Bookish and the Beast (Once Upon a Con #3)(24)
It’s normal to them. They don’t want to be my friend because I can give them something—they’ve got everything already.
The one exception to my group of friends is Imogen, but our friendship is a bit diabolical in and of itself.
“Heck yeah! Got the loot trophy,” she cheers from her end as the game deals out our winnings. We’re about to queue into the next session when my phone lights up in a silent ring. Speaking of which.
“My mother’s calling,” I mutter.
“You still haven’t talked to her?”
I silence my phone and shrug, even though she can’t see it. “What’s there to talk about? She sent me here to get me out of her and my stepfather’s hair for a while. She picked a great place. Nothing around for miles. I could die and the tabloids wouldn’t find out for at least a week. I don’t see how anyone stays in this town.”
She laughs. “Maybe it’ll grow on you. Anyway, I should probably get off. Gotta go help with dinner.”
“Same time tomorrow?”
“Oh, not tomorrow—I have a hot date.”
“Ugh, with him still? What are you two going to do—go Pokémon hunting again?”
“Don’t pretend like you aren’t jealous, Vance Reigns,” she tsks.
I’m not. I don’t understand her infatuation with Jess’s assistant, Ethan Tanaka. They met at ExcelsiCon last year, and against all odds, they’re still going. “Fine, whatever. Have a great date—and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
She laughs. “Well, that’s a challenge. What haven’t you done?”
Then she logs off, and the game kicks me back to the loading screen. What haven’t I done? The list is longer than she thinks. I haven’t done most things normal teens have at my age. I’m seventeen, but I’ve never flown coach. I’ve never driven an economy car. I’ve never worn sneakers that cost less than a Kobe steak. I’ve never eaten instant ramen. I’ve never played baseball with my stepdad.
I’ve never fallen in love.
But I remember the girl on the balcony at ExcelsiCon this past August, and the way she spun the rings on her fingers and laughed at my terrible jokes. I wonder how long I could’ve gotten away with the lie that I was no one, before the spell had broken.
STARFIELD IS PLAYING AT THE BIG MO DRIVE-IN—back-to-back with the latest Star Wars—and I can’t imagine a better way to say goodbye to the last vestiges of summer. The evening is cool and the skies are wide and dark and the cherry soda tastes especially good with the fast-food fries from the concession stand.
Everything tastes better when you’re watching your favorite movie.
Quinn leans over and dips a fry into a cup of ketchup. “I can’t believe you’re working at that weird castle-house. What if it’s haunted?”
“Nah,” I reply as I take another swig of cherry cola. “It isn’t old enough to be haunted.”
“But what if someone got murdered in the house?” Annie asks. “It’s so creepy.”
“It did smell a little like old blood,” I agree, earning a slap from Quinn. “Ow! Okay, okay—it’s just a normal house. It was kinda clean on the inside. Pretty. Like it’s been freshly renovated. And the library…” I sit back in the bed of Quinn’s truck and sigh. On the large screen at the front of the drive-in theater, Princess Amara kisses Carmindor goodbye for the last time.
In the next car over, a guy sniffles and wipes his eyes.
I really can’t blame him; the scene is beautiful. The way Princess Amara kisses Carmindor, soft and bittersweet, and then traps him on the bridge so he can’t stop her. How she boards the escape shuttle with the photon missiles. How she arcs the ship up into the Black Nebula, with swirls of blues and greens and purples curling around the wings of the ship like ribbons. It reminds me of the colors of the library, how the bindings unfurled across the room in muted, faded galactic shades.
“The library was beautiful,” I whisper.
Annie tsks playfully. “Don’t go falling in love with a library, now. Especially one you can’t own.”
“Can’t I fall in love just a little? At least books won’t break my heart.”
“Then clearly you haven’t read the books I have,” Quinn mutters, scooping up the last few fries.
On the screen, Amara’s starship explodes and bathes the entire drive-in in a blanket of white. The last scene of the movie is solemn and quiet. It’s the funeral of Princess Amara, a menagerie of all the different people she and Carmindor met along their adventure. There are a few nods to the TV series—some Ingarians, two Voltures, a small robot named CL30 bobbing beside a green-skinned rogue named Zorine, all of the characters lost or forgotten in the TV series and the extended universe of the novels.
The last scene fades to black, and the title screen reappears as the triumphant soundtrack plays—STARFIELD. People in their cars cheer and beep their horns, and some turn on their headlights to leave before the Star Wars film.
We sit back and wait. Even if we were going to leave before The Rise of Skywalker, we wouldn’t do it before the end of the credits. That’s a rookie move for any nerd.
Annie props herself up on her elbows as the credits begin to roll. “Okay, so, dish.”