“He sells himself short, guys. All the time. Kinda tragic, don’t you think?”
They pingpong some more. I am in the presence of David Darras, I remind myself, but it doesn’t take. I bump my hand against Abel’s a couple times, accidentally-on-purpose, hoping he’ll get all lust-crazed from gazing at Ed Ransome’s rugged face and spiky hair and slide his warm fingers through mine. He just stares straight ahead at the stage, this weird unreadable look on his face.
“…soooo we know you guys have your questions ready,” says Darras. “But how’s about we start with the big question that’s been on evvvveryone’s mind since the finale.”
Ed Ransome nods. “Right. ‘Is Cadmus dead?’”
“No no no, dear. Did we do it in the cave?”
Shrieks and catcalls from the Cadsim shippers peppering the crowd. A few boos sneak in, but barely; everyone’s too drunk and giddy for ship wars.
“Ohhh, trust me, superfans and slashers,” Darras says, eyeing up Ransome head to foot. “Ed and I discuss this nonstop.”
“It’s true. We do,” Ransome deadpans.
“He calls me at three in the morning, people, and asks if I want to ‘practice some kissing scenes’…you know, just in case.”
“He can’t get enough of me.”
“For realsies.”
“David.”
“Yes, Ed?”
“Don’t say for realsies.”
Darras shrugs. “So, anyway. Regarding Sim and Cadmus. Here’s what I think: there was plenty of buildup this season, their friendship’s been unfolding in a distinctly ambiguous direction since Day 1, and when two actors bring such undeniable personal chemistry to the table, it’d be a crime against nature to waste it.”
My head throbs. Yes. Yes. Say more.
“Sooo, as a hopeless romantic and the former treasurer of my high school GSA, I’m gonna say yes! Cave love: it totally happened!”
Two Cadsim girls in front of us lose their minds. Darras and Ransome lean closer and mouth some smiley mystery words to each other. Ransome puts a hand up, waits for the crowd to quiet.
“Welllllll, I happen to be a realist,” says Ransome, twisting the gold band on his thick tanned hand. “So since there’s no hard canon evidence yet, I’m going to poop everyone’s party and say no—”
Booing. Darras waves them quiet.
“HOWEVER, however,” Darras says. “Let’s clarify. You would not have been able to resist me, my dear.”
Ransome claps a hand to his chest. “Oh, well, that’s a given. Who could?”
A girl in the audience shouts something out. Darras cups his ear.
“What’s that? Yeah, you. Girl in the lovely dress with—ohh. Ed, is that an iron-on of us?”
“I believe it is.”
I crane my neck to see where he’s pointing. A stick-figure redhead twirls, shows off a blue t-shirt dress with a Cadsim-kiss manip on it.
“That is…oh, that is really quite special,” Darras says.
Abel mutters, “Miss Maxima minion.”
“Sweetie, you had a question?”
“Yes! Yes.” The girl scootches over to one of the mikes in the audience. “So would you guys—maybe show us what the kiss would’ve looked like? If it actually happened?”
A low expectant oooooooohhh travels the room. Abel freezes. He goes vacant, like Sim does when he’s plugged into his charging dock.
Darras puts on this innocent look and starts pacing the stage, swerving a little. “That’s…something you guys would be interested in, huh? I don’t know…”
Someone whips out the kind of whistle you use to hail a cab three lanes over. That sets the other girls off. More whistles, rowdy YEAHHHs. Darras and Ransome side-eye each other.
“Hmm.” Darras strokes his chin. “A real live Cadsim kiss—that’s what you guys call it, right? Cadsim?”
The girls in front of us are getting frantic now. I feel it. What they want is so close they’re afraid to trust it, afraid it’s a tease or a joke. Abel’s pale Sim face is three shades paler.
“Okay, but we want to know you realllllllly want it, right, Ed?”
“Nah, they don’t look like they want it.”
“They really don’t.”
“Maybe they should show us.”
I don’t know who starts the chant. But it picks up fast:
“Cad-sim, Cad-sim…”
“Eh, I don’t know, Ed. What do you think?”
“They’re pretty quiet, actually.”
They layer on claps and stomps, rattle the fake-wood squares of the dance floor. There can’t be this many Cadsim shippers here; it’s drunk girls up for anything, fans who want a good story to tell, people who think it’s just fun to shout: “CAD-sim! CAD-sim!”
“Uh-oh,” says Darras. “They’re getting hot and bothered.”
“Sounds like it.”
“Better break out your Chap-Stick, buddy.”
“CAD-SIM! CAD-SIM! CADDD-SIMMM!”
Darras scans the room, taking it all in: the women in costumes and shimmery prom gowns, ignoring their dates to plead with him.
Then he grabs Ed Ransome, dips him to one side, and gives the fandom the first and only official Cadsim kiss.
People must be screaming, because my eardrums hurt. And the flashing lights, I guess those are two hundred cameras catching history, snatching proof. This is how they did it. This is how they made it look real, even though the kiss was in shadow and no one actually saw their lips lock together. How Ransome’s arms flailed around at first, and then settled around Darras’s shoulders. How they gasped and flushed when they came up for air; made a big show of smoothing their shirts, fixing their matching bowties.
“I gotta call my wife,” says Ransome.
“I’ll explain everything,” says Darras.
They crack up, high-five. I lean my head back, let the disco ball paint me with spatters of light like Dad’s St. Christopher medal spinning from the Sunseeker rearview. I have to go through with this now. They made it look easy. For five seconds I’ll get to see how it feels, a perfect easy kiss with someone you trust completely. And afterwards I can smooth my shirt and clear my throat, pretend it was all a big joke. I can even borrow his words: I gotta call my wife.
I pop a Tic-Tac. Darras and Ransome are plugging ahead with the Q&A, but I don’t hear a word. My head’s ballooning with possibilities. Which way to tilt my head, where to put my hands.
Abel pokes me in the back.
“I gotta go,” he says. “Sorry.”
***
I keep pace beside him. Back through the ballroom doors, into the sallow chlorine-smelling hall, through the too-bright lobby with its throngs of late rumpled travelers.
If I keep up with him, I can tell myself he’s not walking away from me.
“You can stay,” he mutters. “Stay at the ball, Bran. Have fun.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t feel good.”
“Since when?”
“I dunno.” We squeeze through a herd of businesspeople who gape at our costumes. “It just hit me. I guess maybe the sashimi…”
“Abel.”
“My dad says never to eat in hotel restaurants—this one time he had a bad shrimp cocktail at this medical conference in Florida and he—”
“Stop.” We’re at the elevators. Abel jabs the up button. “What’s going on?”
He looks at the floor. I wait for it: I can’t kiss you, even as a joke. You’re too neurotic. Too short. Too not-my-type-so-what-were-you-thinking-you-idiot.
“I don’t want to do that,” Abel says. “What they just did in there.”
“Okay.” I nod fast. “It’s okay.”
He holds the elevator door open. We step in.
“I know I said I would,” he says, “but—I mean, it’s just gross.”
I flinch. “It’s fine, okay? I get it.”
“Yeah. Right.”
He punches the button.
Three floors ping by.
“It’s so fucking easy for you,” Abel blurts. “This whole thing…”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He turns his back on me. “Forget it.”
In bad elevator fics, Cadmus is always hitting the EMERGENCY STOP to pick a fight with Sim, which of course always turns into their heated bodies hungering in unison two paragraphs later.