“What I’m saying is he can’t be in two places at once.”
Micah turned the tube of lipstick over in his hand. No explanation he could come up with – a dead twin, astral projection, alien bodysnatching – was remotely comforting. “There’s a serious glitch in the Matrix then.”
He didn’t mean it literally, but she said, “I don’t believe in Simulation Theory. And I don’t have the answer just because I’m a medium. At first I – I didn’t realize your studio was the same one Cosmo used to live in because I’d forgotten the apartment number and it had been remodeled. But your switch plate in the closet is made of polymer clay. Turquoise blue with eyeballs. He made a bunch of light switch plates in college, and that was one of them.”
Micah walked into the closet and flipped on the light. Of course Cosmo had made this thing. “The first time I reached into the closet to turn on the light, I felt the lashes on those eyes and thought I’d accidentally touched a huge spider.” There was no way Ximena had seen that when remodeling, or she would have replaced it. But Micah had liked it; this strange, gaudy surprise tucked away in the closet.
“When I realized it was Cosmo’s place, I just wanted out of there,” she said. “But I was telling the truth when I said that you don’t have a rowdy ghost.”
“I don’t suppose you can ask Cosmo for an explanation.”
Déjà’s voice flattened. “Mm, no. He’s a big boy in charge of his own life. And as a matter of fact, so are you. You two sort it out. He works just down the block from you at Identical Dog.”
So close this entire time. Micah wiped his hand down his face. What should he do? Showing up at the gallery unannounced would be awkward. If he sent a message to Cosmo’s Flashbulb account, it might get filtered into a spam folder and lost, and he didn’t want to wait around for Cosmo to find it. He wanted to talk to himnow.
“Okay, well–” He paused, then glanced at the phone screen. She’d hung up on him.
It would be easy to go back to his life and forget the whole thing ever happened. One of those bizarre, unexplainable events, like a child remembering a past life as a World War II pilot; seeing a UFO; or being struck by lightning on more than one occasion.
But he’d done good today. His promise to Cosmo had gotten him out of the house totwoplaces. And he wanted to see him again.
Realization poured over him like ice water. Cosmo was alive, and it would be much easier to interact and have conversations with a live person than a dead one. It was possible to have an actual relationship with a live person. Except… The idea of Cosmo being a ghost had made their interactions intimate and special; he’d been a secret daydream for Micah alone. In reality, he was out living his life, partying and being flirty for thousands of Internet admirers. And he was so much younger. Micah didn’t fit into that narrative. Micah was on a completely different plane of existence from that. How could he expect to compete for the affections of a gorgeous young artist when he had a fucked up face and couldn’t even invite someone into the studio?
He opened Cosmo’s Flashbulb profile and scrolled down. Cosmo in front of a gallery installation that made it look like it was raining in the room. Cosmo licking a drippy pink ice cream cone. Cosmo in – Oh, god, there were those hotpants Ximena mentioned. And by the likes on the post, they were a hit. All the comments were variations of:Damn, sir!It is illegal to be that hot.
Cosmo replied with hearts and kiss emojis, even to the blatantly gross comments that made Micah wrinkle his nose.
He sank into his desk chair and called his brother. Everett’s Adam’s apple and the underside of his chin appeared on screen. Keyboard clacks filled the speakers. “Yo.”
“I met someone.”
Everett looked down at the camera and grinned. “You did?”
“I need to go talk to him about something important, but I’m crushing hard, and he’s way out of my league.”
“Is he hot?”
“Not just hot. Weird-hot.”
“What’s weird-hot?”
“Unusual. Not conventionally attractive. All people are beautiful in their own way, but Cosmo…” Micah blew out a breath. “And he’s younger than me. Like twenty-eight, twenty-nine. He already gets tons of attention, and just because we sat together on my bed–”
“Wait, what?” Everett leapt out of his seat and twirled around so hard he bumped into his desk and sent the phone sliding. It came to a stop beside the wall of his cubicle, beneath a calendar that hadn’t been changed since March.
Everett picked up the phone and held it properly. The office lighting gave his skin a sallow cast and highlighted the salt and pepper stubble on his chin, but his grin lit up his face. “Like four people just saw me dance, and I don’t care how cringy it was. I’m so happy!”
Micah shook his head. “The problem is I don’t think it means anything–”
“The hell it doesn’t! You let your hot date inside your apartment.”
Oh no. He was picturing Micah welcoming someone over his threshold, and that wasn’t what had happened. “It wasn’t a date, and I don’t know if that counts. He kind of came in without asking, and I just let him.”
“Well, did you have a panic attack?”
“No. I liked having him here.”
Everett let out a squeal and the phone shook in his hand. Someone in the background said, “Jesus, Wildsmith, save it for the club.”
