Audition for… I searched my brain for the missing information.
“Oh,Rocky Horror?” Middleton put on one local play every year, and this year it was even something fun.
“That’s all I’ve been talking about for weeks. Not that you were listening.” He jabbed my arm, but his mouth was drawn tight.
“I’m sorry!” I tugged on his sleeve, trying to see if Bambi-eyes would melt his frosty glare. They did. “I promise you that, as soon as I hand this in, crazy, obsessive Nora will leave the building.”
I peeked past a pair of foam fairy wings. My stomach flipped. I’d found her.
Emily Arlington.
Brown curls and a kind smile I recognized from social media. She looked tiny next to you-know-who, who sat beside her.
Otis slung an arm around my shoulder. “Crazy, obsessive Nora will always have a place in my heart, but I have to say—I’m really looking forward to reading her eulogy.”
The line inched forward at a glacial pace.
Cosplayers staged dramatic battles against invisible demons. Lanky guys in their early twenties, all wearing lanyards and laminated badges, barked at people to stay in line and not touch the “irreplaceable” collector’s items. I mean, good for them for feeling a little important today. None of them looked like they’d get laid any time soon.
Technically, this should’ve been my crowd. The misfits, the geeks, the superfans. I gawked at the wigs, the tails, the sheer bravery of people openly celebrating what they loved. I was a quieter kind of nerd. More behind-the-scenes. The Captain Caruso fandom wasn’t as massive as, say, Star Wars or the Final Fantasy crowd, but we had a tight-knit online community. Just last year, I became a moderator on the biggest Caruso fanfic platform. I spent my evenings devouring every weird and wonderful spin on my childhood favorite: crossover fics with Star Trek orLaw and Order, angst-ridden alternate endings, and even 900-page reverse harem mermaid sagas. No rules in fan fiction. If you wrote it, someone would love it. No one judged.
In front of me, a fairy in sparkly wings held up her phone and zoomed in to snap an out-of-focus photo of the man signing books. All you could see was a blur of jawline.
I rolled my eyes.
Otis leaned in. “Heiskinda hot,” he said, smoothing his hair to one side.?
“He’s an ass.”
“You say that like you know him.”
I bit back the truth. “Just keep it in your pants for, like, five seconds?” I elbowed him. “You find everyone hot.”
“And you should get your eyes checked.”?
My leg bounced—nervous energy turning manic. I swung my backpack around and unzipped it to pull out my manuscript. “There are plenty of hot people on this planet. But dating is?—”
“A pain in your butt. Nonsensical. Overrated. I know, I know,” Otis sighed. “But you’re in your prime, Nora. It’s honestly a waste.”
I craned my neck to peek at the front of the line. “The only two people I would date are Keanu Reeves and Gillian Anderson, and even with the best wingman in the world, I don’t see that happening.”
We were still at least forty people away.
“Fuck this.” I slid out of the line.?
“Nora, no,” Otis hissed, eyes wide as he followed. The gap we left was instantly filled.
“What are you doing?”
“Well, as I’m not actually here to see him, why bother queuing?”
“Oh my god, you’re insane. They’re going to throw us out.”
With my manuscript in hand, I marched straight toward the table where John Kater was signing books. But my focus was locked on the woman beside him.
Emily glanced up from her laptop. The second she spotted the stack of pages I clutched, her brows drew together. I wished I’d had time to bind it properly. None of this was supposed to go this way.
Just as we reached the panel, a beanpole of a guy with glasses stepped into our path. His arms were wrapped in fabric wristbands from past conventions, and the wordSTAFFwas printed across his chest in bold letters.
