“So he likes showing off?”
“He likes showing off to me.” He smiled. It was wistful. “He’s obsessed with Gregorian chants. If I tell him I like a song, even casually in passing, I know I’ll get a text with audio of him covering it as a Gregorian chant. Cool party trick.”
Curious now, I asked, “Do you sing?”
That same smirk crossed his face. “Oh, yeah. Except no one wants to hear me sing. Even Joey—Deacon Jameson. He kept trying to suggest I do something that was for ‘the less musically inclined.’ But if I did that, that’d mean I’d never get to see him.”
“So what’d you do?”
“Obviously I signed up for every single music class he was involved in.”
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. “You did not.”
“Swear, I did!” Dima pressed his hand over his heart, laughing hard. “He got me back once he realized I was trolling him. He told me I was the first chair for the triangle.”
“No way.”
“Swear to God.”
“First chair too? Out of how many people?”
“That’s the best part. It was only me.” Dima’s face lit up. “I decided to do a mean-ass solo once. He cut me off partway through and announced to the class that I was permanently demoted to wood block.”
I couldn’t help it. I howled laughing. My sides ached as I gasped for breath. “What—what could you do in a band with—with that?”
“Absolutely nothing. Clergy members seriously are the best trolls ever.” He returned to the bed, dropping onto it. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be . . . I shouldn’t gush.”
“It’s fine,” I said. And that was true. It was actually pretty nice hearing someone talk about being in love and that love being healthy. Aside from the fact that both parties involved considered that love a sin. “So you two—has it been going on for a while?”
“Depends on what you mean by a while.” He flopped onto his back. “He actually transferred me out of his classes last year because he said we were too close. Forced me to take different electives. I didn’t want to, but he told me to look him in the eye and tell him if I truly wanted to be a musician. I couldn’t lie to him, so I just reminded him the legal age of consent here is sixteen. Obviously that didn’t help my case. And it’s not like he was wrong. It was tough to be alone with him. Every little touch was electrifying.”
I shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “Did he try anything?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“You said touch.”
“Oh, God, no. Not like that. Like bumping into each other, or him pointing to my sheet music when my hand was right there.” He laughed bitterly. “I asked him for a kiss on my eighteenth birthday. He said no. Who does that? Denying my birthday kiss, phsh.”
My heart pounded, the pulse throbbing in my ears, hard and loud. Like the drumming of thunder.
It’s just a kiss . . .
“Then in the park—I don’t know how it started.”
It just . . . happened.
“Which is weird when I think about it. How do you not remember something so intimate?”
We were walking . . . weren’t we?
“I mean, I’ve only ever kissed three other people but I remember all those first kisses. What was said, what was worn. With him? I can’t remember how it started. It really bugs me.”
His mouth was warm . . . so warm.
Dima flushed. “That makes no sense, probably. Anything like that ever happen to you?”
His fingers were cold . . .
My stomach turned. I couldn’t speak but nodded.
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask, please don’t ask . . .
“Okay, that’s a relief,” Dima said.
He didn’t ask. That was a relief.
“Confession really sucked,” Dima said, continuing without a breath. “Your uncle wanted me to say who. I didn’t. God’s not going to be happy with me for that one.”
“Maybe that’s God’s problem and not yours,” I said.
“I don’t think that’s how it works.” He sighed. “Maybe it would help to have something else to focus on besides my sins. What do you think?”
I forced myself to look at Dima. Really look. He was seeking something from me. I wasn’t sure what.
“Maybe we could go to a con,” Dima said. “Like you and me. I’ve always wanted to go to one.”
Danger.
Dima sat upright and pulled out his phone. Before I could wrap my mind around the hairpin turn this conversation had taken, he was searching away. “Looks like there are a few next weekend . . .”
“No,” I said, surprised at how harsh the word came out. I cleared my throat. I knew exactly which one was this weekend. Seeing the perplexed look on his face, I said, “I can’t go to Ureshii-con. Personal reason.”
“Ureshii-con?” He raised his eyebrow, glancing at his phone then back at me. “That’s like five hours from here.”
“So?”
“Why would anyone drive five hours to a convention?”
It took a moment to recollect myself. Right. He’d never been to a convention. He’d never cosplayed. There was no way for him to know. Did that mean that he didn’t have many friends? That was hard to imagine since he was so gregarious, ludicrously attractive, and funny.
“That’s . . . literally what all of us do,” I said gently. “I mean did.”
“. . . drive five hours . . . to go to a convention?”
“Yup.”
“But why?”
“We just . . . do.” A wave of embarrassment washed over me, as well as the need to defend myself. “We see friends there. There are panels, viewings, a dealer’s room and artist alley. Usually my friends and I would just hang out in cosplay. Sometimes we’d roleplay and call each other by our character names the entire weekend.”
“Sorry, I missed all of that because I still can’t get over the five-hour drive part,” he admitted. “Five hours, seriously? Then you’d need a hotel and all of these other expenses.”
“I told you, it wasn’t cheap.”
“Like making a costume. That I get because you have something to keep. Like how much is fabric anyway?”
“Depends on what you’re making.”
“Okay, so . . .” He got up and walked to my closet, making himself at home yet again.
“Dima, come on—”
He rummaged through the packed collection before pulling out one of my cosplays for Jay from Synthetica. My blood went cold.
Not that one. Any costume except that.
My chest was tight, pulse so strong it throbbed in my neck as I eyed the torn white shirt, bandage-wrapped pants, and harness with mechanical wings. Why hadn’t I put it up for sale on my store? Why had I kept it?
“So like, how much would something like this cost?”
I couldn’t speak.
He ran his hand over the costume. My esophagus tightened. Stop. He traced and studied each seam, like he was trying to figure out the mechanics. Stop. His hand moved to the harness, to the broken wings.
“Like this can’t be one of those ones you see online for ninety bucks, right?”