Chapter 6
chapter
six
Leo
“Okay, important question,” Juniper says, somewhere around her third slice. “Is this a date?”
My initial response is YES, this is definitely a date. But I force myself to simply respond with, “Define date.”
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you.
We’ve established I kissed you under false pretenses, you’ve established you’re fine with that, we went to a panel holding hands for purely strategic reasons, and now we’re eating pizza under an assumed superhero identity.
I genuinely don’t know what column this falls into. ”
I smile at her. “I think,” I say, “this falls under a very specific, narrow category.”
“Which is?”
“A meal between conspirators.”
She points her slice at me triumphantly. “That’s what I said in my head three minutes ago. A meal between conspirators.”
“Great minds.”
“So, not a date.”
“Categorically not a date,” I tease. “Conspirators don’t date. That would compromise the operation.”
“What operation.”
“Operation Avoid Eric. Still very much active. I take my role seriously.”
“Your commitment is admirable.”
“I trained for this my whole life,” I say. “Specifically the last four months, building a costume so good a stranger mistook me for an actual superhero and assaulted me with her mouth.”
She chuckles. “I did not assault you—”
“You absolutely did. I have witnesses. The Black Widow cosplayer saw the whole thing.”
“She did not see the whole thing, she saw us politely posing for a photo forty minutes later.”
“Circumstantial evidence is still evidence.”
Juniper laughs—the real kind, the kind that makes her press the back of her hand briefly against her mouth like she’s trying to contain it and failing.
Something in my chest does a slow, warm thing, and I choose to just enjoy the sensation rather than analyze it.
“So if this isn’t a date,” she says, once she’s recovered, “what would a date look like? Hypothetically. For research purposes.”
“Hypothetically?”
She nods.
I lean back, pretend to think it over, even though the answer arrived the second she asked. “A date would probably involve me admitting, out loud, that I have no interest in Eric’s continued safety and have several uncharitable theories about that mullet.”
“That’s not a date, that’s slander.”
“A date would also probably involve me telling you that I’ve been doing everything I can think of to be able to look at your pretty face for as long as possible.”
The teasing drops out of her expression for half a second, replaced by something quieter, more careful. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I hold her gaze, no joke left in it now. “A date would involve me being honest about the fact that I have not stopped thinking about that kiss since it happened, which is an embarrassing thing to admit to the woman responsible for it, but here we are.”
She doesn’t say anything for a second. Just looks at me, something working behind her eyes.
“Conspirators,” she says finally, “could probably get away with that too.”
“Could they.”
“I think the lines are blurrier than we’re giving them credit for. Because I am fairly certain that conspirators also think about kisses.”
“I think you might be right.”
We walk back to the hotel slow, no real reason for it except that neither of us seems eager to get there any faster. It’s still the time of the year in Texas where the heat remains in the air long after the sun has set.
She tells me about her favorite cosplay disaster — a hoop skirt that collapsed during a photo op two years ago, taking out a folding table and, in her words, “my entire sense of dignity, briefly.” I tell her about the time I 3D printed a piece for an earlier costume slightly too small and didn’t realize until I was already wearing it, four hours into a con day, and had to walk around for the rest of the afternoon essentially vacuum-sealed into half my own armor.
By the time we reach the hotel lobby, I’ve learned that she once stood in line for six hours to meet a voice actor and it was, unequivocally, worth it.
She’s learned that I built my first website at thirteen because I wanted to track which Star Wars Lego sets were going out of production, and that it is, to this day, the single most useful skill I ever taught myself completely by accident.
We stop at the elevator bank. The lobby’s mostly quiet this late, just a couple of late-arriving con-goers dragging suitcases toward the front desk, the soft hum of fluorescent lights providing the soundtrack.
“This is the part,” Juniper says, “where I say goodnight and go up to my room and you go up to yours, and we both pretend that’s a totally normal, reasonable thing for conspirators to do.”
“Is it? Normal and reasonable?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never run a covert op before.”
“Same. First time for both of us.”
She looks up at me, the elevator doors chiming open behind her, neither of us moving toward them.
“Can I kiss you goodnight?” I ask. “Properly. Not an ambush this time. Asking first, like a person with manners.”
Something in her face goes soft. “You’re asking.”
“I’m asking.”
“That’s very considerate of you.”
“When I’m not rescuing damsels, I do try to be well-mannered.”
“Yes,” she says. “You can kiss me goodnight.”
So with the two of us standing in the hotel lobby at the end of a day neither of us planned, I kiss her.
I cup her cheek and lean in, brushing my lips against hers.
Just a whisper of a kiss. Once, twice and then I pull her closer and deepen the kiss.
Our tongues touch and I groan into her mouth.
I want to put my hands on her plump ass and pick her up.
Brace her against me. Press her against a wall and devour her mouth.
One of her hands is around the back of my neck, the other against my chest, fingers digging into my shirt.
I force myself to pull back, resting my forehead on hers.
“I don’t want to stop kissing you, but I also don’t want to maul you in the hotel lobby. You deserve more than that.”
I feel her smile. “I don’t really want you to stop kissing me.”
When we finally pull back, she’s smiling in a way that makes my heart thump loudly. This woman is truly special. Everything inside me is screaming at me to recognize that. To not let this moment pass.
The elevator doors open and we step inside. We’re alone so I take the opportunity to ask her a question.
“Breakfast?” I suggest.
Her brows raise a little. “Okay, but fair warning, I’m an early riser. And I like to get there before the floor gets too packed.”
I point at myself. “I grew up on a ranch, remember. Early mornings are my thing. So I’ll be there.”
“You better be. I have a reputation to maintain as someone who does not get stood up by conspirators.”
“I would never.” I tuck a strand of hair back from her face, mostly because I want an excuse to touch her again before we go to our separate rooms. “For what it’s worth—I didn’t come to this con expecting to meet anyone.
I had a checklist. Panels, the showcase, the prop auction, three days of being completely myself surrounded by people who get it.
” I tick off each item on a finger, then pause.
I want to choose my next words carefully, because they matter.
“But even if I had planned for it. If I’d mused and considered and come up with the perfect someone to meet…
I don’t think I could’ve imagined you. You exceed any expectations I could conjure. ”
She doesn’t say anything for a second, just looks at me with an expression I can’t fully read, something bright and a little overwhelmed behind it. The elevator dings, stopping on her floor.
“That was a really unfair thing to say to me right before bed,” she says finally, voice slightly unsteady.
I smile. “I’m not going to apologize.”
“You shouldn’t.” She leans up and gives me a brief, chaste kiss. “Goodnight, Leo.”
“Goodnight, Juniper.”
Up in my room, I get exactly as far as taking off my shoes before my phone buzzes.
Henry: How’s the nerd Olympics
Me: Going well. Won gold in several events.
Oliver: Did you find your people?
Me: Several thousand of them. It’s been a good day.
Henry added Payton to the conversation.
Payton: Why am I being added? What’s happening?
Henry: Leo’s at his convention. Checking in.
Payton: Oh good, I have questions.
Payton: Did you wear the cap costume?
Me: Captain America. Yes.
Payton: How many people asked if you were a stripper?
Me: Zero. It’s a respectable costume.
Oliver: Respectable is a generous word for spandex.
Me: It’s a base layer. There’s armor on top of it.
Payton: So a respectable stripper, then?
Me: I’m putting my phone down.
Henry: Wait before you go. anything interesting happen today?
I stare at that message for a second longer than I probably should.
Me: Define interesting.
Oliver: Uh-oh.
Payton: That’s an unequivocal yes.
Me: Yes, as a matter of fact. Something very interesting happened today.
Me: A woman kissed me today. A stranger… well, technically she was Arwen from Lord of the Rings.
Oliver: And she just kissed you?
Me: To avoid a guy harassing her. I went along with it.
The three dots appear instantly, all three of them at once, which feels like a bad sign.
Payton: I’m sorry. WHAT.
Oliver: a stranger just. kissed you.
Me: Yes.
Henry: out of nowhere
Me: Out of nowhere. Then I offered to be her decoy boyfriend for the rest of the day in case the guy came back. We’ve been together since.
Payton: Leo!
Payton: Leo this is the plot of a romcom or a movie.
Oliver: This feels like the setup to something Henry would’ve fallen for.
Henry: I did not fall for anything I got legitimately married.
Oliver: So you keep saying.
Henry: To a woman I’ve known most of my life. You want to talk about how you knocked up a stranger the night you met her?
Payton: Come on, guys. Knock it off. I want to know about Leo’s kissing stranger.
I sit on the edge of the hotel bed, phone in hand, watching them spiral without me, which is honestly the most relaxing part of my day so far.
Payton: Is she pretty?
Me: Beautiful. Funny. Smart. So talented. She makes her own costumes by hand.
Me: We had dinner. Pizza. Talked for two hours. I just kissed her goodnight in the lobby.
Henry: Hold up. Leo, you’ve known this woman for only the one day.
Me: I’m aware of the timeline, Henry.
Payton: I don’t care about the timeline I want to know if you’re going to see her again?
Me: Breakfast tomorrow. Then probably the rest of the convention. We’re both here through Sunday.
Oliver: So this is escalating…
Me: It’s a convention, Oliver. It has a clock built in. Things move fast here.
Henry: So the initial kiss. The fake boyfriend routine. Dinner where you talked for two hours and then you kissed her goodnight.
Payton: Don’t forget they made plans for breakfast.
Henry: All suggests that you really like her.
Payton: Are you in LOVE?
Me: It’s day one.
Payton: That’s not a no.
Henry: Oliver fell in a single night.
Oliver: Can we not use my timeline as the benchmark for reckless romantic decisions?
Henry: I’m just providing context.
Oliver: So helpful.
Me: I’m going to bed. Some of us have a panel schedule to keep.
Payton: Wait what’s her name?
I look at that question for a second, feeling something settle warm and certain in my chest before I type it.
Me: Juniper.
Payton: that’s a really pretty name
Payton: Leo and Juniper
Payton: LEO AND JUNIPER
Oliver: Oh no.
Henry: Payton, don’t.
Payton: I’m just saying it has a ring to it.
Payton: Also, how am I the only single one left and y’all still give me a hard time about being overly romantic? You should be writing poems about your wives.
Henry: Gracie would murder me.
Oliver: Cora would laugh.
Payton: We were raised in the same house. With the same parents. I don’t get it.
Me: Goodnight.
Henry: Goodnight. be careful.
Oliver: Send a picture of the costume, I need to see this for myself
Payton: YES!
I send the photo—the one from this morning, full costume, shield raised, taken in the hotel mirror before I left for the floor.
Then I send the one from one of the panels Juniper and I attended.
I’d taking a selfie of us snuggled up against each other and her smile is so pretty, it makes my chest hurt.
I put my phone face-down on the nightstand before the responses can start rolling in. Because right now, I don’t want to think about my cousins. I want to just think about Juniper and what meeting her like this might mean.