Chapter Thirty

The masochism thing was real. In the next week I somehow managed to tell almost everyone I saw that I was going to drive a ridiculous distance away in order to see someone I'd had no indication at all wanted to see me.

I didn't tell Guy who it was, only that it was someone I might be in love with, but I wasn't sure, and also, was this what it was like to be in love?

He slapped me on the back and congratulated me. "Man, I wish you the very best. If it's meant to be, it'll be." Then he winked. "But a little bit of effort never hurt anyone, right? Go to the Oil Changers on Meecham, and tell them I sent you so they don't try to upsell you on a bunch of crap you don't need."

I didn't plan to tell MBS, but she mentioned possibly switching my schedule with someone, and I low-key panicked, at which point I kind of had to explain that I had A Thing to Do on a random day off in August.

"You know, we value flexibility in our staff, sport."

"I know, sorry, usually I'd be completely flexible—it's just this deal where someone I want to see is potentially only in a place for a short period of time, and I'm afraid if I don't go then, I won't see him at all."

She cocked her head to the side. "Is this a sex thing? No, don't answer that. I don't want to know."

"No! I mean. Not the way you mean. I mean."

"So it's one of those master-slave things you kids are into."

"Oh my god, no, MBS, stop it." The blush was probably making me look like a tomato.

"Hey, I watch the news, I keep up. Did you meet online? I hear that's where everyone meets the masters."

I closed my eyes in horror. "No! Stop trolling me. Also, why don't you assume I'm the master? I could be the master."

"Now, now, everyone knows it's the submissive who does the long drive and the master who has the dungeon." She sighed. "Fine. Clearly you don't have any idea how this works, so I guess you're not going off to meet a master for a BDSM session that ends up on the porn sites, which at first humiliates you and then becomes part of your kinks."

I stared at her with wide eyes. "Holy shit. No. I mean, definitely not, but like ... no, and also, uhh, that's very specific."

MBS shrugged. "Like I said, I watch the news."

"That's not from the news."

This time I got a quirky little smile. "I read a lot. Anyway, you know I wouldn't have said any of that if I thought it was true, right? I know you're just going off to confront Orion Broderick."

I legitimately couldn't speak.

She zipped her lips. "Secret's safe with me, sport. Go back to work." And she walked away, or started to, pausing just long enough to call back, "Good luck!"

"I don't even know what that means!" I called back.

She waved a hand without turning and vanished around a corner.

Sammy, it went without saying, thought this was a fantastic idea: I should "go get [my] man," and if she had the day off she would totally come with me because seriously, this was awesome, and I should let her know if I ever needed a wingwoman.

"It's just like one of those rom-coms!" she exclaimed. "Oh my god, so romantic."

"Uhh, I think it's actually more of a cautionary tale? Like, ‘Don't date anyone who just randomly shows up at your house out of the blue because he might be a guy with no boundaries and significant relationship issues'?"

But she only rolled her eyes. "Sure, if you'd never met and you were fixated on him in a creepy way. But you two are totally in your ‘It's complicated' era, so that changes the rules."

"I'm ... not sure it does, though?"

"Well," she said reasonably, "if you show up and he's like, ‘Get lost, asshole,' what will you do?"

What a horrible, gut-wrenching thought. "Get lost, I guess. Maybe this is a bad idea. I mean, I know it's a bad idea, but maybe I shouldn't—"

"How many times in your life do you think this will happen, Des? For real?"

"What, this? Like me driving for a million hours on the off chance someone I'm not even sure will be at my destination will be glad to see me?"

She spun on her skates. "Yeah, that. How many times do you think that's going to happen?"

"Hopefully never again," I said fervently.

"See? There you go. Obviously it's this moment in your life, and if you don't do it, you'll never know what would have happened if you did." She skated off to help a customer, and I sat there at my usual table thinking about it.

In all likelihood, my car would break down or he wouldn't be there or there would be some other natural disaster. A landslide this time. A flood. An earthquake.

Snow. Surely it could not possibly snow in August , right? Maybe I should add Get snow chains to my mental list. Just in case.

My fairy gaymothers, as I'd begun thinking of Marlo as well as Vix, were both taking a neutral stance on the subject of my trip, which Marlo knew about presumably because MBS told her, and Vix knew about presumably because Marlo knew. At least, I hadn't told either of them.

"Just don't go off and elope," Marlo told me a week before The Big Drive. "The next day's a game day, and I need you at work."

"Okay, one, ew, I'm not eloping , and two, obviously I'll be at work."

She shook her head. "I remember being young and in love. Christ, how exhausting. Don't forget to drink water. You don't want to dehydrate yourself with all that nervous sweating."

I sputtered, but she immediately changed the subject to the events we were planning for the end of the season. (Conquistos FC would again not be making it to the finals short of a literal miracle, but Marlo had made it clear that we'd enjoy the season to the very end, bitter or not.)

Vix, later that night, called me to demand to know what the hell I thought I was doing, messing with her figurehead.

"I'm not! I'm not messing with anyone."

"That isn't what I hear, kiddo."

"Well, I don't know what you've heard, do I? I just know that I don't plan to mess with anyone's head, figure or otherwise."

Actually, that sounded ... potentially dirty.

"And I'm not going up there to have sex in a BDSM dungeon, either, so if that's your next question, the answer is no."

"Way, way too much information, thank you very much. I just don't want you to get hurt."

"And?"

"And I also don't want Orion to back out of this campaign, because he's brilliant. I met him, you know. Took on this client as my own because I don't have a full team yet. He's charming."

"Yeah." I sighed.

"And smart. Very fit."

"Very, very fit," I agreed.

"Insightful. Great with kids. Sweet with old people."

"Ugh, yeah, he's the worst."

She laughed in my ear. "You have it bad, kiddo. Listen, as your friend, I wish you all the luck in the world. As someone who needs Orion's head in the game, I wish you would keep yourself out of it until he's more confident in his new role. Did Marlo tell you he's closing out the season in Conquistos?"

"Wait. No. What?"

"He's going to sit in the box and do commentating for the final game, do some press for me afterward."

"Uhh, you know we're probably going to lose, right?"

"Oh, grasshopper. Either way, my client wins. The publicity will be fantastic. And we're going to be giving away shirts and other crap that people will be able to buy online to support the campaign."

I thought about that. "Okay. That's pretty good, actually."

"I'm so pleased you agree," she said, though her tone wasn't as sarcastic as her words.

"Vix," I said slowly. "Is this a super-creepy thing to do? I mean, am I just all over red flags right now? Because I don't think I can tell, and if it's really fucked up, if it puts him in a bad position or something, I don't want to do it. I don't want to be that guy."

For a long moment, she didn't reply. One of the things I'd always really liked about Vix was that I could trust her to tell me the truth.

Even though in this very second I wasn't sure I could handle it if she told me a truth I didn't want to hear.

"I think I know what you're asking, and I think the answer is no. There are people who I'd warn off an escapade like driving to the middle of nowhere because someone they kissed one time might be there, but in your case, Des, I think it's worth doing."

Which did, actually, make me feel better. "Okay, thanks. We kissed more than once, by the way."

"Too much information, kiddo. Take care of yourself. And take care of my figurehead—I need him."

"Yeah, yeah." But it felt obscurely like a blessing, and I decided to take it that way. A sudden flash of insight made me ask, or maybe demand, "Wait, did you get his address from Marlo? Did you two set us up?"

She made a clearly fake static sound and said, "Sorry, bad line, take care of your—"

Click.

They had. They seriously had set us up. Maybe not quite like they thought we'd get snowed in and kiss—even the fairy gaymothers couldn't control the weather, probably—but somehow at the root of this whole damn thing, a couple of lesbians had conspired to ... something. I thought about how Vix had gone so evasive when I asked how she'd gotten the address. But Marlo wouldn't give me his number, even though I'd practically begged. What would it have taken for her to tell Vix where he lived?

Except ... one thing the two of them had in common was believing they knew what was best, and it wasn't like she'd given out his exact address. Just the name of the cabin. Which might have been, what, a rumor? Something overheard? And while I didn't think Orion had been, you know, suffering under a dark cloud of melancholia or something, I also didn't think he'd been thriving.

Vix would have pitched the idea of getting Orion into the campaign, likely not mentioning who she was sending to do the job, and Marlo might have allowed herself to be convinced that anything that would jolt him out of his small-town rut would be worth the chance.

Matchmaking fairy gaymothers. You really couldn't beat the idea. And, somehow, probably because deep down I'm a huge sap, it made me feel even more convinced that driving a million hours on my one day off because Orion might be home made perfect sense. I was going to do this thing. For better or for worse.

Plus, Sammy was right. If I didn't do it, I'd regret it. And I had enough regrets already.