IRL: In Real Life (After Oscar, #1)(75)

He snorted.

I pressed on anyway. “But it’s different with Conor. I fucked up, I have to own that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still help him out when he needs it. And it sounds to me like he needs it now. We’re on the same side here, James. Please, let me help.”

“You think you’re going to win him back that way?”

I shook my head. “I won’t lie, I would love for that to happen. But no. I just want to help make his life easier if I can. He doesn’t even need to know I’m involved.”

He considered me for a long moment, but he still didn’t seem convinced.

“I’m in love with him, James,” I told him.

James’s eyes widened in surprise. Before he could make a snarky remark, I continued.

“I swear I’ll never hurt him again. Please.”

Finally, a slow smile curled his lips. “Who’d have thought Glacial Grange would finally thaw. Okay, here’s how you can help. But it’s going to involve costumes.”

Which is how I found myself getting fitted for a pair of black maternity pants two days later at some specialty cosplay shop James knew about in the Garment District.

“I don’t… I don’t remember Kylo Ren being topless in the movie,” I said, twisting the stretchy material around my torso. It was not a whine. It was more of an observation.

“It’s when he’s talking to himself,” James mumbled, squinting at the fit of the pants.

“You’re looking way too closely at the cut of my jib,” I warned. “Don’t you have a Dick at home?”

“His name is Richard. And if you think I’d go anywhere near your disease-riddled—”

“Zip it,” the tiny shop lady snapped. We both mumbled an apology. “No, zip pants. There, your ankle.”

Before I could reach down, James yanked both ankle zips closed, catching my leg hair in one of them and bringing tears of pain to my eyes. I bit my tongue to keep from exposing any weakness to the predator.

“He needs a mask. At least a partial. No one wants to look at that face,” James told the woman. I didn’t even bother thanking him for his kindness. As it was, I was relieved I’d have something to hide behind for when thousands of strangers eyeballed me half-naked in this ridiculous getup.

“Why maternity pants?” I wondered aloud.

“They have to come up high around the torso. This is how cosplayers do it. Don’t worry about it.” He fussed a little more to get the waistband where he wanted it. The woman grabbed my crotch and began putting pins way too close to areas that definitely didn’t want to be pinned. I pressed my lips tightly together to keep from telling them all to get the fuck away from me.

You’re doing this for Conor. You’re doing this for Conor.

“You’ll need a spray tan.” James wasn’t even talking to anyone specific anymore. He was simply making mental notes under his breath. “And for god’s sake stop the carbohydrates already. Oh, and we’ll need to go back to my office so I can walk you through your speech.”

Mental brakes squealed.

“My what?”

“Stop whining. You’ll do fine. Surely you’ve given a presentation to a room full of people before,” he challenged.

“Of course.” My chest absolutely didn’t puff up.

“Then it’ll be a piece of cake. Only instead of biomedical bullshit, it’ll be geekery bullshit. You can handle it.”

I may or may not have completely unpuffed. “But I’m not a geek. There’s not a geeky bone in my body. I thought Star Trek and Star Wars were the same thing until I went to college.”

The woman and James both sucked in shocked gasps, each of them clasping their chests as if synchronized swimmers.

“Pipe down. It’s not like I confused uranium and plutonium,” I muttered. “Keep your pants on.”

They continued fussing around me until I wore the eye mask and carried the light saber.

“Fine. It’ll do. Thanks, Mika,” James said, giving air kisses to the woman who’d fussed me into the getup. “Wells will pay for it.”

Of course. It wasn’t enough I was going to make a fool out of myself dressed as some half-naked junior Jedi. I had to pay for the privilege on top of it.





29





Conor





Three more letters from Wells arrived before it was time to leave for Mom’s trip to Chicago. Each one was handwritten just like the first, and two of the three contained another story about something light and embarrassing from his childhood.

In the most recent one, though, the story was still personal, but it wasn’t light. He told me the story of Mark.



Dear Conor,

I hope you and your mom are having a good day. Deb told me that you agreed to let me charter a plane for your trip to the clinic. Thank you. I hope being able to avoid the big commercial airport stress means the trip will be a little less taxing for her. If there is anything I can do to make her more comfortable or her trip more of a success, please let me know. Between you and me, I think she and Deb may have struck a kind of friendship through all of this because I overheard Deb laughing and calling her Liz on the phone this morning.

So… today’s embarrassing Wells story…