49

MY MIND GOES BLANK AGAIN FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS WEEKEND.

"Hellooo. Earth to Agnes Chan," Royce says, smiling down at me.

I blink and snap to attention. "Erm, so, when you say ‘be with me,' do you mean, like, go onstage with you and Amina, or…?"

He laughs huskily, and my innards turn to jelly. "Girlfriend-boyfriend business, Agnes. And to the performing-as-an-opening-act part."

"Oh, in that case, yes. Yes! Yes to both!"

Royce's eyes sparkle. "I was a little worried you'd say no to one or both options. That all the plans I had for our hot couple summer together before college starts would be over before they even began." He makes a face. "Well, hot throuple summer, I guess. Since I'm stuck with Jit."

"I'm right here," Jit mutters suddenly from the shadows, making me jump. Man, he's good at his job.

"Jit, you know what I mean," Royce says with a playful jab.

"But how will this work?" I wonder.

"We can get into the specifics later," he says in a low voice, pulling me close to him. Jit sighs and mutters that he has to go outside and check the weather or traffic, something, something.

I wriggle free. "Before we do this, I should…I should thank Vern for, you know, what he did for me, vis-à-vis Amina."

"Yeah, sure. Do what you need to."

I leave to speak to Vern and am halfway across the crowded room when I see a scruffy bearded man walk up to Royce with intent. I whip around, paranoia shoots through me. I shoulder my way through a protesting crowd. Where's Jit when you need him?

"Royce," I shout in warning, a few steps behind the man. But the closer I get, the more I realize I've seen his face before. Wait, is that—

"Royce," the man says just as Royce utters a strangled cry of recognition and embraces him: "Rayford!"

It's Rayford Taslim.

It falls into place then. Ray Lim. I'd never asked Royce why he'd chosen that particular moniker. Royce had been trying to honor his brother, to keep his memory close.

The brothers are hugging so tight they have collapsed into each other, tearful and laughing.

"I'm proud of you," Ray says. "You were so good out there."

"Thank you," Royce is saying in a muffled voice. "I wasn't expecting you to…I mean I had a feeling you might be in New York, but…"

Someone walks up to the brothers and taps Ray on the shoulder. The brothers break apart with shy smiles.

"Royce, this is Alexis," Ray says, wiping his eyes. "My…friend."

Royce is beaming so hard. "Hi, Alexis."

"Hi," Alexis says. "Your brother has been following your career this whole time, and he wouldn't shut up about you. I'm so glad we managed to catch you in town. He rescheduled, like, five private life coaching sessions to be in New York."

"When the Google Alert came in, I acted fast,"Ray says.

Royce motions me over. "This is Agnes. My, erm, friend, too." He leans over and whispers at length in Ray's ear, to which Ray says, "Nice."

I'm still staring at Ray because something still isn't quite adding up. "I know you, though."

He cocks his head as he contemplates me. "You do?"

"Yeah. Do you play CF?"

"Doesn't everyone," Ray says.

"You're NerdWolf," I say with satisfaction. "I knew I'd seen your face before. You look just like your profile pic. I'm LilFlashes!"

He snaps his fingers. "The LilFlashes? What? That's mind-blowing, what are the odds?" We shake hands, grinning. "Although I do have a confession to make: There's a selfish reason why I hung around on the same team for so long—even if you're an absolute terror in the game."

"Oh yeah?"

"I figured out somewhere along the way that you were Royce's schoolmate. You would go on and on about this poncy, jock-face, obnoxious bag of air." He turns to Royce, apologetic. "She even had a special nickname for you on the days you particularly annoyed her, just after her accident."

"What was it?" Royce asks casually and I have to avert my eyes.

"Roycey the Poncy." Ray clears his throat. "And I figured it had to be you, since there aren't exactly many rich teenage athletes named Royce running around in your part of the world."

"That was before I got to know you," I assure Royce through a strangled voice. "Only some of those nicknames apply now. When you're chatting in game, emotions tend to run wilder, you understand."

Ray is smiling, but his eyes grow serious. "I'm glad you were so vocal. It was the only way I could get news about my pompous, snooty brother."

"Er, thanks?" Royce says.

Ray slings his arm around me and tells Royce, "Anyway, I wouldn't get on this one's bad side, ever. Now, what should we all do tonight?"

Royce glances at Ray. "The thing is, well…Agnes and I kind of…have plans for tonight." Royce gives me a meaningful look and I burn red. The memory of our first kiss is a core memory.

"Oh…right!" Ray says, quickly catching on. "Of course—no problem! How about tomorrow, instead?"

Royce nods. "Done. But there are some, um, logistics we'll need to maneuver around before that happens. Like an NDA." He nods at Jit, who has just returned from giving me and Royce privacy and is now glaring at Ray as though Ray's Pennywise the clown's ugly twin. Royce stage-whispers, "The thing is, Jit has never seen Ray Taslim in the flesh before."

We all laugh as Jit's face blanches. Poor guy, how much more could he take?

"So, we're on for tomorrow afternoon?" Alexis says. Everyone nods. "What shall we do?"

"If nobody has better plans, I'd very much like to have a brunch bagel at Russ and Daughters, then Nathan's Famous hot dogs, then Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery for dessert, followed by a visit to the Frick Collection, please," I chime in brightly, having recovered from the embarrassment just in time.

"But Nathan's is over in Brooklyn—" begins Alexis.

"Well then, I'll settle for just the bagel and the cupcakes please, and maybe the Frick." In this respect, nobody could argue that I didn't know my priorities. Then Royce excuses us and pulls me to a quiet corner of the room.

Neither of us break eye contact.

"So, Agnes Chan."

"So, Royce Taslim."

He encircles his arms around my waist. "I'm going to kiss you now, if that's fine by you?"

"You better," I whisper.

He bends his head and presses the lightest kiss on my forehead, then the tip of my nose, and I think he's trying to do some butterfly kiss bullcrap on my chin, but I don't let him. I waylay the trajectory of his mouth by putting both hands on his face and bringing it down to mine, hungrily, and then I kiss him like I'm claiming him, which in a way I guess I am.

~

Okay, I'm not going to go into details about what happens next.

Okay, fine, I'm going to give you some details. It goes bow-chicka-WOWWOW.

We give Jit the slip and run to his hotel, hand in hand, laughing, skipping up the stairs because the elevator was busy, three floors like it was nothing, our hearts beating in our throats. He stops in front of his room door, suddenly shy, and I urge him to hurry. He wraps his arms around my waist and brings me close and shuts the door to our room, our kisses frantic and electric, our breaths hot with whispers and need, and he says, "Agnes, Agnes," like it's a mantra, and then I pull him close on top of me and forget about anything else.

I wake up next to him the next morning, my hair tousled, smiling. I'm wearing his shirt and my jean shorts. He's bare-chested and very much a distraction.

"Hey, you," he says.

"Hey, you," I say, faux serious.

He traces my face and my heart. "Hey, you," he says again, bending to drop another kiss on my lips.

We go back and forth like that for a bit.

"Look, we really should brush our teeth and get some breakfast," he says at last, when my stomach growls. He runs his fingers through my hair, and I almost stop him and say, Let's stay, but given that we'd been offline and unreachable for over twelve hours, I guess Jit has to be debriefed, or bribed, or killed.

Just kidding. He's loyal to Royce.

"Let's go," I say, pulling him out of the bed. We dress quickly and head into the chilly sunshine. March in New York is bracing. We grab some takeaway coffee and croissants from a nearby bakery and head back to the hotel.

"I hope Jit isn't too mad," I say.

Unbeknownst to Jit, Royce had taken the opportunity to covertly switch rooms when he'd checked my family in yesterday, so Jit was probably a teensy bit worried by now if he'd heard nothing from Royce and nothing from the connecting room door.

"I told him we needed some alone time and that he shouldn't worry, but yeah, he's probably somewhat pissed."

Royce knocks on the door, and predictably, Jit is in the doorway. He does not look pleased to see us, even though we bear coffee and croissants. Maybe he hates gluten. Or caffeine. Or me.

"Sorry, Jit," Royce says. He points at Jit's mobile phone, which looks crushingly fragile in Jit's muscular hand. "Did you see the texts I sent when we switched rooms? Hope you didn't freak out when you lost us."

Jit's lip twitches and he says, "Well, I tailed you two when you left the venue, all the way back to your room. You two weren't exactly keeping a low profile the entire time, so it was quite easy to follow you. You were in room three-thirteen last night."

Royce grins. "You should get a promotion."

Jit says, "And a raise."

Royce says, "I'll speak to management."

Jit says, "If you go to New York, your parents will probably not send me along. They want someone who's one hundred percent theirs."

"I know," Royce says. "Thanks for yesterday."

Jit nods. "Tell me if you need to…hang…in room three-thirteen a bit. I'll wait in mine."

Royce turns to me and I, him; we're at the stage where a single look is all we need to communicate—and if that failed, he could always read that I was mouthing to him, not very subtly. "I think Agnes is hungry, so we're going to head out. We're probably going to explore the city, see the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, eat some local food—"

"Kimchi tacos! Absolute Bagels! Levain Bakery!" I blurt; I'd been making a list for some time now.

"And watch some comedy later at the Comedy Cellar. And maybe some jazz after that."

"Wanna come?" I say to Jit.

Something like a smile creases Jit's face. "Okay." He doesn't really have a choice, but I know, as well as anyone else, that it's nice to feel wanted.

~

So here's what will happen, if all goes well:

July is when Amina starts touring, which means Royce and I will have a few months to polish up our half-hour sets in time for our official debut in Singapore. We'll hang with our families and plan our next moves for September, when Royce will move to New York City and I'll go to Rhode Island on scholarship, while (hopefully) working part-time on campus and online (somehow, I've become a legit micro influencer on social media, thanks to the JOGGCo exposure).

Amina has promised me and Royce that if we do well on her Singapore show, there might be future opportunities to open for her when she performs in smaller venues in New York City later this fall, when she'll try out new material in preparation for her tour next year. Royce and I will visit each other (or rather, he'll do most of the visiting, because he can afford it) as much as we can, and I'll learn to be comfortable being tailed by a skulking figure in black.

I'll start trying to run again, non-competitively.

I'll learn to appreciate tolerate the cold.

My mom, dad, Rosie, and my little sister Yina (who'll be a real brat, for sure) will come visit me over winter break, hopefully, and we'll all take a family trip to New Orleans, where Stanley is from. Zee and I have plans to visit each other on each coast.

There are a lot of contingencies in this scenario. A lot of maybes, ifs, and whens. So much can happen between now and September, or after I've gone to college this fall—for example, the purveyor of the fine cartoon undergarments I favor may stop making them in the regulation white I prefer; Royce might develop a habit of interjecting woof or similar or start wearing beanies in earnest—even in summer; I might tire of performing stand-up and stick to writing short stories and novels about the hidden lives of people who look and sound like me. I might start running competitively again, even without surgery, who knows. Or the zombie apocalypse might come in a sudden, sweeping wave of destruction and end us all.

Anything can happen, and that's…perfectly acceptable.

This is The Era of Agnes Chan, and I want to live so much: I want to live so well.