Not Your Villain (Sidekick Squad #2)(40)

“Don’t work too hard. If I come home, and you’re still awake, you’re in trouble.” Josephine nudges Samantha, who goes to her home office.

Emma shakes her head. “Go to work, both of you. Bells and I are gonna watch The Gentleman Detective.”

Bells lets Emma tug him toward her bedroom. Around the holoprojector, she’s built a pillow fort of large, squashy cushions, complete with hanging sheets and fairy lights.

“Pajama time!” Emma singsongs and starts to shrug out of her T-shirt.

Bells blushes, turns around, and busies himself with the projector. This isn’t new; they’ve changed in front of each other before, but it feels new. He tries to not to think about Emma standing in her underwear as her T-shirt and jeans are tossed into the laundry pile. Failing, he blushes even harder, and then grabs his bag and dashes to her en-suite bathroom.

“I’m gonna change in the bathroom,” Bells says, looking at the ceiling, and then shuts the door. It takes him but a few seconds to change into his own T-shirt and sweatpants, and then he counts the tiles on the floor. He waits for a good two minutes, and, to his relief, Emma’s fully dressed. She’s wearing a too-big T-shirt and fluffy fleece pants and sitting on her bed with a series of files displayed on her holoprojector.

Emma pats the spot next to her. “Hey, okay, so I’ve got the new episode, which you haven’t seen, because no one has seen it but Mama just started getting the screeners and I was like, ‘pretty, pretty, please can I get the file for Bells’ and here it is!” Emma gestures proudly.

Bells is suddenly aware of how different this feels without Jess: too close, too intimate. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea; maybe I’ll be more comfortable if—

“Come on, lie down. I’ll start it. Want some popcorn?”

“I’m good.” Bells flops on the bed next to Emma so their shoulders knock.

“You okay?” Emma asks.

“Yeah,” Bells says. “Is this, um, weird for you?”

Emma raises her eyebrow. “Why would it be weird?”

“I—don’t know.”

“Oh, I get it. You miss Jess and think she’s missing out.” Emma nods. “Well, you know some of these episodes go over her head; you know she would ask you to explain some of the plot points.” It’s the usual friendly teasing, and Bells laughs a little and relaxes.

He was just nervous, that’s all. Yes, it’s a different vibe, but a nice different.

Emma rests her head on his shoulder, and Bells throws his arm around her. She curls closer and rests her head perfectly between Bells’ neck and shoulder.

For so long, Bells has been afraid of telling her, of their friendship changing forever. But change is inevitable, right? And he and Emma have been through so much, from pre-school to schoolyard fights to middle school puberty and even surviving a Captain Orion attack. If she doesn’t feel the same way, then she doesn’t feel the same way. They’ll always be friends. After all, there was that phase when Emma really liked The Hay Hays and Bells didn’t, and when they had that huge fight over Pluto, but they made it through.

Emma’s eyes close. Soon, her breathing evens out, and she falls asleep. Bells turns down the volume and watches her sleep. He’ll move in a while and get her a pillow, but until then he wants to wait in this moment, this little forever.

He should tell her how he feels about her. Then he won’t have to wonder what if and spend forever not knowing if they could have gone in that direction.

But not in this moment.

Bells closes his eyes, and soon, he too is asleep.

*

Bells wakes up to the persistent ring of a holocall. He blinks groggily but doesn’t move. Emma is sprawled out on his chest, and he can see his DED shaking furiously on the other side of the room.

“Nnn, five more minutes,” Emma mumbles.

The call goes silent, and then Emma’s DED on her wrist chirps. It’s Jess. Bells waves his hand to accept the call, and her smiling contact photo changes to her face in real time, in panic.

“I’ve been trying to get you guys for the past five minutes! Please! Help, it’s Abby. I don’t know what to do!”

The next few minutes are a frantic blur. Bells jostles Emma awake, and they stumble out into the storm. Bells tries to calm Jess, talking to her through the staticky call as he holds an umbrella so Emma can charge her car with the emergency battery.

“She was trying to use her powers, and she says she felt it, and it moved—the cup—she made it wobble, and then she just collapsed!” Jess’ worried hologram wrings her hands.

“Did she hit her head?” Emma asks. “Is she bleeding? Does she know where she is?”

Jess shakes her head. “Didn’t hit her head, isn’t bleeding, but she looks really out of it and can’t move,” she says, panning the camera.

Abby is slumped on the couch; her face is ashen gray. “I… almost had it,” she mutters.

“Okay,” Bells says. “We’re on our way.”

“I’ve got the charge up to fifty percent,” Emma says. “That should be enough to get out there and back.”

“But the whole town is shut down. Where can we go?” Jess asks, wide-eyed.

“The hospital,” Bells says. “Come on.”