Lucky Caller(71)

Right now I threaded my fingers through Jamie’s, squeezed his palm. “We’ll be moving,” I said. “Over the summer.”

Mom and Dan were looking for a house somewhere a little north of the Eastman. They hadn’t found anything yet, but Dan was eagerly anticipating some upcoming open houses. This one right here looks pretty great, he had said, showing us a real estate listing during our dinner on Sunday. Room for everyone!

Jamie’s voice was soft: “I didn’t know that.”

I nodded.

“It’ll be weird to not live in the same place anymore,” he said.

“You’ll still see me all the time.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You’re gonna be sick of me.”

He shook his head and smiled. “Impossible.”

It was quiet for a bit after that, until I looked over at Jamie. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

I felt silly but I couldn’t help it: “How did Prince Hapless die?”

“Ah.” Jamie considered for a moment. “Well, I guess the short answer is that he didn’t.”

“What?”

“Funny thing. Remember the tomb? In the wildflower meadow?”

“Where they have the super dope music festival.”

“Exactly. Eventually his people discovered that the tomb was empty. Prince Hapless had faked his death and gone into hiding.”

“Why?”

“He was … vulnerable, without Aurelie and Iliana and Quad. They were gone, and he didn’t know … where to look for them, I guess. He didn’t know if … they needed his help. If they even wanted it. And he knew he would be lost without them, owing to him being just … completely hapless, so … it seemed like the only way.”

“But he’s out there somewhere.”

“Oh yeah. For sure. He probably … got a part-time job someplace. Maybe his wheelhouse was never in being royalty, but he’s like really good at customer service or something.”

“He’s a banquet server at magical ceremonies.”

“I like that.”

“Maybe Aurelie will find him one day. When she drops off some baked goods to the magical catering service.”

“I like that too.”

I looked over at Jamie. He lifted my hand, rested my fingers over his lips, Kingdom style, and kissed them.

We said good night, eventually, and I fell asleep with that same warmth running through me.





70.


OUR FINAL SHOW ARRIVED THE following Thursday. We were calling it a “nineties freestyle”—hits from the whole decade.

We were sitting around between links when Jamie said, “What do you think actually happened to Tyler Bright though? Like, where is he now?”

There were plenty of theories among the Existential Dead fandom—the last confirmed Tyler Bright sighting was in 2001.

We threw our own theories around for a bit. Joydeep leaned back in his chair eventually and said, “Honestly, he’s so off the grid he could be back on it again and we wouldn’t even know.”

Sasha nodded. “Maybe he went totally underground, changed his name.”

“Burned off his fingerprints,” Jamie suggested. “Got reconstructive surgery.”

Joydeep raised an eyebrow. “Became a mild-mannered dentist?”

“What?” I looked over.

“You heard him play guitar,” Joydeep said. “And it was that guitar. Why would Tyler Bright give his iconic guitar to a random roadie who worked for him for like, three months?”

“It wasn’t an iconic guitar at the time; it was just a guitar.”

Joydeep pivoted: “He wasn’t in any of the pictures, though. There was not one single picture of Dan with Existential Dead.”

“So? He was probably taking them.”

“Unless he was in them already and we just didn’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tyler Bright had a complete beard and super long hair! There could be anyone under all that hair!”

“You sound like a true Deadnought right now,” Sasha said, shaking her head. “Hardcore conspiracy theorist.”

“Admit that there’s a possibility, though,” Joydeep said.

I turned to Jamie. “Are you buying any of this?”

He considered it for a moment. “I could like … ninety-eight percent rule it out.”

“You seriously think there’s a two percent possibility?”

“Yeah, I’d give it two percent.”

Jamie smiled at me when the others weren’t looking. I was one hundred percent going to kiss his face off later. I had asked Rose to pick us up half an hour late for just that purpose. (I didn’t tell Rose that was the purpose, but I think she had her suspicions.)

Joydeep pulled a picture of Existential Dead up on his phone and held it out to me. “Just look. Look at this and tell me you can honestly say it’s not him.”

That’s how it went for our final show. The last Sounds of the Nineties. Soon after, classes would wrap up, then there would be finals, then graduation, then … everything to come. Whatever that would look like.

The four of us—we weren’t built to last, necessarily. Jamie would start at Butler in the fall, and I would be at IUPUI. Sasha would go on to play volleyball for Notre Dame. Joydeep would be at Pomona, Vikrant-adjacent and a comfortable distance from the West Coast Mitras. It didn’t devalue what we had or what it was. It wouldn’t change the moment in time we all shared together.