought. Why did I let myself get this way around him? Why did I let him get close to me at all?

  “Just one bite,” he repeated. His voice had gotten a little rough, a little husky. Or maybe that was my wild, fevered, all-nerve-endings imagination taking over.

  I gave in. I parted my lips and let him slide the fork in my mouth and . . . god. Okay, yes. It was that good. It absolutely melted in my mouth. I savored the taste—every crumb, every bit of frosting, every note of dark sweetness. A tiny moan escaped my throat.

  Scott slid the fork out and gave me a satisfied smile, but there wasn’t a trace of smugness. No, it was earnest and open. The kind of smile I hadn’t seen from him in a good, long while.

  “Oh,” he said. “You’ve got a little bit of frosting—here, I’ll get it.” He reached over and swiped his thumb over my lower lip. The warmth of his touch, the fact that he was touching me at all, the fact that I could still taste chocolate . . . everything intensified the sensations overwhelming me and I did the only thing that felt right in the moment.

  I flicked my tongue over his thumb.

  We both froze. I heard his breath catch a little.

  “I was trying to get the frosting,” I said.

  My god. Was that the dumbest thing I could have said or what?

  But I couldn’t help it. He always made me feel like my brain was leaking out of my ears, like I didn’t possess any superpowers at all. Like I was most definitely back in the Annie Chang place.

  He ignored my dumb reply and locked his gaze with mine, his breathing going a little uneven. His eyes were suddenly very serious, at complete odds with how they usually looked—playful, teasing. Or how they had looked recently, when he’d given me the cold
shoulder. No, I’d only seen him look this particular brand of serious one other time: the moment before he kissed me all those years ago. It was an irresistible flicker of intensity, a hint that underneath his easygoing exterior, he felt so much more.

  I stared back at him. His thumb was still brushing against my lower lip, a touch that was feather light, but felt like the hottest brand ever.

  Was he going to kiss me now?

  Would he taste like chocolate?

  Would I—

  “Aveda?”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. Letta was standing over me, mopey stare in place. How long had she been there? How had she moved so soundlessly? Or had I tuned everything out while I was . . . what was I doing?

  I blinked wordlessly at Letta, trying to gather my thoughts. Scott had removed his hand from my lips, so that helped.

  “You asked me to tell you when we were fifteen minutes out from your appearance,” Letta droned on. “And, well. We are.”

  “Of course!” I exclaimed, way too loudly. “I’m ready. Or I will be ready. In fifteen minutes.”

  I sat up straighter and smoothed my hair into its power ponytail. Shaking off those last remnants of unsure, unsuperpowered Annie Chang so I could give my adoring public what they wanted: Aveda Jupiter in all of her fabulousness.

  My public was not as adoring as I’d expected.

  They were also much louder, stickier, and a good two decades younger than I’d expected.

  “THIS IS BORING!” one of them shrieked, smearing sparkly frosting all over her ruffly pink dress. “SUPERHERO LADY IS BOOOOOOORIIIIING!”

  That started up a chant of “BO-RING! BO-RING!” amongst the partygoers. Because, of course.

  “Letta,” I hissed, as I surveyed the unruly mob in front of me. “You didn’t tell me this was a children’s birthday party.”