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The new manager says, “She’s in the storage room.”
I pop the tab of a Lightning Bolt! energy drink and shove inside. Boxes of merch and comics line the space. Familiarity surrounding me, and I’m honestly trying not to face-plant on Memory Lane.
I find Lily and her two kids pretty easily.
Baggy Star Wars tee on and phone close to her ear, Lily looks like she snuck back here for a quiet moment. Which I’m about to interrupt.
Awesome. Looks like I still have Grand Slam worthy timing.
I shut the door with my foot, not bailing.
“Lo,” she says into the phone, face flushed, “you didn’t tell Garrison, did you?”
“Tell me what?” I stand by an old comic stand in need of serious dusting. Remember when you dusted the clearance merch with Willow?
Like yesterday.
Near a life-sized Magneto cutout, Maximoff Hale leaps off a cardboard box and races towards me. “Uncle Garrison!”
The corner of my mouth lifts. Moffy acts like I’m the coolest thing in the room, and we’re surrounded by crates of action figures.
The five-year-old rolls up to me, and we do a secret handshake that ends with a fist-bump.
“Never mind,” Lily tells me, then listens to her phone call.
“Did you see Luna?” Moffy smiles and points out his one-year-old sister, hiding in a cardboard box. She giggles, glittering eyes peeking out at me.
“Whoa, she’s getting smaller and you’re getting taller.”
“I am?” His smile mushrooms.
I pretend to measure his height with my free hand. “Definitely a centimeter taller than when I last saw you.” Which was this morning. I still live with the Hale family.
“You think I’ll be as tall as you, Uncle Garrison?” His voice sounds like he’s five, but he sometimes acts older, like he’s already leveled-up to a preteen in a 90s cult classic movie starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas.
“Way taller.” I’m not that short, but his dad is six-two.
“Cool,” Maximoff says and stares off in thought.
Lily hangs up her phone, so I walk closer, and Moffy matches my pace. Before she asks why I’m here, I tell her, “I need your help on something.”
Lily tickles her daughter in the box, and Luna tugs her mom’s finger with another giggle. “What can I do?”
I sip my energy drink and gesture to a few cardboard boxes labeled The Fourth Degree. I’m guessing each contain comics slipped in protective plastic. Here, back stock is usually just obscure issues that don’t sell or extras to replenish ones that fly off the shelves. I explain, “I need every comic that has Sorin-X. There are too many issues and spin-offs now. Honestly, I don’t have time to go through all of them.”
I always thought Vic Whistler would continue to be the most popular superhero in The Fourth Degree universe. Somehow, Sorin-X surpassed the hero that launched the franchise.
It still blows my mind.
I wait for Lily to ask why I’m requesting this shit. She doesn’t yet. Instead, Lily picks herself off the floor and glances at her son. “Moffy, there’s a little Luna in a box—”
“I got her, Mommy.” Maximoff goes to the box and plays with his sister, like babysitting is the equivalent of a trip to Disney.
Weird.
But wholesome.
Honestly, I like being around both.
“They’re all in here.” Lily guides me to The Fourth Degree labeled boxes. “Lo will be here soon, and he might be more help. He’s read every issue about a million times.”
We tear open a couple boxes and flip through the comic, setting aside any with Sorin-X.
Ones without the character, Lily gingerly slips the issue into its plastic cover. “Are you going to read these?” She motions to the Sorin-X pile.
I place another issue on top. “What else would I be doing with them?”
“I don’t know.” She squints at me. “You don’t really read comics, not like Willow.” She notes, “You had no clue who Cypher was when you started working here.”
“Yeah, and none of the employees ever let me forget it.” I begin to smile, remembering how Willow tried to help me learn factoids about the New Mutants so our co-workers would stop giving me shit. Six years ago. I swig my energy drink to swallow down the nostalgia and say, “I’ve read New Mutants, by the way.”
Lily wears a giddy smile. “Because of Willow?” I love how supportive she’s always been of me and Willow, especially since she was there at the beginning of it all.
“Yeah, because of Willow.” I shake a comic back into the plastic sleeve.
“Which brings everything to Twitter. Gillow Engagement has been trending all day, did you see?”
My stomach nosedives, energy drink curdling.
The headlines are pretty generic:
Willow Hale Gets Engaged! Check out Loren Hale’s New Brother-In-Law!
I prepared for press to be all over our ass, but I’m worried the amount of paparazzi interested in us right now could go from “Chaotic Good” to “Chaotic Evil”. I’d really love if my fame capped out here.
