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“Have you seen those paparazzi before?” I wonder, shutting the fridge. “It kinda seemed like you knew them.”
“They’ve been around.” He scans a nearby shelf and pulls packaged jerky sticks off the hook. “They mostly follow Xander. I’ve been calling ‘em Boom Box. One is always louder, more annoying. The other is heavier set and more aggressive.”
I like his nickname better than Thin One and Bulky One. “Boom Box haven’t left, have they?” I grab a big bag of Fritos.
“Nah, they’re gonna hang around until we leave.” He returns to the fridge behind me, taking a can of the original flavor of Lightning Bolt! “You don’t need to worry about them though.”
“I’m not that worried,” I say softly as we head into another aisle, empty of people. He’s peeling the plastic off the jerky stick while I crouch to the box of Fruit Roll-Ups. I imagine we have nowhere to be, me and him, and we’re really dating.
Even if being someone’s girlfriend is terrifying, I’m more scared of never having the opportunity. Anxieties around me start to shrink in my make-believe world, and I sing a song under my breath off-key and shimmy my shoulders to the beat. I shift my knees too, still squatting.
I grab two tropical tie-dye Fruit Roll-Ups, and I look over and up at Donnelly. His chestnut hair is pushed out of his face, a silver hoop in his pierced ear today, and as his gaze slips down me, his lips rise like I’m the prettiest, weirdest sight he’s ever seen.
He bites his jerky stick and hums a few bars with me. It’s a song he knows. One we danced to in Scotland: The Who’s “Baba O’Riley.”
When I rise, my arms are full of snacks and drinks, but Donnelly walks two of his fingers up my neck and cheek, until he’s touching my head. Our eyes only detach as he spins me in a slow circle—really, I turn myself with the movement of his fingers on my head, as though I’m a music box he’s winding.
My smile expands, and his grin brightens the dimmest pieces of me. Dizziness whirls my brain, my breath short, and when I come to a heady stop in front of him, our gazes are entrenched inside one another. Desire is a beast we’ve let crawl inside our hearts, writhing and screaming and needing to be uncaged.
I want him to kiss me.
If it’s wrong, then I want to do the worst, wrong things with Donnelly.
He looks just as dizzy, just as overwhelmed, and then the moment breaks with the ding of the door. His head whips to the entrance, but he relaxes at the sight of an old man. Not Boom Box.
Juggling my snacks, I use the moment to open my Fritos bag. Sure, we haven’t paid yet, but we plan to and the cashier hasn’t said anything.
Donnelly takes another bite of jerky. “How come you ditched Frog?” He’s not accusatory like Ian. He just sounds curious.
I crunch on a corn chip. “Because the purple people eaters told me to.”
“Hate those purple-people-eating bastards.”
I nod. “They’re nosy too. Snuck into my bedroom in the middle of the night and mentally transferred their histories to me.”
“Yeah, no one sneaks into your bedroom but me,” he says, hushed.
I begin to smile, but reality hurts knowing he can’t really sneak into my room anymore—not as anything more than a friend.
Tension stretches. He tries to break it with another question. “What do they have against frogs anyway?”
“Everything. After all the purple people were eaten, their world was cratered with darkness. Legend says, Jar Til, leader of the purple people eaters, was poisoned by amphibians. Frogs are the heroes of the story.” I hold out my Fritos.
I’d usually lose most people at this point.
They’d uncomfortably laugh and think the story I made up on the spot is bizarre. Life doesn’t have to be that serious all the time, and sometimes it’s fun to pretend other species exist. Like you.
Donnelly takes a couple corn chips and tosses them back in his mouth. “Frogs sound dope.”
“They are,” I sing-song.
“Then how come you don’t trust the Kannika Kitsuwon kind?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust her.” I watch him silently observe the few people left in the store. They’re stuck in the neighboring aisle, and when our eyes meet again, I say, “Sometimes it’s just easier to go unseen if I’m by myself.”
“But Frog isn’t famous like the rest of SFO. She’s not well-known on the internet and the fandom.”
“It’s not so much specifically Frog. With any bodyguard, it’s harder. I would’ve ditched a temp guard or Quinn or even—”
“Me?”
My pulse spikes, hurt clenching my insides.
His gaze bores into me with an intimacy I’ve never really felt until him. Maybe because what I feel for Donnelly goes so far beyond sex.
“No. I don’t know.” I look away. “This isn’t the first time I’ve snuck out without a bodyguard, Donnelly.”
