“Actually, I’m here for the cosplay contest.”
She smiles, unwraps a butterscotch, and pops it in her mouth.
“Your father’s daughter, indeed.”
“YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN, DARE.”
Thanks for that, Gail. Understatement of the century.
We’re walking out of the giant auditorium, away from the panel that just let out. Spots blink across my vision from the flash of a zillion selfies that people who just love me in Seaside couldn’t wait to take (even though, if they really loved me, they would’ve not had the flash on). All the audience questions from the panel are swimming in my head like the insides of the Blob.
How do you feel being the new Carmindor?
What do you bring to Carmindor that Mr. Singh didn’t?
Since filming just wrapped, can you tell us a little about what to expect from your take on Carmindor?
Why did you think you could be the Federation Prince?
Jess didn’t get those questions. Calvin didn’t either. And every time Amon got asked why he cast me as the Federation Prince, he would simply say, “Did I cast the perfect person for the role? I think I did.”
Which is, of course, media interviews 101. When you’re asked a question you don’t want to answer, you redirect it by asking your own question and answering that one instead.
So between that blogger in the convention office and the panel, I’m in a pretty terrible mood. I can’t believe I ran into the Rebelgunner blogger. And it was a girl. Fate must be trolling me. Not even seeing Nathan Fillion will help this dark cloud over my head.
“That girl really got under your skin, didn’t she,” Gail says, shuffling behind me. Lonny follows behind us like a hulking shadow.
“She wasn’t a girl so much as the spawn of Satan,” I mutter, opening the GUESTS ONLY door to one of the private hallways.
“She had a point, you know,” Lonny rumbles.
Gail nods. “Darien, you’re usually so good with fans. Darien.” When I don’t stop, she grabs me by the arm to halt me in the middle of the hallway. The dude from that demon show passes, and I give him a bro nod. When he’s out of earshot, she whispers, “What’s really wrong?”
What’s really wrong?
A muscle in my jaw feathers. “Gail, my phone is still missing and I haven’t gone this long without talking to Elle since we disagreed about the solar flux capacitor, Rebelgunner is a girl, and I have a signing in less than”—I check my invisible watch—“ten minutes where a guy who’s left threatening messages at my hotel might or might not show up.”
Plus—and I know it’s crazy—I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched. I mean I know I’m being watched but…this feels different. The same way I felt all throughout filming. Like when the guy locked me up on the roof and then those clips and photos got leaked.
“But I’ll be there,” Lonny rumbles, cracking his knuckles. “I’ll turn them into sailor knots.”
“Thanks, bro.” I exhale a long, stressful breath. “It’ll be fine. Absolutely copacetic. As long as I don’t sign anything that could be described as a mound.”
I MEET UP WITH SAGE IN the lobby and crown her with the extra-VIP badge—the same kind of badge I show to the ticket booth guy as we walk through the security line. His mouth falls open at the yellow band across the top of mine.
“Eat it,” I mouth, and do the one-finger-at-a-time wave as the security guard checks my duffel—and the costume—and lets me inside.
“Okay, so we need to finish up your costume and get you ready for this contest,” Sage says, patting the strap of the bag. “Still gotta make sure the stitching’s right on your shoulder and glitter up your coat and—”
“Sage.” I pull her to a stop.
She hasn’t even looked up at it all. “Yeah?…Oh.” She stares out at the expanse of showroom floor. Her mouth goes slack jawed. “Ohhh.”
Floor to ceiling, spanning the entire convention center. TV network and studio and game booths line the walls, lifesize replicas of World of Warcraft characters and Funko figures. People with pleasant smiles staff the tables that stretch from one side to the other, banners for Star Trek and Star Wars displayed overhead, waving gently in the air-conditioning. The crowd shuffles around photo ops mid-aisle, snapping selfies with cosplayers wielding cardboard swords and scythes, light sabers and phasers and starguns. A Deadpool bumps into me as he dodges out of the way of four Ewoks scuttling behind a mammoth Hulkbuster, their cellphones recording the event. And still no sign of the twins. Which is a good sign.
Sage and I slowly turn our eyes to each other. “Holy shit,” she says. “I’m in nerd heaven.”
“Oh, young Padawan,” I tell her, waving my hand toward the room, “everything the light touches is our kingdom. Let’s go explore it.” I pull her into the din of fantasy and sci-fi denizens and we get lost in the shuffle.
“God, look at all these people—so many Carmindors! Do you think yours is here?”
“Maybe,” I reply as we pass a booth selling Assassin’s Creed robes.
“Seriously? Are you going to meet up?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t answered.”
“Mm.” She nods toward a group of cosplayers gathered at the far corner of the showroom. One is holding a sign that reads TEAM FOUR STAR. “Do a lot of internet groups meet up at conventions?”
“Sure.”
“How about your Starfield peeps? The online ones you talk to?”
“Oh—well, yeah. A few of them are here.” We break apart for a moment as an elf with a scythe squeezes between us. “Anyway, we should get to the costume contest area and sign in, what do you say? And try not to run into the twins.”
“If we do I’ll shove them in a closet,” Sage mutters.
I laugh. “Ready to kick some Nox butt?”
She scoffs. “Elle, I’m ready to tell them to get down on both knees and call you Queen.”
“I thought you were going somewhere completely different with that.”
“Eh, this is a PG sort of moment.”
“Fair enough.”
She consults a convention map that she found on the showroom floor, but I take it from her with a scoff. “Oh please, I know this place like the back of my hand.”
“Yeah, how do you know this place so well?”
“Because my dad started this con,” I reply, grab her hand again, and follow my feet into the crowd, the map of the convention floor burned into my memory like the glow-in-the-dark stars on my bedroom ceiling.
SCRAWLING MY NAME OVER ANOTHER HEADSHOT of my character on Seaside Cove, I thank the pretty brunette for standing in line and hand the photo back to her. She hugs it to her chest like it’s made of gold, tells me she loves me in Seaside, and hurries off with her friends. It’s pretty amazing. I thought I’d be tired of fans gushing up to me, but there’s just something earnest in fandom that’s never boring. Sure, having fans inflates my ego, but I like to think that I’m not that shallow. I appreciate this job because I’m making things that people—all kinds of people, from the looks of my line—enjoy.
“So the blogger was right,” I mutter to myself, tapping the end of the permanent marker on the table. It’s annoying just how right she was. My time is way less important than making these people happy.
Gail hovers just out of earshot, talking animatedly on the phone, setting up meetings and photo ops and all the things I’m too busy to handle. After all this, she deserves a break. Or a promotion.
At the front of the line is Lonny, looking as stoic and badass as ever—even in a Powerpuff Girls cap he swiped from a nearby booth to make him look less suspicious. He keeps getting strange looks.
A fan slides a book toward me and I begin to say that I don’t sign other people’s work when I recognize the graphic novel.
Batman: Year One.
I grip the marker, slowly turning up my eyes to a redhead in a Kilgrave T-shirt. He’s taller than I remember—and older, obviously; his hair close-cropped, e
yes dark.
My heart sinks. I sit back, capping the marker. “Brian?”
“Hey, Darien. Long time, yeah?”
I glance behind him. There are at least twenty people still waiting to get something signed. I can’t just walk out now and Gail has her back turned, so she can’t see the trouble even if I Hulked out and waved Brian over my head by his foot. I have to keep my cool. Which is hard, considering I want to punch him in the face.
Instead I nod and reply. “Long time. Do you have something for me to sign? You know I don’t sign other peoples’ work.”
He licks his lips. The start of the Empire’s insignia from Star Wars peeks up from the collar of his shirt. Of course he’d get the Empire’s. He wasn’t ever good enough for the Rebel Alliance. “I just want to talk to you—just for a minute. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. I left voicemails at your hotel—”
“That was you? I thought—” I don’t finish my sentence. Because what I thought was ridiculous. Of course it would have to be Brian.
He smiles. “Did you listen to them?”
“Can’t say I had the time,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
He makes an aggravated noise and squats so we’re eye level. If that’s not condescending, I don’t know what is. “Look, I didn’t know they’d try to take you down like that. I thought it’d just be a quick piece in some small tabloid. I didn’t think, like, People magazine would get a hold of it. He said I’d get to keep the money, and…I don’t know, dude, I thought you were in on it!”
“In on it?” I can’t believe this. “In on what—you selling me out?”
“It was a lot of money. You understand, right? You have to understand.”
I want to tell him off, but the frakking truth is that I do understand. I understand why he’d sell me out for paparazzi money. When someone gives you enough cash to cover a good chunk of your college tuition, you take it. And then there was me, the geeky son of self-crowned Hollywood royalty. We were outliers. So we became friends.
So yeah, of course I understand him. I understand him better than I understand myself. That’s what pisses me off the most. That he couldn’t understand me the same way. Wasn’t that what best friends were? He was like my brother. Brothers don’t rat each other out, and yet here we were.
I look down at my marker, twirling it in my fingers. “Yeah, Brian, I understand.”
His face breaks open with relief. “Oh, good! So, listen, if we’re cool and, like, friends again, I think—”
“No.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “But you just said—”
“I’m not trying to be a dick. You were my best friend. I trusted you.” The people behind him are getting restless. Gail is still yacking on the phone with whomever. It better be Mark or I’m throwing all of her underwear in my mini-freezer tonight when we get back to the hotel.
But Lonny—he’s zeroed in on us, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for me to give him a signal. He arches a strong black eyebrow. Do I want him to show Brian the door? Yes, yes I do.
But that’s not going to end things. I need to do that.
I push his copy of Batman: Year One back across the table. “I forgive you, Brian, but I don’t think we can be friends again.”
We both got our copies the first year we went to a con, before I ever became famous. We cosplayed as Carmindor and Euci and stood in line for two hours just to get David Singh’s autograph on our old Starfield DVDs. It was the first time we really hung out outside of school, the weekend we became friends. The kind of friends that would become shoot-the-shit, drinking beer in the back of pickups on the beach friends. The kind of friend that recorded my first audition tape that Dad—Mark—used to get me the role of Sebastian on Seaside Cove. That first con was the start of it.
Then…then my life happened. Seaside Cove. Then Starfield. Then suddenly what I thought was true wasn’t anymore, who I thought I was I wasn’t anymore. And who I was to everyone else shifted. Changed.
“Enjoy the rest of the con,” I tell Brian, motioning for the next person to step up in line.
“Are you kidding me?” Brian scoffs. “You’re going to give me that don’t have time bullshit when you’ve been texting some random girl for the last month?”
I look at him sharply, and his eyebrows jerk up. He’s surprised, caught off guard, and suddenly it clicks—all those moments during filming, all my suspicions of being watched. I wasn’t crazy.
“You,” I say quietly. “You were there. You locked me on the rooftop. You leaked those shots.” My head spins. “How did you even get on set?”
“You haven’t figured it out?” His teeth gleam. “All I had to do was drop Mark’s name and no one would mess with me. Your costume director seems terrified of him. Oh and by the way.” He holds up something—my phone. “Your handler left this behind.”
I lunge for it, but Brian yanks it away.
“Nah, not so fast. Because until like ten minutes ago, I was gonna bring it to you as a peace offering, even though you never answered my messages at the hotel.”
“Look, I was busy shooting and—” I reach for it again. “Just give it back.”
But he doesn’t. He’s looking at the screen. Reading.
“Elle’s here, you know,” he says.
My stomach plummets. It must show on my face because Brian grins.
“Don’t worry. I’ll let her know you’re too busy to connect with friends.” Before I can stop him, he types something out and drops my phone right into my lap. “You’re welcome.”
Then he raps his knuckles against the table and leaves, pushing his way through the crowd as a big guy squeezes in beside him and slides a Starfield poster onto the table for me to sign.
I look at the phone. It’s open to a text message. One sent to Elle. But I didn’t send it. I swallow the rock in my throat.
“Big fan, so excited for the movie!” gushes the guy.
I slide my phone to the side, trying to be nonchalant so Brian can’t get the benefit of rattling me, and uncap my marker. “Yeah? What’re you excited about the most?” I swoop my signature across the bottom of the poster.
“The observation deck,” he says, grinning, “is nice this time of year.”
“Only on the south side of Metron,” I reply, sliding the poster back. “Thanks for coming,” I tell him and look to the next fan. Keep looking ahead, keep looking ahead, I repeat the mantra to myself.
Don’t ever look back.
Finally, Lonny lumbers over and hovers until Brian slinks away out of the line. He stays in my peripheral vision for a while until my bodyguard cracks his knuckles. Finally Brian disappears. I hope for the last time.
Maybe that’s what fame does. It corrupts everything around you until even your best friends see you more as a name than as a person, a commodity instead of an individual. Maybe that’s just my life now.
But then what about Elle? Will the same thing happen when she finds out who I am? She already hates Darien Freeman—but will she hate me too? As I look up at the guy who used to trade Pokémon cards with me behind the cafeteria Dumpsters, I begin to wonder if I really want to take that chance again.
It’ll only end up the same way. Maybe worse now. Maybe worse because I actually have feelings for Elle—deep feelings—and I realize that’s what Gail was trying to warn me about. Not because Elle is a stranger, or because she might be a bad person, but because she’s normal. She’s like everyone else.
And like everyone else, she couldn’t possibly understand.
Gail finally gets off the phone and wanders back to me. “How’re we doing?” she asks happily.
I strain a smile. “We’re doing great.” I show her my phone. “Found it.”
The last message I sent—that Brian sent—is harsh, a hard farewell. But the thing is—and this is what kills me—it’s right. I can’t see her anymore. What did Elle say—that this was the impossible universe? I had scoffed at that, but now I’m not so sure it’s silly.
My life is impossible. My luck is impossible.
And me and Elle? Together? That’s probably the most impossible thing of all.
Gail gasps. “No way! Where was it?”
“Pocket,” I lie. Gail wilts with relief.
“Thank god.” She straightens. “Well, you ready?”
“Ready for…?” I try to keep my vision straight as I welcome another fan, toting what looks like an action figure of me. Good god, I’m an action figure now.
“The whole point of this con?” Gail shakes her head and takes me by the elbow. “Come on, Carmindor. You’ve got a contest to judge.”
I SMOOTH THE YARDS AND YARDS of night-sky fabric to disguise my trembling hands. Through the smudges in the mirror, Sage frets with my hair. It never does what anyone wants it to do, and today is no exception—it’s not staying in its braid at all. When a lock falls out again, she throws up her hands.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I should’ve warned you my hair sucks.” I try to thread my fingers through the strands to remove the rest of the braid, but they wrap around my fingers and the more I tug, the knottier the knots get.
“Ten minutes!” yells a stagehand. “All contestants to the wings—in order!”
Sage curses.
The other Amaras and Eucis and Carmindors—some genderbent, some AU, some strictly canon—shuffle around us and out of the bathroom until only one other Amara cosplay remains. I wonder if my Carmindor is in the lot. He has to be, right? He has to be in a contest or on a panel here or something. Otherwise he never would’ve texted me about the con in the first place.
The other Amara fixes her black lipstick in the mirror and pauses. She glances over. “Oh my gosh. I’m sorry, this is probably super creepy but…are you the girl who writes Rebelgunner?”
“I—um—yeah?” I’m too shocked to be embarrassed.
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