And then a second later, I know how to make it happen.
I sit back down at the desk, in front of the laptop screen with its orderly selection of Brandon/Abel makeout fantasies. Plastic Sim and Plastic Cadmus lie flat on their backs in a scatter of cinnamon jellybeans, like they’ve both been struck dead from secondhand embarrassment. I stand them back up. Scroll through the fic titles. “Whispers of All Our Tomorrows.” “Anatomy of a Saturday.” “How to Repair a Mechanical Heart.”
“Uh, Brandon…?”
“Hm.”
“What are you thinking?”
I tap the wedding cake manip. I blurt it before I lose nerve.
“You want to have some fun,” I say, “with the Church of Abandon?”
A complicated smile flits across his face. I get a nervous thrill, like when Cadmus got Sim to jump into the Red River with him to escape the Henchmen. C’mon, Tin Man, he’d shouted above the wind, the two of them clutching arms on the cliff like a romance-novel cover. You haven’t lived till you’ve done something really stupid!
Not the best philosophy, bud, says Father Mike.
Shut up, I tell him simply, and turn back to Abel.
“What’d you have in mind?” he says.
CastieCon #3
San Antonio, Texas
Chapter Thirteen
Abel and I sit side by side on the concrete edge of our campground pool, dipping our feet in. He is shirtless. Leaning back on both arms, he holds his pale soft stomach taut, trying to forge a six-pack. He grins at the fake hickey on my neck, courtesy of some blue and purple eyeshadow we bought on the road in an Alabama dollar store. I held still while Abel brushed it on, his breath tickling my cheek and smelling of cinnamon. It was safe, and incredibly fun.
The San Antonio sun breathes biblical heat on us. My Castaway Planet shirt roasts on my back and the cool clear water sparkles temptation as I swirl my toes through it. I want to jump in, all the way in, but there’s something we need to do first.
“You sure about this?” Abel murmurs.
I nod. “Totally.”
“You don’t want to take your shirt off? They’d flip.”
I cringe. “I’m really pale…”
“That’s fine. Yeah. You’re a man of mystery. I might put my hand on your knee, is that cool?”
“My leg is your leg.”
Bec clears her throat. “Can we get this over with?” She’s bobbing chest-deep in the water with her camera, shivering a little.
“Sorry,” says Abel. “Rebecca, what do you think? Is my hand on his knee too much?”
“Don’t pull me into this. I’m just the cameraperson.”
Abel nods. “We’ll play it by ear. See what happens.”
“Fantastic.” She rolls her eyes and hits record.
“Salut, dear Casties!” Abel says. “My partner and I are coming at you poolside from the, ah, Longhorn Campground in San Antonio, where we have been staying in all our carefree, half-nude glory for three days.”
“Three lonnnng, hot days.”
“They have been especially hot, haven’t they, Bran?”
“Scorching.”
“Miss Rebecca, by the way, is looking stunning today in her bangin’ new halter bikini.”
“It’s just a two-piece.”
“Whatever. Dave, if you’re watching, it was between this one and some striped tankini disaster. You’ll thank me when you see her in Long Beach.”
I break in, as scripted. “Ahem.”
Abel’s like, “Ye-es?”
“You have yet to comment on my new swim trunks.”
“I think that’s best reserved for a…” He leans in, stage-whispers. “Private moment, don’t you?”
I giggle; I can’t help it. “If you say so.”
“Aaanyway, guys: Two o’clock today, Q&A with Augie Manners, who for the past four seasons has infused the character of Dutch Jones with a complex blend of angst, dopey hotness, and nine other exotic spices.”
“Hmf.”
“Yes, dear? What is it?”
I feign a pout. “If you love him so much, why don’t you marry him?”
“Mm-mm. Not my type.”
“No? Who is your type?”
“I think you know, Brandon.” He rests a hand on my knee. A tiny spark dances up my thigh. “I think. You. Know.”
***
The second Bec snaps the camera shut, Abel grabs my elbow and hauls us both underwater. The blue shock of cold hits me hard—I’m not ready—but then I open my eyes and he’s making this face that makes me forget, crossing his eyes and puffing out his cheeks. His white hair billows around his face like the manes on Bec’s old Rainbow Ponies when we’d take them in her mom’s pool. For a long time we stay like that, in a safe underworld where our bodies stay light and dreamy. Five seconds. Ten seconds.
We come up laughing.
“’Best reserved for a private moment’?” I splash him.
“Did I go too far?”
“No! It was brilliant.”
“Um, so…”
“What?”
Abel bats his eyes. “Why don’t you marry him?”
“Ugh! I’m a horrible flirter.”
“No, no, no. You’ve gotten loads better since Saturday.”
“Really?”
“When you said scorching?” He taps his heart, smirking. “I felt it right here.”
Bec bobs by on a clear inflatable raft. She looks all patriotic: navy blue bikini, white belly, sunburn on her round freckled shoulders. She peers at us over cat’s-eye shades.
“You guys,” she tsks, “are mean.”
Abel’s eyes go wide and innocent. “How are we mean? It’s what they want!”
“But it’s not real.”
“So? They love fiction. Right, Brandon?”
“They do seem to enjoy it.”
He swims close to me, his chin skimming the water. “What’s your favorite fic?”
I peel my wet shirt away from my chest and pretend to think. I have a real answer to that question, but I can’t get into that with Abel. As far as he knows, the Abandon fic we’ve been reading for the past five days has been 100% pure comedy, something to giggle over in greasy diners and campgrounds while Plastic Sim and Plastic Cadmus perch on opposite corners of the laptop, watching us blush and bump elbows.
“I like doomerang’s stuff. And sadparadise. The Castaway Planet crossovers,” I lie.
“Yeah? Not a fan, actually.”
“How come?”
“They’re like, good writers.” He makes a blech face. “Well-written fanfic is no fun whatsoever. I loooove thanks4caring’s high-school-angst.”
“’The Locker Said FAG?’”
“OMG. The ultimate.” We’re bobbing in a circle now. “Brandon’s sea-blue eyes exploded into desolate tears.”
I grin. “He felt his tater tots rise up threateningly in his throat.”
“He raced breathlessly—Breathlessly?”
“I think.”
“—down the school hallway and stumbled falteringly into the men’s room to call the one and only person who would ever understand him fully:” He strikes a pose. “Abel!”
“The next part is best.”
“What part?”
“What the men’s room smells like.”
“Adverbs?”
“No.”
“I’m blanking.”
“Urine and boys.”
“Urine and boys!” He snaps his fingers. “Straight girls really do their research, no?”
“You don’t read the NC-17 ones, do you?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“Oh, jeez.”
He clasps his heart. “Abel’s piercing green eyes danced impishly as he unbuckled Brandon’s—”