“That’s not what it’s about,” he insisted. “Wanting to be with someone is more than wanting to havesexwith them, for fuck’s sake!” He seemed to catch himself, taking a deep breath and unclenching his hands. “O-or even wanting to romance them. If you like Skyler, the nature of your relationship shouldn’t bloody matter. You wouldn’t want him to do anything that makes him uncomfortable, would you?”
Armand was right, this was none of his business—and he clearly didn’t feel about Lucas the same way I felt about Skyler. No wonder he’d managed to procrastinate meeting him for so long.
I checked the clock again. “We should get going, just in case there’s traffic.”
Armand kept watching me for a few moments, probably hoping I’d say something likeOh yeah, pssht, no, it’s definitely fine that Skyler—along with the rest of the world—sees me as some kind of sexless, unattractive comic relief, but eventually he sighed, seeming to give up. “Aye,” he rumbled sadly, and ran his hand through his hair once more, ruining every last bit of my good work.
August 15th- NOW
Finch parked in the lot of the convention center, and we sat quietly for a time. He’d asked if I wanted to be dropped out front, and then accepted my mute, petrified, shake of the head no. My gratitude for the few moments of silence he was allowing evaporated, however, when he glanced at his watch and clicked his tongue against his teeth.
“Will five more minutes of this tantrum be enough?”
I was going to commit murder in a tiny yellow car in America.Tantrum, was it? A bit rich coming from a boy... who was experiencing the throes of first love and first rejection. Bloody hell.
“Aye,” I grumbled, “I’m ready.”
There were costumed people milling about the parking lot and on the grass in front of the convention center, and Finch beamed and waved at several groups of people. They waved and smiled back but didn’t approach him or show any signs of personal recognition. These all appeared to be friendly strangers who nevertheless shared a deep kinship.
I would likely have appreciated at least some of the costumes and represented fandoms as well, but my blinders of terror were in full effect. I was flashing back to my first day of teaching at the university: the existential nausea, the cold sweat, the sensation that I was watching myself from several meters above and mere seconds away from a bloody blackout.
Finch led me to a small conference room where I met DQ-Con official people who gave me lanyards and water and papers and told me things. I looked over at Finch, and he gave me a small smile.
“Is that okay?” asked the kind-eyed, bespectacled young woman who stood before me. The collar of her shirt was heavily starched and her pencil skirt was slate. Her hair was a fascinating mix of mousy brown and electric blue. I couldn’t remember a single damned thing she’d just said to me.
I swallowed. I opened my mouth. And nearly collapsed in relief when Finch stepped forward.
“That’s great, Ainsley, thanks. Mr. Demetrio would like to sit somewhere quiet and without a lot of people until it’s time for the panel, if that’s okay?”
Ainsley smiled at me—and not like I was an elderly, demented pet—and nodded, then gestured to the other end of the conference room. There were a few chairs, separate from the rows that lined the middle of the room, set against the far wall near a table loaded with coffee urns, pamphlets, and free pens. “We’ve got this room till three thirty, so you guys can hang out here if you want.”
“Thank you,” I croaked.
Ainsley went pink and grinned at me shyly. “No problem. Um.”
“Come on, Grandpa.” Finch gently took my arm and began leading me toward the back of the room. Leaning my cane against the wall, I sat and accepted the bottle of water he shoved into my hand. He stripped off his jacket, then dropped the large holdall he was carrying and rooted through it, eventually pulling out a volleyball, and kicking the bag toward the wall. “Okay, I’m gonna go take some pictures and stuff, and I’ll come get you in about an hour.”
I frowned at him, realizing he was dressed in something not un-reminiscent of a PE kit, with a large number ten on his chest. “There’s sports?”
Finch tucked the ball under one arm and shook his head at me, grinning. “Don’t worry about it.” And he scarpered.
I sat in my quiet corner and gentlydisintegrated.
After a medium-length infinity, I pulled the folded sheet of paper from my back pocket: it was covered in the messy scrawl of my normal handwriting (rather than the painstaking script I used for lettering), but was little more than a series of bullet points for me to hit during my talk. I’d learned the hard way early on in the workshop that when I tried to script my lessons, I quickly got lost. I was a man to whom tangents came quite naturally—at timesaggressively—and finding my way back to a written paragraph was much harder than working back to an overall concept. Teaching hadn’t becomeeasytoward the end, but ithadsomehow managed to become ... fun.
That had a lot to do with the fact that I could natter on about comics generally. Which was very different from having to natter on about myowncomic specifically.
Oh god, justimaginingit made me want to vomit—
I shut my eyes and gripped the plastic bottle in my hand so tight it squeaked. I breathed through my nose, bending forward over my knees.
Once again, I felt the emptiness of my pocket where the flask should be.
I couldn’t even promise myself a drink when I got back to the flat. I had to get through this on sheer nerve and Christmas crackers.
And the thought of Lucas.
I knew deep in the darkest corner of my soul that there wasn’t a single chance in hell he was still coming to the con. Not after what had happened, no matter what Finch said.
