Bookish and the Beast (Once Upon a Con #3)(14)

“Spring rolls it is.” He pulls his cell phone out of his back pocket and calls in the order. The restaurant knows us by name, we order out so often. It’s also the only sushi place in town that has remotely fresh fish. When you’re in backwater nowhere, it’s hard to find anything that isn’t flash-frozen fast food.

Then he downs the rest of his drink, and as he sets his empty glass on the table he asks, “So what was it like?”

I glance up from the mesmerizing blinking cursor. “What was what like?”

“The book. You know, before it took a dive.”

The book.

The Starfield extended-universe books have been out of print for a number of years, but you can still find one floating around at a used bookshop, dog-eared and spine-broken. Mom had a whole collection of them. They were her pride and joy.

I smiled softly. “It smelled like old pages.”

He gave a wistful sigh. “They all do.”

As he says this, a thought occurs to me, and I sit up a little straighter. “Wait a minute, do you think Mom’s books are in that library?”

“Oh, no,” he replies, rocking his glass of bourbon from side to side. “Remember, we sold all of hers to some collector in LA. I doubt those are hers. But it was a good thought.”

My heart sinks down into the pit of my stomach. “Yeah. That would’ve been impossible, I guess.”

“The world’s filled with impossible things, Rosebud,” he replies after a moment, and gives a shrug. “Maybe I’m wrong.”

But we both highly doubt that.

As I try to find something to write about—the only moment that changed my life is the one moment I don’t want to ever think about again—Dad goes to change out of his work clothes. He’s been trying to get the director of the library to make their work attire more flexible for years, but alas his campaigning has been for naught so far, so he stands at the circulation desk every day in pressed trousers, a button-down, and a bright neon tie, and tries not to look too grim-lovely. (The director also tried to get him to take the gauges out of his ears, but while you can take the punk out of the band, you can’t take the punk out of the punk.) I’m just about done with my homework when the delivery guy knocks on our door and Dad answers it in his neon-orange gym shorts and a MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK T-shirt. Dad fist-bumps the delivery guy, Wes, and they talk for a moment about his first semester at the local tech college, before Wes heads on his way. Dad takes the bag of sushi and tips him. “Thanks, man. Safe driving!”

Then he closes the door, and sometimes I have to wonder how he’s so friendly to literally everyone he meets. It’s second nature to him, as easy as breathing. I can barely talk to one person without slipping up and blurting out things I’ll later send myself into a panic spiral over.

Dad holds up his bounty as he parades it into the kitchen. “Dinner has arrived! It makes miso happy.”

I stare at him. “Dad.”

“I know, I know,” he replies dramatically, and he sits down opposite me again. I close my laptop—it’s wishful thinking that I’ll be able to write that essay tonight—and shove it to the far side of the table. He begins to unpack the food from the bag. “I’m soy awesome you can’t stand it.”

“DAD.”

“I’m on a roll.”

I begin to melt under the table.

He smiles and hands me a pair of chopsticks. “Okay, okay. But you gotta let me have a little fun sometimes. Some people would kill for my pun skills.”

“Yeah, they’re to die for.”

He jabs a chopstick at me. “A-ha! See! Aren’t they fun?”

“Whatever.” I tear open a packet of soy sauce and pool it in a corner of the plastic sushi tray. Dad takes out the spring rolls, putting one on his plate and giving another to me.

He slides the last one to the third seat at the table, and there is a quiet moment.

“Hey, Dad?”

“Yeah?” He pulls out a pair of cheap chopsticks.

“I love you.”

He smiles. “I love you too…and dim sum.”

“Ugh.” I roll my eyes and throw a chopstick at him. It clatters across the table, but he catches it before it rolls off and hands it back to me in a truce.





THE ROOM IS TOO BRIGHT because for some godforsaken reason all of the curtains have been pushed back, and it makes my headache sharper. Who in the bloody hell opened them? The culprit soon becomes clear. Elias stands to the side of my bed, waiting patiently. I snarl against the light and press the palms of my hands against my eye sockets.

“For the love of God, please close the curtains.” I groan.

He shakes his head defiantly, hands on his hips. “It’s a beautiful morning and you will leave your room today.”

“Whatever for?”

He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. “Because…it’s a beautiful day?”

I grab the covers and pull them over my head. “Good night. Close the curtains as you leave—”

“Vance.” He tries to stop me.

“Elias, what? I’m here, okay? I am here, in the middle of nowhere, wasting away. I don’t exist. So let me bloody well not exist.” I grab my pillow and pull it onto my head.

He sits at the edge of my bed, and he says softly, “Your mother called.”