Chapter 4
Ipicked at the edge of the convention pass that was clipped to my lanyard.
Talent
It said under my name, almost mocking me.
I attempted to adjust my posture.
Sat back.
Then forward again.
No one was coming to my table.
Again.
This wasn’t new.
I wasn’t new.
The last big movie I’d done had come out like…
eight years ago, and even then, my face had been on screen for maybe twenty cumulative minutes, mostly in soft lighting and sex scenes.
There wasn’t much I was known for these days except an infamous exit interview and an extremely short, wildly messy marriage to a woman who now played someone else’s mom on Netflix.
I signed a photo for a kid in a wrinkled cosplay cape. Thanked the mom. Smiled politely.
I sat behind the folding table, absently tapping a pen against a stack of glossy photos. The room buzzed with excited chatter, but my corner of the convention hall felt like a forgotten waiting room.
Superstar McGee and Princess Ms. Blonde were pulling in the crowds; I was just background noise.
Even my fucking handler had popped out to get an autograph or two.
It was then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement — sharp, deliberate. She strode in with a confidence that made the fluorescent lights seem softer somehow.
Juniper Haddock.
Not a shadow of her bar-side stumble, but a woman who knew exactly who she was. The little spark of defiance in her eyes was unmistakable.
She stopped in front of my table, a small smirk tugging at her lips. “God,” she said, voice low enough to make me lean in, “this is kind of sad.”
Stupidly, idiotically, moronically, I couldn’t find my voice. My eyes moved of their own accord until I saw my face… well, my twenty-year-old face, plastered across her chest.
Fuck.
I had never been turned on by my own face before, but the way it stretched across her… It was doing something to me.
My throat went dry, the quiet hum of the convention fading behind the sudden pounding in my chest.
Her eyes locked on mine, daring me to say something — anything. But all I could think about was how absurd it was to be undone by a reflection, by the ghost of who I used to be, stretched — tight — across her body like some cruel joke.
And yet, at that moment, I didn’t want the joke to end.
“You there?” She asked, her head tilting as her eyes narrowed. She had two cups in her hands, one arm extended out to me. “Want some shitty convention center coffee?”
I nodded, tongue still thick in my mouth as I took the drink. “Want to sit?” I offered once I could speak, gesturing at the chair next to me.
“Oh, no thanks. I’m hoping I can grab an autograph from the voice of Toothy over there before he goes to lunch.” When I met her eyes again, a wide grin stretched across her face, a sparkle in her eyes that just might be addictive, if one let it.
She stepped around the table, looking all too at home in the folding chair next to me. “Have you been busy today?”
I shook my head, still trying to wrap my head around this girl — woman — sitting next to me. “What are you doing here?”
Her grin didn’t disappear. “I had the day off, had some free time, thought I’d cast a wide net at my local comic con and see what sort of trouble I could get into.” She winked, taking a sip of her coffee. “And then, I saw your pitiful table and felt bad… enter stale coffee.”
Juniper laughed at her own joke — which really only tugged harder on my heart — before snatching one of my old headshots from in front of us. “How much for this?”
“Just take it,” I mumbled — waving a hand in embarrassment. “My poor mom has at least five boxes of them.”
“Oh my god, is Ansel fucking Barlowe a mama’s boy?” She giggled, her freckles scrunched together on top of her nose.
I pulled my hand through my hair, leaning back in my chair again as my eyes rolled.
“What’s the worst fan interaction you’ve had today?”
“Might be this one.”
She laughed, and I’d heard the sound before — but this one… this was different. It wasn’t drunken and forced. It was almost melodic…
Get your head out of your ass, Barlowe.
“Oh, I’m not a fan.” Juniper flipped her hair over her shoulder, doing her best imitation of the blonde at the table near us.
Pointedly, my eyes darted to her shirt, where my face was still stretched across her tits. “Beg to differ, June.”
“Oh, this old thing?” I didn’t miss how her cheeks flushed as she tugged on the bottom of it. “Had to make a statement. Thought maybe I could get in a couple of fights today.”
“Did you buy a ticket hoping to get into a fight?”
She shrugged, taking another sip of her drink. “Since you mentioned it… I wouldn’t be against it. Someone’s got to stand up for poor Eryk Moonstrider.”
I turned fully in my chair to face her. “And that’s you?”
“Oh, Ansel Barlowe, that’s always been me. Your movies were my favorite of all the Battle for the Cosmos series.”
“Now you’re just lying.” But my lips tugged upwards.
“Would I own a shirt of you in red leather pants if I were lying?”
“You had that before…?”
“Before I drunkenly told you my sob story and embarrassingly confessed that my husband — sorry, ex-husband — had approved you as my ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card?” She threw her head back and laughed again. “Yes. You’re not that charming.”
I opened my mouth to speak again, but a voice interrupted me, one I would have paid never to hear again. “Oh, Ansey,” she stood in front of my table, a fake pout on her face. “Your table is so bare.”
Giulia Michaels.
An ex.
I grunted my response with a shrug, arms crossing over my chest. “You were never this… far away from the central hub when we were together, dear.”
We’d only dated for a year, and my table had seemed closer to the commotion while we were dating…
Correlation and causation and shit, right?
“It must be lonely down here. Just you and your… enthusiastic handler.” She nodded towards Juniper with an almost pitying stare. Then, in her worst stage whisper, “You know, you can fire them for being unprofessional, right?”
“She’s not my handler—”
“I’m not his handler—” We spoke in tandem, and when I turned, she was grinning again.
The stupidest idea popped into my head.
Surely she’d…
“We’ve been dating for about three months now, Junie and I,” I said as I slung my arm over her shoulder.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
A little bit of shame rose in me as she flinched under my sudden touch, but was quickly replaced with a warm feeling in my stomach as she melted against my side.
Her fingers came up to my face, curling in my sad excuse of a beard.
“Oh… is she talking about this?” She looked down at her shirt with a wide grin.
“It’s my ‘Cosmic Leather Reckoning’ shirt.
Rare print. eBay classic. I couldn’t help but wear it today.
” She giggled again, practically crooning. “It drives Anse crazy.”
I tried to keep my mouth shut as she just rattled off information about my merchandise.
From decades ago.
“He was so cute in the second movie, right, Jenny?” She was asking Giulia, but her eyes never left me.
“I just remembered — I have a panel.” The other woman was thrown off, unable to dig her claws into my skin this time. “Good luck with… that.” She turned to leave without another word, but…
I knew better.
“Don’t move,” I whispered, certain that Giulia would still be watching. “I’m so sorry for this,” I breathed. Before consulting my better judgement, I brushed a lock of her wild curls off of her forehead. And before she had time to question, to decline or debate, I pressed my lips to hers.
Soft.
Warm.
Juniper gasped a little under my sudden movements, but her hand stayed on my cheek, the other curling into the button-up I was wearing.
I cupped her neck, dragging my thumb along her jawbone, surprisingly delighted to find tiny pricks of gooseflesh left behind where my touch had been.
Our lips moved together like they already knew the song and dance, like our mouths had spent ages learning for this very moment. It took all of my willpower to pull away from her. To break apart from what might be one of the best kisses I’ve had in a very long time.
Stop that, Barlowe.
“Sorry,” I whispered, leaning my forehead against hers, hand still against her neck. “Sorry.”
Her breath came heavy, eyes opening slowly to meet mine. “That was—”
“Uncalled for, I shouldn’t have done it.”
“I was going to say genius.”
She was smiling again.
Damn her.
“She’ll definitely leave you alone now.”
“Did you call her Jenny?”
“I did!” She laughed, untangling herself from me with another soft smile. “Oh, you so owe me, Ansel Barlowe.”
“I’m sure I’ll think of some way to pay you back, little fish.” With my lips moving close to her ear, my voice dropped as I spoke.
I relished the way her cheeks lit up again, the blood rushing to her face with the laughable nickname I’d written on the napkin a few nights ago.
I really never thought I’d see her again.
But here she was. And for some stupid reason, I wasn’t upset about it.
“A selfie, then.” She just smiled, still flushed. “My friends will never believe that I hung out with the Ansel Barlowe.”
“You might need better friends if they even care.”
“Excuse you. I might be out of fandom, but it hasn’t negated the friends I made because of fandom.” She was scowling, poking me in the chest with that damned finger of hers.
Whipping out her phone, I leaned forward, hands settling on either side of her hips. Her breath hitched, just a little, as we appeared on the screen in front of her. She pressed the camera button once, twice, three times.
“That should do it.”
“One more, I think I blinked.” I shrugged, leaning back in.
When she readied herself, finger hovering over the capture button, I pressed my lips to her cheeks. She gasped, and all I could do was pray that she also captured that moment.