Abel cracks up and stops the recording right there. He hits upload before I can object.
“On that note, Tin Man,” he says. “I have a little…surprise.”
He reaches in his robe and rummages. My left leg starts jittering. Last time Abel surprised me it was my birthday, and he slipped a special card under my windshield wiper: Sim’s head taped to a cutout of a gym rat in a leopard thong.
This time it’s just a small silver envelope.
“Open it,” he sings.
“What is it?”
“A lock of David Darras’s hair.”
“Wha—”
“Open it, doof.”
I unstick the flap. Inside are three more tickets on heavy silver paper. Two robots waltz in silhouette between an embossed P and F.
“What’s this?”
Abel bounces in his seat. “I totally splurged,” he squees. “You, me, and Bec have VIP tickets to the 4th Annual Castaway Ball! At the Long Beach con! With special guests David Darras and Ed Ransome!”
My stomach twists. The thing about Darras barely registers. Stories from the Castaway Ball pop up in fandom all the time. Dance-floor dramas, bathroom gropings, afterparty orgies in smoky hotel rooms.
“Why—” I force a Sim face. Indifferent, slightly amused. “Why would we do that?”
“Well, clearly we’re going to win the bet, so you won’t be making out with me anytime soon. However, I thought a whole ballroom of hot dorks in cosplay would be a lovely consolation prize.” He presses Plastic Sim to my lips, making a loud smoochy sound. “We’re going to find you a Sim, my dear. And get you over that Zander douchelord, like finally.”
“Oh.” Panic flushes through me. I knew he’d pull something like this; he’s tried to set me up with three different guys since January. “That’s…nice, but—”
“Nope! No more excuses.” Abel waves Plastic Sim like a magic wand. “Befoooorrre the stroke of midnight at the nerd prom, yoooooou, Brandon Gregory Page, will meet a beautiful boy on the dance floor and break the sinister spell of celibacy with the Kiss of True Love. Or True Lust. Whatever.”
Put on the Brakes!, Chapter 4: Celibacy and happiness—can they go together? You bet! You can still have a full and fulfilling life while obeying a special call to abstinence…
“Thus it has been decreed,” Abel proclaims, “and therefore on this life-altering journey, you, Brandon, will be my project, and I shall help you—”
“—Stop dressing like a frat boy?”
Abel and I turn around. Bec’s grinning in the doorway with her suitcase and the bowling ball bag she keeps her camera equipment in. Just seeing her makes me exhale. She looks pretty and practicaclass="underline" cargo pants, blue tank top, no makeup on her round freckled face. Her curls are forced into two stumpy braids, and she’s got on the faded rainbow friendship bracelet I gave her when we were fourteen. Her Zara Lagarde action figure clutches her belt loop, little plastic machete tight in one fist.
“Mon petit pamplemousse! Love the braids.” Abel blows her a kiss. She blows one back on her way to me and we fold into a hug. It’s so easy. We look like brother and sister—some brown-haired blue-eyed Dick and Jane in a kids’ book from the fifties—and she feels soft and friendly as Mr. Quibbles, my old stuffed penguin I would die if she told Abel about.
She tosses an arm around my neck. “So what’s Abel decreed for you?”
“Nothing,” I mutter.
“Everything,” Abel says. “Life. Love. Sex. Rebirth.”
“Ooh. Can I have some?”
“We can all have some, Rebecca.” He raises Plastic Sim’s arm and traces a cross on her forehead with it. “We can all have some.”
She snorts. “Did you make special brownies again?”
That Kade guy’s shuffling around upstairs. I hear him at the railing now: Abe…seen my shoes?
“Hold please, Bec.” Abel tosses me Plastic Sim. “Brandon can fill you in on his renaissance while I dress my boy.”
He bounds upstairs, humming the Castaway Planet theme. Bec’s smile snaps off. She sticks her hands on her hips and looks me up and down.
“What’s wrong?” she says.
“What? Nothing.”
“Bullshit. You ironed your t-shirt.”
“I did not.”
“Your shorts look ironed too.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Are you pussing out on this trip?”
“How mad would you be?”
“Um, furious?” She grabs the front of my shirt. “I cannot be in my house this month, Brandon.”
“Why not?”
“My mother and sister are hosting a book club. Eight choir ladies plus wine spritzers plus a stack of Amish romance novels.”
“Ugh.”
“What’s the problem?”
I slide her the tickets to the Castaway Ball and fill her in, the whole terrifying find-me-a-guy plan. Between the lines, I appeal to her time-honored status as my best friend. The one who knew I was gay a year before Nat talked me into coming out, the one who buoyed me up with sensitive grace and good humor through the parent talk and the Father Mike meeting and the dark nights of the soul when I lay awake at 1 a.m. pondering the existence of God and praying for a sign that he was real and sympathetic and still pretty much okay with me.
She cracks up laughing.
“You have to help!” I smack her arm.
“How?”
“Tell him I won’t be over Zander for another year. At least.”
“Oh, Fake Zander? I don’t—”
“Shhh!”
“Whatever.” She grabs a pear from the fruit bowl and takes a big messy bite. “You can’t stay fucked up forever, can you? You need to start putting yourself out there and getting humiliated like the rest of us. Only then will you be a Real Boy.”
I glower at her. “What kind of friend are you?”
“A heartless one.” She drops a sticky kiss on my cheek. “I love you, though.”
“Aww! Ken and Skipper.”
Abel’s grinning in the doorway. Two tanned hands knead his shoulders and he pulls in Greenshorts, who isn’t Greenshorts anymore because he’s got on frayed army pants and a white V-neck that’s a little damp and clingy. His light brown eyes and skin are fanfic-flawless and he’s all lean muscle. I imagine a conversation with him, a one-sided ode to 12-minute workouts and wheatgrass shakes.
“So Kade, this is Bec, our lovely and amazing cameraperson—she’s only a moderate Castaway Planet fangirl but she’s putting up with us anyway. And, uh, you’ve seen Brandon online.”
“Uh-huh.” Kade squints at me, stifling a yawn. “You hook up with this one?”
“Noooo. No no no. Tell him, Brandon.”
“Not my type,” I say.
“Obsessed with his ex,” Abel whispers to Kade.
“Right, right,” Kade grins. “You don’t do guys with baggage.”
“I merely assist them. He’s my summer project.”
Kade looks me over again and elbows Abel. “Babe,” he stage-whispers.
“Hm.”
“He looks like that dude from the movie.”
“Which one?”
“The one we watched at the party. That hit man with amnesia—”
“The main guy?”
“No no no…the little dude.” He drops his voice low. “With the…ears?”
“Oh my God,” Abel snorts, raining cute smacks on his shoulder. “Brandon, don’t listen. He’s awful!”
My ears burn like Kade’s thrown a hot spotlight on them, but he’s already jumped to the next thing: kissing Abel in a place I never thought about, the spot where the strong line of his jaw curves up to meet his earlobe. Abel kisses him back like no one else is in the room. When Kade turns his back, his thin t-shirt gives me glimpses of more tattoos I suspect are inversely proportional to intelligence, including a chicken with wings of fire and NO REGRETS spelled out in barbed wire. Bec traps me in this tractor beam of pity that’s deeply unnecessary since I couldn’t care less who Abel’s playing Perfect Boyfriends with, so I cross my eyes at her and grab the laptop again.