“What for?”

He whispers in my ear, even though no one else is in the room.

“Oh no. No no. We can’t.”

“It’ll be epic.”

“They’ll die.”

He slips the shirt over my head and kisses my nose.

“In a good way,” he says. “Trust me.”

***

He turns the camera on.

“’Morning, Casties. It is now‌…‌five a.m., Pacific time, and Brandon and I can’t sleep. We have a very important announcement that will be of great interest to quite a few‌…‌”

He keeps talking. I barely hear a word; I’m just watching his lips move, mystified that I kissed them and can do it again whenever I want.

“‌…‌so first of all, to Miss Maxie and the rest of the Cadsim girls: We’d like to call a truce with you. It deeply, deeply pains us to admit this, especially since we’ve seen better writers in the 7th Heaven archive on fanfic.net, but whatever: Cadsim is kiiiind of hot. Okay? We said it. So I guess we’re all playing on the same team now. Miss Max, we know you’re going to be at the next con in Salt Lake City, so we’d like to invite you to ask the cave scene question at the Della Wolfe-Williams Q&A, presuming you still want to know the answer. And in the interest of burying the hatchet, we’d like to invite you to lunch with us after.”

He elbows me.

“Definitely,” I say.

“Long as you don’t expect us to rec your fanfic or anything. Which brings us to our second purpose‌—‌right, Brandon?”

“Uh‌…‌I guess.”

“Don’t chicken out. Look right into the camera and say hi to the Church of Abandon‌—‌oh, right, ladies. We know about you. We have for a few weeks, and we’d like to inform you that you’re living every real-person-shipper’s dream: your fanfic totally brought us together last night.”

He’s spreading it on so thick. I pull the sheet over my head.

“It’s true!” Abel pokes me. “As of 9:48 this evening, Brandon and I are officially Doing It. Ladies, our love lives were ready to stall out, but you inspired us to unprecedented heights of passion with all your wackadoodle sex melodramas and extraneous adjectives.” He yanks the sheet off me and he looks so adorable with his mussy sex hair that I have to laugh. “Bran. What do you say to our freako fairy godmothers out there?

I shut my eyes. “Thanks guys.”

Abel tugs off his ABANDON shirt. “We’re going back to bed now.”

He switches off the camera and tackles me, laughing, and I can’t believe we said that and did that and there’s no way in hell we’re posting it on Screw Your Sensors. But then he leaves a trail of soft electric kisses down my chest and slips my boxers down again, and by the time he’s done I wouldn’t care if Xaarg himself poofed into the room and challenged us to a life-or-death game of WordWhap.

I lay there sweaty under the sheet, trying to catch my breath. Abel crawls over to the laptop and uploads the vid. He rubs his hands together and grins, which is supposed to be cute but gives me a sinister chill.

Twenty minutes later, while we’re molding Plastic Cadmus and Plastic Sim into X-rated positions and crafting an impromptu photo essay, we get a direct message from our former enemy at the Cadsim fanjournal: Miss Maxima: laughing so hard I legit peed a little. YES. I will meet up with you lovebirds for lunch in Salt Lake. I’ll even buy. See you then, boys.

You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to it.

CastieCon #5

Salt Lake City, Utah

Chapter Twenty

I want to make a sweater out of this week and wrap myself up in it until it falls apart.

If someone made an Abandon fanvid of the road between Long Beach and Salt Lake City, collaging our good times to a chirpy pop-country song, this is what it would be like:

Scene 1: Vegas. We score last-minute tickets to a cheesy jukebox musical with all 80s pop songs. Abel holds my hand and hums along as guys twirl in neon tanks and acid-washed jeans. We make out shamelessly at the end of the big “Don’t Stop Believin’” number and I pretend we’re in a movie and all the clapping is for us.

Scene 2: Afternoon hike in Fishlake National Forest. I impress Abel with my arcane Boy Scout tree expertise and he makes a ring for me from a twist of sneezeweed stems. We dorkily reenact the cave scene with Plastic Sim, Plastic Cadmus, and an improvised shanty of slate rocks.

Scene 3: A kiss in the rain. A good montage has to have one. On a campground picnic table, wearing stick-on mustaches from a truck stop.

Scene 4: Bill & Ray’s RV Repairs. Dad found these guys online and prearranged a complete checkup, “just to be safe.” While they’re inspecting the brakes and fixing the busted windshield wiper, Abel and I go around back to watch a rose-and-orange sunset sprawl above Pleasant Grove, Utah, the kind of happy train-set town with rodeos and Heritage Festivals every five minutes. I sit on a rusted riding mower with my guitar and strum his favorite Madonna song (”Like A Prayer”), and I swear these two birds soar over poetically at that very second, settling together in the scrubby grass to feast on a discarded Honey Bun.

It’s Friday now, one day from CastieCon #5. The Sunseeker’s whipping down I-15; we’ll be at our campground near Salt Lake within a few hours. Bec drives with her hair in pigtails and the Futureheads on the speakers; Abel and I sit crosslegged on the bed in the tiny back room. We’re wearing matching white baseball caps that say I GOT LUCKY IN VEGAS in glitter, and beside us on two paper plates are remnants of the world’s unhealthiest lunch: leftover truck stop biscuits and gravy, plus a fried-egg-and-cheese scramble with onions and tomatoes from a roadside stand near Victorville. There’s tomato juice on my Castaway Planet shirt and Utah dirt under my fingernails. I’ve never been happier in my entire life.

He takes a deep breath. “Should we do it?”

“Now?”

“It’s been so long.”

“Three days.”

“Okay. You first.”

“No, together.”

“On three. One, two‌…‌”

We whip out our phones. The no-media rule Abel thought up was great in terms of first-boyfriend-bonding, but it’s Day 3 already and our fingers have been itching since Vegas. 72 hours without email or Facebook, not to mention the Cadsim fanjournal, the Church of Abandon, or the newsfeed at the main Castaway site, is kind of like seeing how long you can go without peeing or using the letter A.

“Susannah’s in Tucson with my mom,” Abel reports. “Just did her twentieth book signing. She tweets ‘i miss u, have fun u should kiss brandon.’”

“Aw. Tell her you are, right now.” I lean over and give him a peck. “Okay, new rumor: Sim might have an evil clone next season? Whaaat?”

“Not true. Darras debunked it last night, apparently.”

“When?”

“Twitter party.”

“Thank God‌…‌Oh, damn. Got a college orientation email.”

“Begone. We’re not thinking about that.” Abel waves it away. “Ahhh, retro robot. How I’ve missed you‌…‌”

Great. Four emails from my parents. I click one.

Hi Sweetie,

We haven’t heard from you since Sun. nite – tried calling you twice today but your phone was off. PLEASE make sure you call us tonite!! You know how we worry. Are you and Becky having fun? Hope you’re really getting a chance to enjoy your alone time together, you 2 are so good for each other. Dad says to tell you, you can take her out for a special dinner anywhere you want. It would be our treat.