Besides — ‘Battle for the Cosmos’wassupposedto be a little campy. You weren’t supposed to watch it for the realism or the relationships. You watched it because it felt like home. Like a warm hug. Like nostalgia and hope, all at once.
I had left the world of fandoms so very long ago, relieved that I could finally just enjoy things casually. But something about the way the internet’s fuckboys treated Ansel would always grind my gears. Without thinking, I slammed out my own response.
juniepwillikers: can’t wait to see @anselbarlowe this weekend
I’d barely had time to leave the post when my phone made a little ‘ding’.
Ansel Barlowe liked your comment.
My heart stuttered, just a little flip before I remembered I had his number in my pocket. That he’d bought me a drink last night. That I’dinsinuatedthat he’d be moaning my name.
My face flushed deeply before I tossed my phone aside.
I’m thirty-three years old, dammit.
I wasn’t a teenager getting starry-eyed over an online celebrity interaction.
I just wasn’t.
CHAPTER 4
Ipicked at the edge of the convention pass that was clipped to my lanyard.
Talent
It said under my name, almostmockingme.
The table in front of me was mostly bare — just a stack of old 8x10s, a marker that didn’t work half the time, and the half-empty bottle of water I kept forgetting to finish. To my left, some voice actor from an animated dragon show had a line around the corner. To my right, some princess blonde — actual royalty of streaming TV — was flipping her hair and selling glossy smiles for $80 a pop.
I attempted to adjust my posture.
Sat back.
Then forward again.
No one was coming to my table.
Again.
This wasn’t new.
I wasn’tnew.
The last big movie I’d done had come out like… eight years ago, and even then, my face had been on screen for maybe twenty cumulative minutes, mostly in soft lighting and sex scenes. There wasn’t much I was known for these days except an infamous exit interview and an extremely short, wildly messy marriage to a woman who now played someone else’s mom on Netflix.
I signed a photo for a kid in a wrinkled cosplay cape. Thanked the mom. Smiled politely.
I sat behind the folding table, absently tapping a pen against a stack of glossy photos. The room buzzed with excited chatter, but my corner of the convention hall felt like a forgotten waiting room.
Superstar McGee and Princess Ms. Blonde were pulling in the crowds; I was just background noise.
Even my fucking handler had popped out to get an autograph or two.
It was then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement — sharp, deliberate. She strode in with a confidence that made the fluorescent lights seem softer somehow.
Juniper Haddock.
Not a shadow of her bar-side stumble, but a woman who knew exactly who she was. The little spark of defiance in her eyes was unmistakable.
