by Eden Butler
I stopped moving, drawing back to smile at him, feeling a little punch drunk from the sensation those five words stirred in me. “I…I love you too, Callahan, more than anything at all. I have for a long, long time.” He returned the smile, brushing his mouth against mine before I teased him. “But I’m still mad that you didn’t let me handle the Dixon situation on my own.”
“Okay,” Will said, tugging my hair free from the tie that kept it off my neck. “Be mad. You can punish me…anyway you’d like.”
“I…I might. Oh…do that again.”
“This?” he asked, pulling against my skin with slight, small nips of his teeth. We became a flurry of movement then, desperate and greedy, aching and wild, even as the attendant returned to check on us, then fled from the cab with amazing speed. Even when the captain’s awkward announcement came that we’d need to depart within the next five minutes.
“Six!” Will and I yelled, otherwise distracted with the loss of our clothing and the desperate, needy speed of to finish a race that had started a decade before.
This time we knew what we did. This time everything had a purpose. This time we weren’t the storm. We were the roaring tide, the constant current rushing in and pulling out, that went on forever.
EPILOGUE
Early 2017
San Diego Comic-Con
They didn’t know it was us. Will and I weren’t the first Hollyweird types to don a mask or costume of some sort and slip among the crowd. Word had it, a few years back Harry Potter himself slipped on a Spider-Man costume and outspent even the most loaded fanboy out on the floor. But I like to think we were the coolest. This year, at least.
There were about a million Wonder Women and Jokers and a few thousand more Peter Quills and TARDIS dresses and Number Ten Doctors, Harley Quinns and Doctor Stranges and Aquamen, and even a handful of Khaleesis complete with three baby dragons. But Will and I had chosen the old standard: storm troopers. My suit was red, his was white. This year I was a little on the Sith side, while he remained with the Light side of the Force. It didn’t matter. We walked among our people, taking pictures when we’d come across a particularly spectacular costume or someone who’d worked real geek magic with their cosplay.
It was all a means to an end, something to get us to the vendors and seek out new swag and new collectibles that would make the spare bedroom in our new Victorian a fanboy’s dream. Or, you know, ours. So far we had a his and hers towel set with Han and Leia’s silhouette on the front, with the dueling “I love you” and “I know” quotes, that we planned to keep in our master bedroom. There was also a hand carved Sirius Black wand and a knitted Doctor Who scarf that looked far less like the weird snake-shaped scarf I’d attempted for Will’s birthday. He kept it on his dresser, right next to his side of the bed so he could “wake up every morning a laugh at that damn ugly thing.”
“Look, here it is,” Will said, dragging me through a thinning crowd of Walking Dead zombies as they queued in a line to get Norman Reedus and Andrew Lincoln’s autographs. We navigated through the decomposing living corpses and the two very cute actors pretending to kill them and stood in front of a vendor selling lithographs of vector art. Will spotted the three piece X-Wing Fighter piece he’d Googled just the week before.
“Can I talk you down to two hundred?” he asked the woman behind the table, jerking when I elbowed him in the rib.
“He’s joking,” I told her, pulling out my credit card. “We want the 11"x14" gallery canvas with the red background.”
“I was just trying to get a deal,” he whispered, knocking his helmet against mine; a weak attempt at not being overhead. We’d still been able to keep our secret identities intact, despite Will’s own fanboy moment when ran into a guy he swore was Tom Holland doing a primo Commander Shepard cosplay.
“This is not the market in Mumbai and you aren’t an expert haggler.” I patted his shoulder making a kissing noise against his helmet.
“Three hundred is a lot to spend on a print.”
“Oh but a thousand bucks is a deal for a Han Solo action figure?”
Will shook his head, taking the print from the vendor before he led me back through the zombies to the other side of the lobby. “It had a blaster. 1978 original figure with a blaster, Rainey. A blaster!”
“You are perpetually fourteen. You know this, correct?”
“And you sleep with me,” he said, slipping his hand against my ass. “So what does that make you?”
“Desperate?”
Will stopped holding me quite so close as he came across a small entrance to the backstage area between the panels auditorium and the lines that had already started for panels that would not happen for two more hours. “We have a little while. Why don’t we take this print back to our suite and discuss how desperate you are?”
“Or,” I said, pulling off my helmet and nudging Will’s up to rest on his forehead. “We can talk about the benefits of cosplay as they relate to certain carnal…”
“Hey! Captain Thorn!”
“Shit.”
I stepped back from Will, putting distance between us as a familiar fanboy approached, this year donning J.J.’s Duggan outfit, complete with the earthy linen breeches that looked like they were in a bad need of a scrubbing. My chest tightened a little when I saw the replica of Duggan’s phaser crossbow on the kid’s back and a small pin on his chest with J.J.’s wide smile and saucy wink.
“Hey man,” Will said, not moving from me as the guy approached, but reaching up to give the kid a bro-sy high five.
“I like your outfits,” he said, gaze moving between us. “Yours too, Raine.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh, hey, mind if I get you both to sign this pictures of my kid sister?” He pulled out a Polaroid, bend in the center, and I took it from him, laughing when I saw a little girl, likely around twelve wearing the leather britches and black vest that Amelia Riker, my character from The Demon Bounty sported during the film. My cheeks warmed a little and my stomach fluttered at the little girl who’d managed to get every detail right, even the copper pocket watch stuffed into the outer vest pocket.
“She really loved that movie.” He looked between us as we took turns signing the Polaroid. “You think there’ll be a sequel?”
“Hopefully,” I offered smiling wider as the guy waited for more details. “But it’ll be a while.”
“A few months at least,” Will offered handed back the items to the fan. “Maybe more like a year.” When Will’s smile stretched a bit too wide, I cleared my throat, nodding toward the hallway. “See you man, have a good Con,” he said, tugging the helmet off his head completely.
“Why didn’t you just tell him all our business, Callahan?”
“What’s the big deal?” He wrapped an arm around my waist, slowing to walk backward in front of me as he picked me up. “Everyone will know why we bought the X-Wing print and the Millennium Falcon bed.” He kissed my nose, slipping his hand down my back.
“It’s not a bed, Will.”
“Nope, it’s not,” he agreed, resting his palm against my stomach. “Well, crib, bed same difference, right?”
The idea of what would come next had that fluttering in my stomach twisting pleasantly. Or maybe it was the little Callahan growing inside me. Whatever it was, the day, the week, the month before had been the best of my life. And as Will led me through the arena, with the precious print in his hand and his fingers linked with mine, I had the great hope that the best had yet to show itself.
“Let’s go home, Pinkie,” he said, pulling me at his side.
“As you wish, young padawan.”
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, my most glorious and gracious thanks go out to Sharon Browning for her immense faith in me and her ability to make my rubbish shiny and bright. Thank you from my shiny black heart.
I wrote the majority of this book in my nephew’s walk in closet on a forty-dollar card table because our home, virtual
ly everything we owned, was lost in the “Great Flood of 2016.” Let me say, first and foremost, that is the goofiest name for a flood ever in the naming of stupid things. Secondly, it took an immense effort to find the funny in life when you’re living out of plastic bins and buying sports bras from Wal – Mart because that’s all that’s available to you. It was a very horrible situation but it taught us all the importance of being grateful and that what you need in life is very simple and not defined by what you wear, where you live and what you drive. My husband, children and fur babies and I all got out. We evacuated in chest-deep water and spent the next three months waiting for our new normal to begin. By the grace of God and our great fortune of choosing remarkable, generous people as friends, we survived. So I found the funny. I found my voice and I hope you like it.
Thank you to my family, friends and readers for supporting and nurturing me the past three years and to all of you who tolerated the process this book took in the struggle to get it finished. My gratitude is immense and I am so thankful that you have continued to cheer me on.
Thank you, as always, to my bints, my sweet dream, my office buddies and my wonderful family for never letting me settle for second best and for always believing that anything is possible if you have enough nerve. You all make me want to be better every single day.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eden Butler is an editor and writer of Romance, SciFi and Fantasy novels and the nine-time great-granddaughter of an honest-to-God English pirate. This could explain her affinity for rule breaking and rum.
When she’s not writing or wondering about her possibly Jack Sparrowesque ancestor, Eden impatiently awaits her Hogwarts letter, writes, reads and spends too much time watching rugby, “Doctor Who” and New Orleans Saints football. Currently, she is imprisoned under teenage rule alongside her husband in Southeastern Louisiana.
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