Hollywood Ending

by Tash Skilton

  “Supermarket Shuffle.” I pull additional grocery lists from my back pocket and lay them down in a row. “Sprouts, Trader Joe’s, Ralphs, Whole Foods, and on special occasions, Gelson’s.”

  “Aren’t they basically the same?”

  I clutch my heart. “You—what—how—NO?”

  She looks at me like I’ve grown two heads. “You aren’t really going to all these stores.”

  “Of course I am. And you’re coming with, because a statement like ‘aren’t they basically the same’ is so shameful it proves you need guidance to live here. First lesson: Sprouts is like if Whole Foods had Trader Joe’s prices.”

  She continues to stare at me. “Just go to Sprouts, then! Problem solved.”

  “Sweet child. So naive. Every grocery store in LA has certain items and brands the others don’t have. You don’t want me cooking with subpar ingredients, do you?”

  She regards the list-covered table with skepticism. “Why can’t you, Sam, and Matty split up, and everyone takes a different store?”

  “We used to, when Matty lived here, but this is easier, because I’m selective about Sunday night dinner. I’m going to all these places, anyway, so . . .”

  She drifts closer. My skin prickles and my heart races. Will it always be like this, for me? Will I never become inured to her presence?

  Her eyes are soft. “That’s what you said to me about breakfast. You don’t need to treat me like a guest. I’m perfectly happy with cereal from now on, and I’m paying for half our groceries. Got it?”

  “Got it. In my defense, though, Sam and Matty would live off Jack in the Box, egg noodles, and Cheez-Its if I didn’t take charge.”

  I gather the lists but Nina’s quicker. “Speaking of egg noodles, that’s on Sam’s list and he wrote ‘H Mart’ next to it. Tell me that’s not another grocery store.”

  “Er. It’s in Koreatown. Because they have the best egg noodles. I like them too! I make a garlic sauce that’s—”

  Fast as a hawk swooping down, Nina lunges for her phone, her eyebrows pinched together in concentration.

  I peer over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “Putting an end to this nonsense. I bet he goes there twice a week when he visits his family.”

  Get your own egg noodles at H Mart, she texts. And buy a second set for us.

  Sam’s response is swift: Yes, ma’am.

  Nina smirks and puts her phone away. “See? Easy.”

  * * *

  After work, I make good on my threat to drag Nina around every grocery store in LA. Once we’ve crossed the items off our list, we drive to a storage facility on Highland Avenue. My unit’s the smallest available, a five-by-five one where I’ve stacked sweaters, a winter coat, a pair of skis, and heavy blankets. (In case it drops below sixty.) Today, one particular blanket shall be freed from its prison.

  “Why are we here?” Nina asks, shielding her eyes from the sun as I lead her to the unit and unlock it.

  “You were right this morning. I do have a secret baby, and this is where I stash her when I’m at work. She’s got a Nintendo Switch, a water tube, and an exercise ball. Should be fine, right?”

  “You just described a hamster.”

  “Eh, pretty much the same.”

  Her eyes fall on the real surprise, which provokes laughter and applause. “You still have it! The Kingdom of Sex quilt!”

  Nina’s nickname for it stems from the fact that it’s a family tree of the show’s main characters and lays out exactly which incest produced which characters. I shake off the dust and hold it out for Nina to view in all its glory.

  “Matty called it Sex Kryptonite and forbade me to hang it.” I address the quilt directly. “Guess what, you gorgeous thing you, there’s a new queen on the throne and your banishment ends today.”

  Playing along, Nina mimes holding a sword with which to knight the quilt. “Sir Quilt, your trial is at an end, and you are hereby restored to your rightful place of honor behind the couch.” A sidelong glance at me. “Unless you want it in your room?”

  “Are you kidding? Behind the couch for sure.”

  Back at my apartment, we unpack the groceries and hang the quilt.

  If the quilt is sex kryptonite, that’s a bonus, as far as I’m concerned. I really don’t need to hear Nina and Ennis the Menace through the walls. Maybe we should instigate some type of sock-on-doorknob code to keep the other one away should either of us intend to make the mattress squeak.

  “Will Ennis find this weird?” I ask, but only after it’s too late to unhang it. That thing is earthquake-proof now, clamped between a wooden frame that’s secured deep through the wall. Heh.

  She shrugs. “Doubtful. Does Ennis find anything weird?”

  I swallow and force the next words out, because talking about our dating lives is what we do now, or at least, it’s what she wants us to do.

  “Let’s figure out a way for you to alert me whenever you and Ennis need privacy. If you give me a day’s notice, I can make myself scarce.”

  Nina seems surprised. “Oh. Okay. Same goes for you and Heather.”

  “I don’t know if that’ll ever be the case, but okay. What should our code be?”

  Nina’s gaze travels the length of the room until it lands on the cardboard cutout of Lucinda in the corner, a Burger King crown dangling from one of her hands. “If the crown’s been moved from her hand to her head, the other person will know to steer clear for a little while.”

  I resist the urge to ask, “So Ennis only takes a little while?” and instead head to the gym for an extra-punishing workout.

  * * *

  Night falls and the crown remains on Lucinda’s hand. Thank God.

  Sam stops by to extract his groceries, and I settle in on the couch to email Millie about her upcoming visit. The final item on her gap-year check list is a six-week camping trip with TrekUSA, a small-group tour company for young travelers. She’ll be staying with me at the beginning and end of the tour.

  Millie emails back right away, so we switch to instant messenger.

  Sebastian: how r u awake??

  Mills: HOW’S UR ROOMMATE

  Sebastian: fine.

  Mills: nice try. When are you telling her you , her?

  Sebastian: Never.

  Mills: whyyyyyy dammit!

  Sebastian: Remember how upset Callo got when you didn’t tell her you were bi?

  Mills: yes, which was completely unfair, because I wasn’t ready to share and she doesn’t get to dictate my timeline

  Sebastian: I agree, but my point is, Nina thinks I didn’t open up to her the way a friend should, and it hurt her so badly she wanted nothing to do with me for YEARS. So I have my marching orders: open up to her as a friend, AKA tell her about my love life.

  Mills: This is a terrible plan. It’s not “opening up to her,” it’s hiding the truth more than ever. You realize the irony, at least?

  Sebastian: We’re in good form right now. I’m happy to have her in the next room, happy to have her in my life again. It’s enough!!

  Mills: You’re useless.

  Sebastian: How’s your cellist? How was the fancy dress party? What’d you wear?

  She met a cute musician at a pantomime show in Yeovil, and they’ve gone out a few times since, most recently to a friend’s costume party (called fancy dress there).

  Mills: The theme was 90s pop music and we both went as All Saints. I thought it was brill, but ever since, she’s been impossible to read.

  Sebastian: Mixed signals?

  Mills: Exactly. She “wants to stay in touch” while i’m camping, but “doesn’t want to tie me down.”

  Sebastian: meanwhile you’re gagging to be tied down

  Mills: gross!

  Sebastian: LOL but you are, you’re in love with love. You always have been

  Mills: guilty

  After we say good night, I print out my weekly meal plan, which I affix to the fridge with a CoRaB magnet. I prepared dinner for two at
least twice a week when Matty lived here, so folding Nina into that schedule is easily accomplished, assuming she’s interested.

  I’ve no clue what my inimitable roommate has been up to the last several hours, but around ten p.m. she enters the living room with a pillow and sheet.

  “Move it,” she instructs me, plopping elegantly down on the couch. Yes, she plops elegantly. “You get the bed tonight, remember?”

  “Au contraire,” I say, stretching my arms wide and resting them on the back of the couch. “I claim this couch in the name of England. You’ll have to take the bed again, I’m afraid.”

  She groans. “Come on, we had an agreement.”

  “I prefer the couch, actually. The bed’s awful. Way too roomy.”

  “Very funny. Move your ass.”

  “Nope.”

  She folds her arms. “Well, I’m not leaving either.”

  “Breath of the Wild till one of us concedes? You can show me where the Koroks are.”

  Four hours later, bleary-eyed and punch drunk, we’ve moved on to Mario Kart, having decided that speed champion of Hyrule Circuit gets the couch. I beat her latest time by half a second and shake my ass obnoxiously, nestling farther into the couch cushions and challenging her to respond.

  Except Nina can’t respond. Nina’s asleep, her head lolling forward, her breaths soft and steady. I clear my throat. “Nina, your turn.”

  She doesn’t stir.

  I’m a complete git. The neon clock on the microwave reads 2:45 a.m. Adrenaline and stubborn idiocy kept me awake when we should have called it quits by midnight at the latest. We both have to get up in four hours; she deserves the bed more than ever at this point, but how to relocate her?

  “Nina, can you walk to the bedroom?”

  Nothing. No murmur, no movement. She remains upright at a painful-looking angle, her neck a loose pivot point that spasms forward and back in an involuntary jerk. I release a long breath and move to the outside of her armrest, torn between leaving her where she is and carrying her to the bed. It’s only a fifteen-foot distance, and lifting her will probably require less effort than my typical workout at the gym.

  “Hey, Nina.” I nudge her shoulder. “Want me to take you to bed?” Aaah, no! My heart slams inside my chest as I quickly correct myself. “I mean, take you to your bed. For sleep.”

  On the plus side, my verbal madness seems to have roused her somewhat.

  Her eyelids lift partway. Her voice is soft, slurred. “Time for sleep.”

  “Yes, it’s time for sleep.”

  Her arms encircle my waist. She pulls me toward her, snuggles closer, and rests her head against my hip. How is it possible that earlier today I thought standing next to her at the sink was torture? I had no clue what torture was.

  “Right. I’m going to lift you, okay?”

  “Okay, honey,” she mumbles, chin lifting.

  I freeze. I know it was only a sleep-induced reflex and she has no idea what she’s saying, but it kills me all the same. Is there a world out there where she calls me “honey” and means it? And if there is, does the Sebastian of that world know how lucky he is?

  I scoop her into my arms and try to ignore the fact that her nose is nuzzling my neck.

  I make the trip in five strides and settle her gently atop my mattress. She curls into a ball, eyes closed. The sweetest yawn overtakes her face before she murmurs, “Thanks, Seb.”

  I back out of the room, turning the light off as I go.

  “Good night, Nina,” I whisper, and shut the door.

  CHAPTER 16

  NINA

  I wake up enveloped in the scent of cedar.

  “Sebastian?” I croak in a haze. Though as my brain unfogs, it quickly realizes that he wouldn’t be asleep next to me. I had a couple of drinks last night, but I would remember that.

  I open one eye. I am, however, in Sebastian’s room. And I distinctly remember making him promise that we’d switch off every other night. But then I get a vague memory of my head against his chest. Did he carry me into his room last night?

  I open the door to the living room, starting off by saying, “You’re in big trouble . . .” But then my words fail. I’m unprepared this early in the morning for the sight of a sleeping, shirtless, boxer-clad Sebastian on the couch. A longer lock of his hair has fallen across his mouth and is gently rising and falling with his breath. He looks younger like this, with the muscles in his face completely relaxed. He looks so much, in fact, like the Sebastian I watched dozing on the common room couch that I have to quickly shut the door. It feels like it echoes the slamming of a door in my own heart. No, we will not go down this road again.

  I go about the business of quietly getting dressed for work and putting on makeup. I take a fortifying breath before I open the door to the living room again. Turns out I didn’t need to. The couch is vacated, and the sound of a flushing toilet lets me know exactly where its former occupant is.

  Though when the bathroom door opens I realize: still no shirt. I remember our run-in from yesterday morning too and wonder if this is just how he walks around. I will the answer to be no. But also yes. But no.

  “Hey,” he says through a sleepy, lopsided grin.

  “Hi,” I manage, before flurrying past him to the bathroom. It’s only when we have the safety of a closed door between us again that I feel comfortable chastising him in my normal tone of voice. “You broke our pact, Worthington. I was supposed to take the couch last night.” I feel a little weird talking to him while I pee but, then again, if we’re going to be normal run-of-the-mill roommates, I have to get over that. So I sit down on the toilet and do my business.

  “A humble squire never lets his queen suffer,” he quotes.

  I raise an eyebrow in the mirror as I turn on the faucet to wash my hands. “I don’t recall a centaur raid preceding my bout of unconsciousness last night.”

  “Centaurs. Lynels. Different side of the same coin.”

  “And anyway,” I say, right before I stick my toothbrush in my mouth. “You can’t die at the end of this episode. I definitely don’t have enough saved up to make rent on my own.”

  I hear Sebastian’s snort laugh through the door and I can picture exactly what he looks like when he does it. It brings a toothpaste-smeared grin to my face.

  Something is sizzling on the stove by the time I open the bathroom door and I’m hit with the impossibly tempting smell of bacon. Sebastian has also, thankfully, thrown a shirt on.

  “Breakfast?” Sebastian asks.

  “Don’t change the subject,” I reply. “You’re getting the bed tonight and that’s final.”

  He shrugs. “I’m comfortable on the couch. Honest. I swear on the long, lustrous, and stain-free life of the Kingdom of Sex quilt.”

  My jaw drops. “Not the quilt!”

  He raises his hand in a Scout’s honor. “May an entire bottle of prototype poisoned wine spill on it if I’m lying. Besides, I know your neck’s messed up.”

  He’s not wrong. I’ve been getting pinched nerves in my neck on and off since I was a preteen. “It’s fine now,” I say unconvincingly.

  “For now,” he replies. “One bad night of sleep and it’ll be weeks of agony.”

  I have no response to that because he’s right. Though I’m floored that he remembers.

  “I’m fine on the couch,” he says again firmly. “I swear. If I’m ever not, I promise to tell you.”

  “You swear?” I ask. “On the quilt?”

  “On the quilt,” he responds solemnly. “Now, breakfast?”

  “I can’t,” I say, feeling as sorry as I sound. “I’m already late for work.”

  “No problem. Hold, please.” He takes out a container and makes quick work of adding a couple of slices of bacon and then, from a different pan that I hadn’t even noticed before, a thick slice of French toast.

  “How did you . . .” I start.

  But he just hands me the container with a wink. “A squire never spills his secrets.”
<
br />   I don’t know how popular I’m going to be on the bus eating a whole plateful of Sebastian’s breakfast without any to share . . . but just this once, I decide not to care.

  * * *

  “My life is abject torture,” Sean says as he comes up to my desk in his designer suit, designer wingtips, and Hermès messenger bag. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Get what over with, Sean?” I ask, my voice still chipper from the last half-hour’s bus breakfast.

  “Ughhhhh. Can’t any of my assistants be bothered to check their calendars?” He’s pulling at his temples so tightly that he’s like a before and after for a miracle face-lift cream.

  I bring up my calendar right in front of him and show him my docket for today. Empty.

  “How is that possible?” He takes out his phone and starts irritatingly scrolling through it. “I sent it to you last night at 2:07 a.m. See . . . oh. Stuck in my outbox.” He presses a button and my computer whooshes with the sound of incoming mail. “Well, there you go. Now let’s get a move on.”

  I take a look at the words that just popped up on my calendar and my eyes nearly fall right out of my head: Castles of Rust and Bone Official Cosplay Contest Sponsored by Duncan Hines.

  It’s happening in one hour at a convention center downtown. I grab my bag and start following Sean to the elevator.

  “Oh wow,” I say. “So Duncan Hines is officially in?”

  “They’re in,” Sean grumbles. “And to celebrate, I now get to spend three hours of my life staring at spray-painted dragon turds or whatever the fuck.”

  “Centaur turds,” I correct. Sean shoots me a look of death. “Sorry, it’s just there are no dragons in . . .”

  “Nina. Does. It. Look. Like. I. Care?!” He’s gritting his teeth so hard that I’m afraid he’s going to snap one off and then, undoubtedly, my day will be spent finding an emergency oral surgeon instead of judging (or at the very least observing) a CoRaB costume contest.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  Sean is doing his Lamaze breathing again and he’s rummaging around so hard in his fancy briefcase that I’m convinced the lining won’t survive it. “Where the fuck are my stress balls?”