Last week, while April was at work, he’d logged on to the Lavineas server in invisible mode and spotted her announcement from the night before. At long last, Unapologetic Lavinia Stan had told everyone she was also the Lavinia fan dating Marcus, and he was honestly surprised the entire internet contained enough bandwidth for all the squeeing that had occurred.
This means you’re going to the con, right? RIGHT??? TopMeAeneas had asked, once the furor had somewhat subsided. WE NEED TO GET TOGETHER! OMG, WE HAVE TO! LAVINEAS POWERS, ACTIVATE!
Millions of crying-face and heart-eyes emojis later, arrangements had been made.
But he wasn’t supposed to know about those plans, at least not in detail. Even though he did, and even though he would have given last year’s paycheck from Gates to join them as Book!AeneasWouldNever.
He was still writing, and Alex was still beta-reading the stories, and Marcus was still posting them under his new pen name, AeneasLovesLavinia. So far, though, they hadn’t received much traction, which was understandable but disheartening. And it was inexpressibly lonely to loiter outside the community he’d helped found, looking in.
April was worth it, though. A million times over.
“Sunday morning, we’re all meeting for breakfast. I may visit the vendors with TopMeAeneas afterward, unless one of the panels looks particularly enticing.” Flipping on her turn signal, April exited the highway and decelerated down the ramp. “We’re almost there now. Five more minutes.”
Her fingers weren’t drumming against the steering wheel anymore. Instead, they were gripping the leather so tightly, her knuckles had turned white and knobby.
Somehow, the sudden silence was even worse than that anxious chatter. Her lips were a thin, pinched line, her cheeks pale, her chin truculent and upturned.
Unexpected rage licked a trail of fire up his spine.
He wasn’t going to make April talk about a subject that obviously upset her, but he could act on her distress anyway.
Her father wasn’t getting anywhere near her. Marcus would make fucking sure of that.
He hoped Brent Whittier had a stick or a chew toy available, because the Well-Groomed Golden Retriever had come to play.
Lavineas Server
Thread: So, FYI, I’m That Woman
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: And by that, I mean: On Twitter, I use the handle @Lavineas5Ever. Which, as you may recall, is also the handle used by the fan Marcus Caster-Rupp asked out on a date. Which makes sense, since I’m that fan.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Yes, he’s wonderful and makes me very happy, and no, I can’t tell you much more than that. But I wanted you to know. So now you do!
TopMeAeneas: OH MY SWEET JESUS!!!
LavineasOTP: Holy shit
LavineasOTP: Hooooooly shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit
Mrs. Pius Aeneas: This is the day foretold by our elders. The day a Lavineas fan got to touch MCR’s jawline and find out if it will, in fact, cut your fingers with its sharpness!
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: No stitches yet. No promises for the future, however.
TopMeAeneas: THIS IS WHY AENEAS IN YOUR FICS IS WADE’S AENEAS NOW
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Yeah. I didn’t want to write a man with my boyfriend’s face and body getting it on with another woman. Even Lavinia. I’m selfish like that. :-)
LaviniaIsMyGoddessAndSavior: YOU HAVE TO TELL US
LaviniaIsMyGoddessAndSavior: DOES HE REALLY SMELL LIKE MUSK AND CLEAN SWEAT AND MAN
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Kind of? Especially after he works out?
TopMeAeneas: [legs-spread, crotch-up gif]
23
THE NIGHT BEFORE SHE VISITED HER PARENTS FOR THE first time in a year, April had lain sprawled and wakeful next to Marcus, determined to reach some sort of verdict.
Sometime after two in the morning, clarity had arrived.
When it came to her mother, the land beneath her feet was contaminated. She could either continue living with a soil cap, a thin veneer of pleasantness over profound damage, or dig out the problem.
The process wouldn’t be easy. It would cost her, maybe more than she realized.
Then again, she’d never been much interested in surfaces.
It was time to dig and dispose.
Luckily, she’d thought before finally, gratefully falling asleep, I’ll have Marcus by my side. Holding my hand. Reminding me, when I forget, that I’m not the contaminant. Even if my parents wouldn’t agree.
Only she’d been wrong. Completely, humiliatingly, gut-churningly wrong.
Marcus wasn’t by her side, not even for a minute. He wasn’t holding her hand.
Instead, he was chatting with her father at the opposite side of the open-plan first floor. Laughing. Sharing workout and nutrition tips, some of which Brent repeated to the house at large, his tone genial enough that outsiders wouldn’t understand just how pointed his commentary was, and whose flesh those verbal arrows were intended to pierce.
Marcus’s support and affection had never faltered before, and she’d counted on both as a bolster today. More than that, she’d relied on them as proof, to her parents and herself, that everything they believed, everything she’d been told for eighteen years, was wrong.
Marcus’s fingers intertwined with hers, the way he beamed at her, would announce her triumph more clearly and loudly than words.
I’m fat, and he wants me.
I’m fat, and he doesn’t need me to change.
I’m fat, and he’s proud of me.
Now she was just another big girl the hot dude didn’t want near him, at least not in public. Which was precisely what her parents expected, and what her mother had warned her to expect too, in all those concerned phone calls April had stopped answering.
Honestly, she didn’t give much of a fuck about what her father thought or believed, not anymore. But when she’d pictured this conversation with her mother, she’d imagined Marcus nearby, his proximity a silent reminder that she was desired and appreciated, that her happiness was worth painful conversations and setting hard boundaries.
Instead, she was doing it alone, because of course she was.
Of course.
As the two women had set the table, her mother had already whispered of her unease, brows puckered over warm brown eyes. “Are you certain this isn’t a publicity stunt, sweetheart? It just seems so . . . unlikely.”
That anxiety was real. So was the love in that familiar gaze.
They only made her words sting more. When April had defended the genuineness of her relationship with Marcus, her mother’s unstated but clear disbelief stung too.
Now, as they put the final touches on their celebratory gourmet spa lunch, as her mother called it, the two of them were treading yet more of that same contaminated ground.
“I saw a few pictures in the tabloids.” JoAnn checked the doneness of the pan-roasted salmon, then transferred the fillets to a platter. “I’ll send you some links for foundation garments. They’ll smooth things out a bit, so you’ll feel more comfortable when the paparazzi take candid shots.”
“Foundation garments have literally never made me feel more comfortable,” April replied, trying to keep her tone wry rather than bitter. “Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.”
Her mother laughed. “You know what I mean.”
Oh, April did know. Physical comfort meant nothing, if discomfort would help deter the censure of loved ones and strangers alike. JoAnn had learned that the hard way.