All the Feels (21 page)

She glanced up, peering around the teeming room. There were too many bodies to count, but somehow she found Xander across the open space between the circular balconies. His cravat was loose, his jacket hanging open, like a dissolute aristocrat from
Les Liaisons Dangereuse
. Their eyes met, and he grinned, the distance disappearing. Liv lifted her phone and tapped a reply:

11

“INCONCEIVABLE!”

(
THE PRINCESS BRIDE
)

Liv could barely remember how she and Xander made it back to the overcapacity hotel room, but on Friday morning she was in bed alone, the room suffused with morning light. Liv squinted over at the second bed, where Mario and Emma slept, a line of pillows forming a wall between them. She turned the other direction, searching. Where had Xander gone? She looked down at the carpet and grinned. What appeared to be a pile of clothes was actually Xander, asleep in a heap of discarded clothing. He still wore his cosplay, one silver-buckled shoe on, the other dropped near the door, hand outstretched as if caught up in one final court bow. Seeing him, the late-night argument returned. In some strange sense of gallantry, Xander had insisted on giving the entire bed to her.

Liv’s smile grew as she remembered the hours of partying. It was ten times what the CU Mixer had been; every person in the Marriott was a fellow nerd, and that fact made all the difference. Even so, Xander swore Thursday’s party was nothing compared with Friday and Saturday’s. Dragon Con was a celebration on a scale she couldn’t imagine. Sleep was optional. Somewhere in the hotel, doors were opening and closing, the shower running in the room above. Liv slid her feet out of bed.

She groaned as the night caught up with her.

Fighting the urge to crawl back under the covers, she staggered to the bathroom, spending half an hour trying to scrub the taste of late-night nachos from her mouth. On any regular day, she’d wear the first thing she found in her closet, but today it mattered. In a few hours, Spartan would be in a large ballroom dubbed the “Walk of Fame.” Liv knew there’d be a crowd waiting to see him, and she intended to be one of the first people in line. With shaky hands, Liv applied makeup and dressed in her nicest jeans and a black T-shirt she hoped distracted from her chest. She ran a comb through still-damp hair and winced. She looked plain, boring; the same old Liv as any other day. She sighed.

It would have to do.

Sneaking from the room was easy. No one stirred, though Xander did pull a pink crinoline over his head as she tiptoed past. Liv headed downstairs, fighting the queasy lurch of her stomach as the elevator plummeted nine floors. The Marriott was busy by any normal standard, though it was barely a tenth of the previous night’s crowd. Liv grabbed a coffee from Starbucks and on a whim ordered three others, begging the server behind the counter for a bagful of creamers and sugar packets. It was her best decision of the day.

When Liv returned to the room, the coffees became an instant “thank you” for the hospitality. With grateful sighs, Emma and Mario pulled Liv into their conversation, talking about the panels they planned to attend and inviting her to the Steampunk Ball on Saturday night. When the crowd headed off to see a panel on the history of H. G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and Jules Verne, Liv checked her teeth in the bathroom mirror and dabbed her sweaty face. Now that the time had arrived, her stomach was tied in knots. She took slow breaths and wiped the back of her neck with a cold facecloth.

“Liv?” Xander called.

“Yeah.”

“You want to go down to the vendor room before we get in line for the
Firefly
panel?”

She tossed the cloth into the bottom of the tub and opened the door. Xander lounged on the bed, one foot balanced on the other knee. He wore a puff of crimson silk at his throat, a tightly fitted waistcoat, and the brocade tailcoat that Liv had helped him sew the winter before. Liv was already sweating in her T-shirt and jeans; she had no idea how Xander wasn’t drenched.

“The
Firefly
panel isn’t until two, right?” Liv asked.

Xander looked up. “True. But I want to be in line early.”

“You go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

Xander frowned. “You okay?”

“I am,” she said with a nervous laugh. “It’s just that Spartan—”

“Tom Grander, you mean.”

“Right. Tom Grander’s down on the Walk of Fame in”—she checked her phone—“an hour.” Her stomach did a somersault, and she took a shaky breath. “I—I want to be down there with plenty of time to spare.”

“Do you want to grab something to eat before we go?”

“Not a chance,” Liv said. “I’ll probably throw up if I do.”

Xander’s face broke into a roguish grin. “Do you promise if you spew, it’ll be
on
Tom Grander?”

“Stop it, Xander.” She grabbed her Dragon Con pass off the side table and looped the lanyard over her head.

“You look very attractive, by the way,” he said. “I do hope Mr. Grander appreciates the effort.”

Liv blushed and turned away. “I doubt he’ll even notice I exist.”

“You sure? I mean, you’re part of the reason his popularity’s soaring. That has to count for something—even if the person it’s helping is Tom Grander.” With a catlike stretch, Xander stood from the bed, straightening his clothes and sliding on his shoes. “Now, if you are done with your toilette, we should probably get going. It’ll take us a bit to get through the crowds, and if you want to line up early, I’d rather it didn’t take us all day to get to the Walk of Fame.”

Liv stared at him for several seconds. “But I thought you wanted to line up for
Firefly
,” she said. “You’ll miss it if you come with me.”

Xander gave a one-shoulder shrug, already heading to the door. “I want to hang out with you at Dragon Con. Everything else is just icing on the cake.”

*   *   *

The line to see Tom Grander moved a foot at a time, taking them toward a table where the actor sat, shaking hands. He was a little shorter than the towering height Liv had expected from his role in
Starveil
, though she’d heard movies did that to people. But average height or not, Tom’s face was even more perfect in person. Film did
not
do him justice. He had high cheekbones, a straight nose pert enough to be pretty, a lantern jaw darkened with the perfect amount of morning stubble, and an arching bow of lips, which curled into a toothy grin at the slightest provocation. Liv felt giddy just being near enough to see him with her own eyes, to share the same air as went into his lungs. The woman in front of her sighed, and Liv caught her eyes, the two women grinning in unspoken understanding.

When Liv and Xander had arrived forty minutes before, the line had already stretched out of the ballroom and down the hallway. Spartan was big news this convention. By the time they made it to the final stretch, Liv’s heart was beating so fast she felt light-headed. Liv wobbled, and Xander caught her by the elbow, smiling to himself. He let her go, pulling his phone from his pocket. It looked incongruous against the beringed hand and lace cuffs.

“If you throw up on him, I
am
going to record it,” he said, tapping through the phone’s apps. “Don’t think I won’t, Liv.”

The line moved forward another step, and Liv felt the blood drain from her face. “You’re awful, Xander. A real friend would cover for me so I could escape. Recording it would be just plain mean.”

Xander put a hand to his heart. “You wound me, dearest. I’m standing in line with you, aren’t I?”

She glared at him. “No one
made
you be here. You can leave anytime.”

“Ah, but I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” He chuckled.

Liv couldn’t tell if he was joking, but the truth was, she was glad he was here. She had a feeling she might clam up and become mute in Tom’s presence. Before she could think about it too much, the line moved again, and then there was only one person between her and Tom Grander.

“Breathe, Liv,” Xander said quietly.

She pressed her lids closed, sucking air in through her nose and pushing it out through her mouth like a fish out of water. The room seemed to spin around her, and she caught hold of Xander’s arm for support.

“Do you need smelling salts?”

She blinked. The hall reappeared in all its blinding clarity. “You have smelling salts with you?”

“Yes, actually, I do.” He pulled a small apothecary’s bottle from an inside pocket. “Never attend con without them.”

For some reason, this tiny detail—Xander’s noticing that she felt sick and having smelling salts to deal with it—suddenly seemed the most endearing thing in the world.

“Thank you, Xander, I—”

But before she could take the bottle, the people at the table moved aside and Liv found herself staring into the very bright, very blue eyes of Tom Grander. He smiled his million-dollar smile. In that moment, Liv’s legs stopped functioning. For several long seconds, she just stared.

He was beautiful. Perfect.
Unreal.

“You’re up,” Xander said, nudging her forward. “Move.”

“Hi there!” Tom boomed. He gave another wide smile. “So glad you could come out to say hi!”

She opened her mouth, but nothing would come out. For a crazy split second, she thought she was going to cry.

“I’m Tom,” he said warmly, offering her his hand. She shook it with icy fingers, and he released her hand at once.

“This is Liv’s first con,” Xander said.

“Well, I’m glad you could make it,” Tom said. “It’s always great to meet my fans.”

His eyes flicked to the person behind her. They were almost done, Liv realized. Almost done and she hadn’t said a thing! She took a wheezing breath, and suddenly all the things she’d felt, thought, and dreamed of came tumbling from her mouth.

“Mr. Grander, it’s such an incredible honor to meet you.”

Tom’s gaze returned to Liv, his smile widening. “Thanks!”

“I’ve been a fan for years. A decade, actually. I saw the first
Starveil
movie with my dad when it first came out, and I’ve seen every one since then. Your character—Captain Spartan—is more than just a character to me. He’s my hero. I’ve wanted to meet you for years and…”

Minutes before, Liv hadn’t been able to speak. Now she couldn’t stop. It was like a bottle of champagne had been shaken, then uncorked. Every emotion—bottled for the last ten years—released.

“When your character died, I realized I just couldn’t let you go. There was no way Spartan could be dead! It was impossible. I couldn’t bear the heartbreak.”

In the last seconds, Tom’s face had taken on the pained expression of a weary parent dealing with a hyperactive child who’d just eaten an entire bag of candy. “That’s great,” he mumbled. But Liv coulcouldn’t stop.

“I started a post about Spartan’s death—a challenge to fans everywhere. And before I knew it, people all over the world were making things. They were bringing you back from the dead through videos, stories, manips…”

Tom looked up at Xander, the cocky self-assurance switching to anxiety.

“And I’m just so glad you’re here at Dragon Con. I’m so glad to meet you,” Liv said. “You’ve been part of my life forever. You’re this link to my childhood, to my dad. My hopes and dreams. And I hope you realize everything you mean to me.”

Her monologue stopped as quickly as it had started. The bottle was empty, all her words splattered on the table between them. She took a shaky breath, the moment of self-admission leaving her drunk on emotion.

Tom Grander leaned back in his chair. His eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me you’re the person behind Spartan Survived?”

“Y-yes! That’s me! I came up with it!”

“And you,” he said, pointing at Xander. “You’re the guy in the video, aren’t you?”

“I was just the hired help,” Xander said, lifting his hands. “
Starveil
’s not my thing. No offense.”

Tom scowled at Xander before turning the same reproachful look on Liv. “Well, excuse me if I don’t say thank you.” His tone was venomous.

“Wh-what?” Liv choked.

Tom’s face twisted in disgust. “You caused a hell of a lot of trouble for me,” he growled. “More than you probably know. I’m just surprised you had the gall to come up here and rub it in my face.”

Liv made a sound—a sudden exhalation—like she’d been punched in the stomach.

Xander’s head bobbed. “Pardon me?”

“I—I…” Liv’s tongue was in knots.

Tom stood up, his chair screeching behind him. “You and your boyfriend should’ve left well enough alone,” he snarled. “I worked for years to get out of that contract, and I finally thought I’d done it, but you had to throw a wrench into the whole goddamned thing!”

“But I thought—”

“No one needed your interfering!”

“But … but Spartan died.”

“And I wanted him to STAY dead!”

With a muttered curse, Tom stormed away, leaving Liv, and the long line of people behind her, staring after him. Liv swallowed against the stone in her throat. Her eyes burned, her ears rang. Xander stood beside her, whey-faced and silent. He, too, seemed shocked by the tirade.