Oh, no. Suddenly, I understand what the plan is. “You just want me stuck trying to twist around a harem of women, so you can call that a date and laugh at my expense.”
Su-Lin’s jaw drops in mock-surprise. “Little old me?” she says in Ruby’s southern drawl. “Sugar, wouldIdo something like that? It’s positivelydevious.”
“Exactly.”
Su-Lin drops the accent. “But seriously, it won’t just be you. I need to getTate and Emily in there, too.”
I raise my eyebrows at her. “I’m pretty sure they spent the night together. Isn’t your devious plan complete?”
She rolls her eyes. “They messed it up last time. I can’t leave them to their own devices. Not yet, at least.”
I put the ice bucket on the table and look around the room. We’re pretty much set, and I’m starting to have the pre-party jitters. How many people are going to be in here, anyway? It’s decently big for a double room, but it’s still not a full suite. It’ll heat up fast with too many bodies.
I crank up the air conditioning as far as it will go.
Emily andTate show up first, helping themselves to some cherry vodka and settling on the edge of Su-Lin’s bed. I’m trying to decide if I should join them or if that would make me an awkward third wheel, when a whole bunch of other people start filtering in, including that girl Jason was talking to last night—what was her name? She’s wearing a Faye Valentine outfit, complete with suspenders and yellow booty shorts, and she definitely has the figure to fill it out.
Su-Lin steals the spot I was eyeing next to Emily andTate, and I get the message.This is not our date night. I’m supposed to talk to other women. Ones who aren’t being set up with Su-Lin’s cousin.
I steel myself and try to smile. “Hey!” I say, walking over to the Faye Valentine girl. I know just enough about her to start a conversation, which helps. “You’re a YouTuber right? I remember Su-Lin telling me about your show.”
“Jane,” she says, beaming. “And you’re Brendan, the new blood over atSockwives, right?”
I nod. “That’s me.”
Jane shrugs happily, which pushes her breasts up and almost out of her collared halter top.
Yep. Definitely authentic Faye Valentine.
“Nice costume,” I say. “Did you make it?”
“Yeah,” she says. “That’s what my show is, mostly. Costuming how-to, plus I’ve done some episodes about consent issues in the cosplay community. Actually, Su-Lin totally inspired me on that front. I just loved her sock puppets, so I made a puppet of my own.”
She holds up her phone, and on it is a picture of her dressed in a sexy Dorothy outfit with an alien-thing popping out the top of herToto basket. It’s not a sock, but the form is basically the same.
“Oh, yeah!” I say. “I saw one of those once. You pretend to be ditzy while the puppet schools you about feminism.”
“I’m glad you said ‘pretend.’ You wouldn’t believe how many people think the puppet is the smart one.”
“You’re actually a ventriloquist, right? Like, you’re not editing in the voice later.”
“Yep. I’d always wanted to try it. It’s not as easy as it looks, so I had to work at it to get it right.” She grins at me. “By the way, nice hair! Not many guys can pull off pink, but you totally rock it.” Jane twirls a finger through her platinum blond hair, which is dyed too, with red streaks underneath, and she has it pulled back in a yellow Faye-style headband.
I smile. “Thanks, you too.” I get a lot of mixed reactions to my hair, the worst of which are people yelling “faggot” at me from passing cars. It pisses me off on behalf of gay men everywhere.
More people mill into the room, and Jane steps closer to me. It’s hard for me to look at her face now without checking out her breasts, which, as I said back at the prom, are definitely worth checking out. But I don’t want to do that in front of Su-Lin, and I also don’t want to make Jane feel like I don’t understand those cosplay consent issues we werejusttalking about.
“So do you perform in the videos?” she asks. “Or are you mostly doing technical stuff? I heard you’re the video editor, but it sounds like you’re pretty involved.”
“I do some of the puppetry. Not as much as Su-Lin, but I’ve got a few characters in the first set of skits.There’s this welding glove character that I came up with.The girl socks aren’t fond of him.”
Jane cocks her head to the side. “Why is that?”
I cringe inwardly.This joke made Su-Lin laugh when I came up with it, and we’ve based a whole series of sketches around it, but no one’s seen those yet. It’s possible it’s about to completely fall flat. “Because he’s so handsy.”
Jane laughs so abruptly that she spits on me a little, and I laugh along with her. My face flushes with relief. I’m still a little nervous making jokes about sexual harassment, even though I’m a victim of sexual assault—even if it was before I can remember—butIthink the way we handle it is funny. We try to always punch up and all of that. But it’s still a relief to know that other people appreciate it and aren’t offended.
“That’s amazing,” Jane says with a grin. “I am so looking forward to binging your whole season.”
