She maneuvered around him, heading back out into the hallway.
“Oracle, lights off. And play Reject Squad Ultra OST, please.”
“Of course, Reggie,” a robotic voice announced from hidden speakers as they entered the living room. The flute-driven intro of the show’s pop-rock theme song piped into the large room. The walls were a creamy orange that reminded Gus of sherbet, accented by a brown leather sofa set and a few low tables in dark wood.
“Just getting us in the mood,” she said, looking up at him.
A huge painting of Aurora and her nemesis, the Evil Queen Briar Rose, hung above the fireplace, which Gus found odd—both the fact that Reggie had a fireplace and the composition of the painting. It was painted to be a replica of the famous painting of Dido Belle and her cousin. Kind of weird. A cardboard cutout of Aurora and Phil in a tender embrace stood in the corner, next to sliding doors that led to a backyard.
“Why do I feel like I’m already in the Reject Squad Ultra escape room?” Gus asked playfully as he handed her the notebook with his plans for the escape room.
“Because I’ve locked all the doors and I’m not letting you leave until you love this show as much as I do,” she said, a slightly maniacal gleam in her eye.
“You said you weren’t an otaku.” Gus followed her through the dining room to the kitchen, done in yellow and ivory to complement the orange of the living room, where she pulled out a cutting board, sharp knife, and salad spinner. She placed them on the one high counter space along the kitchen walls. Everything else was slightly lower to the ground than average, modified to be more accessible from her wheelchair. The design was fantastic—clean lines, open floor space so that she could navigate easily.
“I told you I’m not an otaku. I’ll also turn you into an X-Men, Iron Heart, and Aquicorn Cove stan if given the opportunity. All in due time.” She said this with perfect seriousness and Gus couldn’t help but grin in return.
“Well, I’ll stay without resistance until at least September because I can’t return to my apartment now that I’ve experienced this AC. We can watch and read whatever you want.”
“Exxxxcellent.” There was warmth in her eyes as she looked up at him, and Gus’s chest went a little tight. “First, I read your escape room notes and save your ass.”
She moved into the dining room, pulling her chair in on one side of the table and then poring over his notes. Gus got to work chopping and plating up the vegetables in silence. Every time he glanced into the dining room, her expression was unreadable. Did she think it was total garbage?
He’d noticed that her hands shook during their video chat, and had decided on vegetables that could be easily speared. He cut both the carrots and cucumbers flat and slightly thicker than he usually did, and chopped the lettuce into bite-size pieces so there would be no need to struggle with a whole huge leaf, which he hated too.
The vegetables didn’t actually matter because the dressing was the main attraction. Gus enjoyed cooking—a recipe was just another form of puzzle solving after all. Collecting the right ingredients, mixing them at the exact amount to create something delicious instead of disgusting. This salad dressing was his favorite mainly because the results were almost always replicable and the taste was better than anything he’d had in a restaurant.
He looked at her again to find her mouth twisted to the side as she stared into space.
“That bad?”
She glanced up quickly, her gaze distant at first and then focusing on him. “No! It’s good. I just started thinking about something that might be helpful.”
“You know, I realized that you’ve already helped me a lot with this project,” he said, adding the last bit of garnish to the salad. “Because I was going through the links I’d compiled and the most useful ones were from this site called GirlsWithGlasses. And there’s a little anime avatar that looks an awful lot like you but with short hair.”
She grinned, not sheepishly at all. “So you figured out my secret identity?”
“Yup. And I also figured out that this convention will be pretty big for you, too,” he said. “Your site is huge and seems to be growing by the day. How do you even have the time to help me while dealing with your own stuff?”
“I’m actually always moving slightly faster than the speed of light,” she said. “It looks like I’m shaking unless you have the mutant ability to see things moving this fast. But it also means I can do more than any mere mortal.”
She didn’t look at him, but he could sense that she was attuned to his reaction. Gus didn’t think of the way his brain worked as a disability, but it was classified as one, and he had some idea of what it was like meeting new people and waiting for them to notice that something about him was different.
He carried the large salad bowls to the table, placed his down, and then pulled away a layout schematic that she was looking at. She glared up at him, but then her eyes widened as he placed her bowl down in front of her.
“Mutant powers?” He added a slice from each box of pizza to their respective plates and sat down across from her. “Show-off.”
“I can read minds too.”
“Can you?” He thought about how awkward it would be if she could because he really couldn’t stop thinking about how pretty she was and wondering how her mouth would feel against his, which he shouldn’t be thinking of at all.
“Yes. So watch it.” There was something in her gaze that made him think maybe she did know what he was thinking, and maybe she didn’t mind.
“You didn’t answer how you have time to help me,” he said, trying to get his thoughts back on track.
“I made time because I want my voice recordings.” She narrowed her eyes. “Also, if you mess up the escape room, I’m gonna have to hear from angry fans. And again, I’m not helping. I’m consulting and will be given credit for such, which is good for business.”
She looked at him across the table, expression shrewd as if she was going to say something else. She looked down at the salad instead.
“What you have so far is a good start,” she said, then speared a cucumber drenched in dressing and lifted it to her mouth. Her eyes widened as she chewed, then closed as a dreamy smile spread over her face. “This is so good. Oh my god! Where did you get this dressing? Trader Joe’s?”
“I made it.” Gus grinned before taking a bite of his own salad.
“Okay, permission to stay until September granted,” she said. “Your rent can be paid by keeping me in salad dressing every day. Like, literally. I have a huge bathtub, you can submerge me like Wolverine in a Weapon X facility.”
Gus chewed without responding, in part because he had no idea what the latter words meant, in part because his brain was stuck on bathtub and submerge me. He didn’t need to be imagining Reggie’s body slick with delicious dressing. His brain wasn’t cooperating, though, and the look of pure bliss on her face wasn’t helping.
Bathtub.
Naked.
Lick.
Okay, no one had even said anything about licking, but that image popped into his head and his mind seemed reluctant to part with it. Gus picked up a slice of his pizza and shoved almost half of it into his mouth, needing to do something, anything to keep his thoughts from continuing down their current path—even if that meant possible asphyxiation.