My ears burn like Kade’s thrown a hot spotlight on them, but he’s already jumped to the next thing: kissing Abel in a place I never thought about, the spot where the strong line of his jaw curves up to meet his earlobe. Abel kisses him back like no one else is in the room. When Kade turns his back, his thin t-shirt gives me glimpses of more tattoos I suspect are inversely proportional to intelligence, including a chicken with wings of fire and NO REGRETS spelled out in barbed wire. Bec traps me in this tractor beam of pity that’s deeply unnecessary since I couldn’t care less who Abel’s playing Perfect Boyfriends with, so I cross my eyes at her and grab the laptop again.

Abel’s got the Cadsim fanjournal bookmarked. I hop on to see if Miss Maxima and the rest of them are smacktalking us yet. Abel loves it when they do; he thinks it makes us famous. I still remember when Jimmy Gilver called me a dillhole in third grade, so I’m pretty weirded out when I read: cavegrrl94: DEATH TO BRANDON & ABEL!!!

murklurk:

They will lose this bet. SO HARD.

mrs.j.cadmus:

B & A are pathetic, srsly. love is alien to them.

murklurk:

Yeah, really. Even Sim knows more about it than they do.

Miss Maxima:

Don’t worry, girls. Pride goeth before a fall. In six short weeks their smug jaded mugs will be onscreen, acting out one of our very best Cadsim fics in exquisite detail. I can’t wait to see their stupid lips moving closer‌…‌closer‌…‌

closer

‌…‌

“I want a picture!” says Bec.

I fold down the screen. For a second I think she wants to snap one of Abel and his guy the way you’d photograph a pair of zoo otters who won’t stop doing adorable things, but then she tosses her camera to Kade and they’re pulling me in front of the huge silver fridge, nudging me between Bec and Abel. Kade directs us: action figures in fists, arms around each other. Abel makes big jokey kissy lips next to my face. I stiffen and curse the brain defect that made me say yes when he tempted me with those CastieCon tickets his parents bought and begged me to sign up for six weeks of his company. Personal space invasion. Toast crumbs in the butter. Nonstop matchmaking. Maybe I can ditch him at a rest stop, run off to some mountain village where the yurts are far apart and everyone stays inside whittling and no one cares if you just want to be alone.

Good idea, bud, says Father Mike. You can still stop this.

The camera stops flashing. I shut my eyes. White halos dance in the dark. Abel hooks Plastic Cadmus to the rim of my ear and leans close, whispering in his best space-captain rasp.

“Let’s get started, Tin Man,” he says. “I can’t wait to see how you drive that thing.”

CastieCon #1

Cleveland, Ohio

Chapter Three

“This RV,” Abel declares, “is like, nine months pregnant with awesome.”

I’m up in the cab of the Sunseeker, zoning out to Kings of Convenience and powering the RV down the last strip of highway before Cleveland. Behind me, Abel and Bec are recording our first on-the-road entry. I hope they leave me out of it. I spent three hours in a Pennsylvania truck stop today while Abel tried on stupid hats and fed five hundred quarters into a gumball machine to get a gold plastic medallion with a dollar sign on it, and now I just want to space. I’m Sim in the cockpit of the U.S.S. Starsetter, my default setting switched to NAVIGATE and the sensors in my collarbone blinking red, scanning the skies for hidden dangers.

“Check it out, Casties. There’s a rug shaped like a pinecone and a duck lamp that quacks and I don’t know what’s in these rustic moose-head pillows but they’re really super-comfortable‌…‌Hey, Bran!”

I knock my head against the backrest. “What?”

“Whatcha thinking about up there?”

“Eternal damnation.”

“Hot.” He’s in my face with Bec’s camera now, his white hair teased up and experimented on. He looks like Edward Scissorhands rolled in flour. “You’re so Cadmus when you drive an RV. Look guys, he’s got that nonchalant ‘I-only-need-one-hand-on-the-wheel’ thing‌—‌

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s true! All you need are six inches and a bomber jacket. Ooh, ooh, do the Cadmus line from the pilot, okay? C’mon, I’ll set you up.” He stiffens his back like Sim and puts on some phony robot voice. “Captain, we appear to be veering off course. My navigation sensors indicate‌—‌that’s you, Bran. Say it!”

“Screw your sensors!” I roll my eyes.

“Mm. You’re not quite projecting ‘sexy desperation,’ but we’ll work on it. Hey, tell our fifteen fans where we’re headed.”

“The Robot’s Bookshelf.”

“Guys, we are seconds away from our pre-convention appearance at this sci-fi bookstore where they’re having an essential CastieCon geek gathering and Brandon’s going to talk to a B-O-Y, and‌—‌”

“What?”

“That’s your assignment tonight. You converse in public with a boy. You’ve heard of them, right? They’re like girls, but with penises?”

Father Mike’s going to pepper my subconscious with Leviticus 18 in another second. I turn up the music and Sim myself steady. “Boys do not interest me, Captain.”

“Right. Here, this could be you, are you ready?” He fumbles with his phone and reads off the screen. “Sim felt his steely resolve slowly melt away. He could taste the hot manly tang of the captain’s lips‌—‌”

“Will you quit it?”

“Running his nimble silver tongue over his perfect teeth, he‌—‌Hey!”

I snap his camera shut. Abel blips the Cadsim fic off his phone’s little screen and thunks his boots up on my dashboard, grinning. His cheek is smudged with powdered sugar and Plastic Cadmus chins the rim of his jeans pocket, as if there are crumbs and sticky change in there and he’s desperate to escape.

“Donut hole?” We stop at a red light. He wags the bag from the Donut Hut in Clarion. “You know you want one.”

“No thanks.” I smell cinnamon. My mouth waters. “Why do you have to read that fic out loud?”

“Um, because it’s hilarious?”

“Huh-uh. There’s some deeper neurosis here.”

“I love it, actually. It speaks to me.”

“I knew it.”

“Well, who doesn’t love a good mpreg?”

“A what?”

“Sim gets man-pregnant? Gives birth to twins during a tornado?”

“I’ll pretend I never heard that.”

“Here, I’ll read you the wedding one‌—‌”

“NO.”

“But Xaarg’s the minister!”

“I will end you.”

“Where’s your sense of humor?”

“Zander took it.”

He chugs some root beer and summons a massive belch. “You know what?” A smaller belch follows. “You could learn a lot from this android-learns-to-love fic.”

“I’ve already loved. He dumped me for a‌—‌”

“‌—‌bartender, and he was pre-med, and he read Ulysses for fun and caught salmon with his bare hands and played basketball with albino orphans‌—‌”

“You’re just jealous ‘cause your boyfriend works at Sub Shack.”

“He’s a sandwich technician. And at least he’s present tense.”

“Whatever.” I craft an expert left-hand turn. “I’m not talking to a guy tonight.”

“Why?”

“I just‌…‌need more time.”

“Brandon. This is dire. Don’t hold out for Mr. Candlelight Romance.” His cheeks bulge with donut. “You wait too long and soon you’ll be seventy-five and you’ll live all alone in a sad fourth-floor walkup that reeks of loneliness and takeout chow mein, and then you’ll wish you listened to me.”