Chapter 60: Morning Run

Should probably pace myself, or something, Brian reminded himself. May FEEL like I’m in great form today, but realistically, that’s probably just… I dunno, all of these crazy circumstances. How could I NOT feel outstanding right now?

It was almost an entire hour later in the day than yesterday’s morning run had been, and the downtown area was likewise that much busier. Brian weaved around group after scattered group of pedestrians as he led Stephanie on a light jog across the broad city sidewalks. He’d intended on taking it a bit slower today in consideration of his new running partner and her smaller stride—but, if anything, he’d swear he was moving at an even faster clip than his ordinary speed. For the hundredth, possibly thousandth time since setting out, he turned to make sure Stephanie was still right there behind him.

She was—and she couldn’t possibly be any more enticing. Fluffy pink hair bobbed with the motion of her gait, Stephanie was slightly flushed with exertion, and those tiny little huffing breaths she let out as she jogged were somehow intensely sexual—they always immediately filled his mind with all kinds of untoward notions. Eagerly following after him just a short space away, Stephanie flashed him that lovestruck smile that made him feel light and a little dizzy.

Regarding her in normal circumstances she was already extraordinary, but seeing her when she was physically active brought on an entire new dynamic that was more arousing than he could have imagined. Against all expectations, Stephanie could really run. She wasn’t in average shape—she was in fairly athletic shape. It was a pleasant surprise, and when he discovered she could just about keep up with him he found within himself several new nuances of respect joining the fiery whirl of affection and adoration he already possessed for her.

Brian reluctantly turned his attention forward to prevent from crashing into anyone.

Crossing the morning walkways, avenues, and thoroughfares side-by-side wasn’t feasible now with all of the foot traffic of commuters and occasional clusters of AnimeCon attendees out and about in the area, but somehow to Brian that made this even better. Running together like a couple held that certain appeal, but with this positioning, their run felt like a game, it felt like a chase, it filled him with energetic excitement and seemed to spur him on to push towards new limits. After that long, frosty relationship with Chloe, it felt incredible to have someone expressing interest in him, and it was amazing beyond any ability to express that Stephanie was not only just receptive of him and interested in him, but actually—even literally—pursuing him.

He snuck another glance back.

Stephanie positively beamed a pleased smile at him as if in response to his very thoughts, almost making him lose his footing and stagger. They seemed to be on a certain shared wavelength, and as impossible as it sounded to him, it was like she knew exactly how he felt—like she was intent on affirming his thoughts. The encroaching heat of Stephanie’s good mood intensified and became overwhelming if he looked back for too long, so Brian quickly turned his attention forward again to continue making his escape.

Hah ha, this is, yeah, this is WAY more fun than it should be, Brian thought, unable to suppress a lopsided grin. She really is my Sunshine. I haven’t felt like this in… ever. Feels like I could jump over all these goddamn buildings right now.

Hardly even breathing heavily at all, Brian dashed on ahead, each long stride filled with thrumming power as he skirted around slow-moving walkers and then made a turn at the intersection. In previous years, he’d discovered that keeping up his typical morning routine in the locale of a city was an entirely different beast, one that relied on timing and a bit of luck with the crosswalk signals. This late in the morning, there were too many cars rushing by to simply jaywalk across wherever he pleased like yesterday, and he felt a little sheepish being forced to choose a route that seemed to circle around certain city blocks several times.

Unable to resist, Brian twisted slightly to look behind him again.

Stephanie continued to bound after him with that blinding smile of hers. The smile was incredible, overpowering, even. Her bright expression was so full of sheer, unfettered happiness that simply making eye contact with her seemed to form an arcing current of giddy affectionate cheer through the air between them to always land a smile on his face in response. It wasn’t quite like the look he and Emily would sometimes share, a meaningful one where they both knew exactly what inside-joke had sprung to the other’s mind, this with Stephanie was a much more simple, almost primal transmission of emotions.

We’ve really got it bad, huh?

The pair passed by cosplayers heading towards the convention and unimpressed office workers dressed for business, they gave a wide berth around a woman who was walking a leashed pair of golden retrievers—who regarded the two runners with wagging tails and open-mouthed, panting smiles—and finally Brian began to plod to a stop at a small gathering of people waiting at a crosswalk. He turned, and opened his arms.

Stephanie jumped upon him, her sneakers entirely leaving the ground as she engulfed him in a hug right there amid everyone on the sidewalk. He gently spun her free of the momentum of their collision like he was sweeping a fairy tale princess off her feet, careful to ensure they didn’t lose their balance. She was radiating heated energy and raw sexual attraction right into him, she poured on that overloading smile all over at him at point blank, and he could practically feel the love rising up off of her like an open flame. They were both a little damp with perspiration, and somehow as the soft parts of her figure insistently pressed against him, them being in slighty sweaty contact together turned him on even more.

“Hey there, you,” Brian said, ignoring the looks from the people around them. “Too fast?”

“No, no,” Stephanie panted in his arms, giving him a squeeze. “That was—ohmigod, that was the best!”

“Yeah?” Brian asked.

He was interested in hearing her response, but his body instinctively moved in to kiss her before she had any chance to speak. Stephanie reciprocated immediately, and the people around them, the passing cars, and the towering city high-rises alike all seemed to drop away from his awareness as every iota of his attention was siphoned away into the sensation of her lips and eager tongue.

Holy shit.

There wasn’t an orchestral rock ballad of rising instrumentals surging up, but it sure felt like there was, and Brian once again forgot their surroundings entirely and embarked on a journey through time and space to explore the hungry kiss of his beautiful new girlfriend. On her part, it was as if their chase never ended, and she seemed determined to prove her own enthusiasm and passion in return.

They almost missed the crosswalk signal.

“Y-yeah,” Stephanie giggled as they scurried hand-in-hand after the already departed pedestrians they’d been standing with. “I—yeah! We can keep running longer, if you want.”

“Today, with you? I feel like we could just keep going on forever and ever,” Brian said. “I’ve gotta ask—do you run a lot?”

“No, never!” Stephanie smiled. “I used to bicycle a lot, though. Just about all summer I was biking around trying to get in shape.”

Yeah, that DEFINITELY explains some things, Brian realized, struggling not to lean back and give her behind an appreciative look. Jesus! Just imagining it, imagining Steph on a bicycle, standing those amazing legs of hers up to pump the pedals, those shapely thighs leading up to the perfect curvature of that ass sticking up in the air…

“Brian?” Stephanie blushed, lowering her voice to a soft purr. “...Where to, next?”

“Well, um,” Brian cleared his throat. “Right. Uh, it’s quite a bit after my normal time for this, so we've gotta get to that diner before the convention folk swamp in and there’s a wait.”

“Okay!” Stephanie agreed, giving his hand an encouraging squeeze. “I love you.”

“I love you,” he replied without a second thought.

It probably should have been strange professing their feelings after only knowing each other for a few days at the convention, but the words came out effortlessly and unbidden. Stephanie admitted the words without thought, blurted them out without ever having to pause for consideration. The tacit honesty of the girl wielding the phrase against him had him replying in kind before he’d even realized how quickly their relationship had jumped to this stage of trust.

“It’s not—uh, it’s not too soon for us to be saying that, right?” Brian asked, unable to help but worry a little bit. “It’s not weird?”

“I have no idea!” Stephanie admitted with a bashful shrug. “I’m just saying how I feel, I—I don’t know that there is any too soon, with you. I feel, um, the way I feel. There’s only, uh, there’s only not enough and please please please give me more and I wish this could last forever!”

“Whew,” Brian chuckled, unable to contain his grin. “I’m definitely in trouble. And here I thought Kelly was the one I had to watch out for.”

“She is!” Stephanie’s cute cheeks quirked into a mischievous smile this time. “She really is, she’s just the worst! You have no idea! I bet you anything that the moment we get back to the room, we’ll walk in on her making out with Emily.”

“Hah, yeah right,” Brian snorted, shaking his head. “I don’t think Emmie swings that way, and good luck budging her at all right now without coffee or energy drinks.”

“Without her Emily-gizer?” Stephanie giggled.

“Yeah, that,” Brian nodded.

He paused for a moment, feeling his smile slip away.

“Actually… about Emily, I’m a little worried.”

“Worried?” Stephanie blinked up at him.

“I mean… it was her first time, last night,” Brian pointed out. “And I wasn’t, uh, I wasn’t goin’ easy on her at all. None of us were. We were all too worked up, things got a little…”

“Amazing?” Stephanie supplied.

“I was gonna say rough,” Brian said. “Physically intense? Too much? Kinda fretting over it after the fact, like. How is it going to make her feel, will she regret it, is she gonna be hurting and sore, are things between us—”

“She loved it,” Stephanie interrupted, bouncing up on the balls of her feet to peck a kiss onto Brian’s cheek. “She loves you. You gave her everything she ever wanted, and then showed her that there was even more. So much more.”

“Maybe,” Brian shrugged. “I hope so, yeah. Still…”

“Emily’s just fine,” Stephanie promised, giving his hand another squeeze. “Besides, I think you’re probably the real Emily energizer. You’re... already my energizer.”

“No, you!” Brian retorted.

“No, you!” Stephanie played along.

“Oh, wow, geez,” Brian laughed. “Here I thought only Emily and I were childish enough to get that going back and forth. We get into the ‘no, you’ all the time.”

“Happy to fill in for her in her absence!” Stephanie replied in a cheerful voice. “Anytime. Someone’s got to, if she’s this bad with mornings, hah ha.”

The two held hands and walked on in contentment for the rest of the block. Brian and Stephanie were in a strange, slightly surreal sweet spot where they both felt perfectly at ease conversing and joking around as though they had years of familiarity with each other. When they lapsed into silence afterwards, neither even found it awkward. An intimate bond continued to connect them, and they kept drawing comfort from the simple pleasure of each other’s company, without feeling any compulsion to grasp for new topics or force small talk.

This is… so amazing. Nothing with Chloe was EVER like this, not even in the beginning, when things were good between us.

They finally arrived together at the entrance of the nearby diner where Brian had ordered breakfast platters for them the morning before, and Brian suddenly went stiff, jerking to a stop.

“...Holy fuck,” Brian mumbled. “Wow. Steph, are you seeing this?”

“Seeing what?” Stephanie asked, glancing around them in alarm.

“Look,” Brian opened the first set of double-doors for her, gesturing Stephanie inside the small alcove of the diner entrance. “Right there, right in here.”

The squat shape of a cylindrical waste bin with an ashtray compartment on top sat there, along with a coin-fed newspaper stand and the bulky shape of an enormous claw game machine, its glass-encased display packed full of a menagerie of brightly-colored stuffed animals.

“What is it?” Stephanie giggled. “What am I looking at?”

“You don’t recognize her?” Brian teased, tapping the boxy metal shape of the newspaper stand with his running shoe. “Seems like a suspiciously... familiar-looking girl made front page of the Sunday Morning Gazette.”

“Familiar-looking? Sunday Morning Gaz—oh my God!”

---

“That’s—is that—is that me?!” Stephanie clutched at Brian in shock.

Through the scuffed glass of the newspaper stand, an issue of the Sunday Morning Gazette tucked into the display front featured an enormous cover picture of a young woman with brilliant pink hair and an all-too-familiar gijinka dress crouched down in front of the adorable little Cassie in her little Embrin getup. Cosplayers Flock to AnimeCon, the title read in bold lettering. It had been startling enough for Stephanie to see herself in the mirror with her bright new hair color the past two mornings—seeing herself from behind and featured in a newspaper of all things was jarring and surreal.

I can’t believe it, Stephanie thought, more than slightly stunned. That’s me. That’s ME, on the front page!

“It really came out great,” Brian praised, wrapping his arms around her. “Proud of you. Just look at that little girl’s expression—s’like she thought you were an angel that swooped in just to save her day.”

“Oh my God,” Stephane sighed in breathless excitement. “I can’t believe it. Cassie! Her name was Cassie. Look at how cute she is! Just look at her!”

“Look at how cute you are,” Brian chuckled. “The Stephanie that saved AnimeCon! My Sunshine. The angel of conscience that sits on my one shoulder and helps balance out all of Kell’s terrible wickedness.”

“I-I’m not,” Stephanie blushed. “I’m not really much of an angel…”

“That’s okay, too,” Brian said, gently taking her by the cheek and pulling her in for a kiss.

Bright pink sparks flew and metaphysical embers tumbled through the air as their lips met, because Stephanie could feel how proud of her Brian was, and it was one of the more heady concoctions of emotional accelerants he could pour into her fire. Stephanie let out a low hum of satisfaction and flicked her tongue inside his mouth to tease against his. Her body all but wriggled at the sensations he was fueling, and she rose up on her tiptoes to press in hungrily for more.

They were both grinning at each other as they disengaged, and they simply smiled, studying each other’s eyes for a few moments before Brian let out a slow sigh.

“We need to head inside—you’re making me want to do... unspeakable things to you, and I didn’t think to wear my dancer’s belt with these gym shorts.”

“You’re… oh!” Stephanie looked down between them. “S-sorry, I…”

While he wasn’t fully erect, she could definitely discern a rather telltale bulge had begun to grow there, and she couldn’t help but blink at it in fascination. The shape wasn’t standing out quite enough to be protruding, but it was definitely there, deforming the cloth outwards like he’d stepped out for the morning run with something weighty there in a front pocket. Her interest became so palpable that her hand tingled with anticipation, and she only managed to restrain her compulsion to reach out and touch it with some difficulty.

“I’ll, uh,” Brian seemed to notice her distracted gaze, “I’ll see if I can get some cash back on whatever we order so I can get a couple copies of the Gazette.

“Um,” Stephanie spoke up quickly. “You, you make me so wet. It-it’s not just you that gets um, it, it—this really gets to me, too. I just wanted to know…”

“Hey, hey, it’s not a contest,” Brian chuckled, planting another quick kiss on her. And then another.

“I-I know!” Stephanie sputtered, trying to chase after his retreating lips for more both times. “But, if it was... what would losing mean? Exactly?”

“What would winning mean?” Brian countered playfully.

“Um…” Stephanie murmured, wetting her lips.

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The small enclosure between the diner’s two sets of double-doors where they stood seemed to heat up substantially, and Stephanie’s thoughts were blistering with pink. Through the scarcely-explored mysteries of her charm power, she could feel Brian’s attraction for her coloring with something more vibrant—he was getting really, really turned on. Having already been feeling incredibly horny herself, experiencing the additional feedback was enough to drive her absolutely crazy, it was making the temperature of her internalized fire spike in dangerous ways. All at once, the air between them became so thick with sexual tension that it was difficult for Stephanie to breathe, and she realized it would soon become a serious battle for them to maintain any pretense of propriety while they were in public like this.

We’re so ready, Stephanie decided, squirming from one foot to the other as she felt herself continue to lubricate with desire. It’s time. When we get back—when we get back to the room, it’s time. Sex. We’re doing it. We’re having sex.

Thoughts of them frantically undressing each other while caught up in the throes of a passionate french-kiss licked through her mind. Stephanie longed to open her naked thighs to reveal a glistening welcome of arousal for him, she ached to have Brian push inside of her, to experience the untold pleasure of finally joining together with him. The romance of the experience beckoned to her, she wanted him to take her, to claim her, to make sweet, luxuriant love to her. But, at the same time she was also feverish for more—she wanted fucked, they needed to fuck like rabbits, her legs were shaking with the sheer need to celebrate the arrival of their long-awaited big moment. Breathing heavily but not quite panting yet, Stephanie bit her lip and fought the urge to start fanning herself. Yes, she decided she needed fucked with the sort of wanton physical enthusiasm that blazed well past naive, intimate affection and exploded all the way into lustful abandon.

“Let’s... order our food and hurry back,” Brian proposed with difficulty, unable to tear his eyes away from her hungry gaze.

“Yes!” Stephanie agreed, nodding furiously. “Yes, yes. Yes. Yes, please!”

Clasping hands once again, they pushed through the doors into the diner in a rush, filled with excitement that Stephanie felt came from a mutual understanding of unexpectedly stimulating nature.

“Hi!” A bubbly blonde hostess greeted them with a smile. “Will you two be dining in, or—”

“Order for takeout, please,” Brian said, already pulling out his debit card. “Four breakfast platters, three coffees, two hot cocoas. If you could make one of the coffees—”.

---

“That is not okay,” Chloe growled as she angrily thrashed a borrowed brush through her hair. “It’s actually completely unacceptable, and I don’t see how you of all people would ever think that that is okay.”

“I disagree, Chloe!” Rebecca chimed in her sing-song voice, pulling her own tangle of auburn hair up out of the neck of her garment as she donned her outer tunic again.

Morning had arrived, and after sleeping in several luxuriant hours longer than normal, the three young women in Sheriott hotel’s room 502 were all up and about to enjoy the new day with varying degrees of optimism. After her first enormous yawn and stretch of her arms and a good morning, everyone, Rebecca climbed up off the floor and immediately started tidying up her little sleeping area. Unfortunately for her, Chloe seemed to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed and was still in one of her moods.

“You disagree,” Chloe repeated in disbelief, tossing the brush back towards Rebecca’s things and crossing her arms. “Rebecca. There is no room to disagree here. Fur? Fur that was torn from the back of a living, breathing animal? It’s fucking barbaric, it immediately tells me that obviously must have no respect for—”

“Chloe silly, we as a civilization are responsible for white-tailed deer now having a lack of natural predators!” Rebecca explained as she carefully rolled her fur camping pad as tightly as possible so that the leather buckle would close. “That makes us responsible for managing their populations, so that—”

“Oh, managing their populations, is that what you call murder, now?” Chloe mocked. “That just justifies it all up for you? That justifies murdering innocent creatures?”

“—so that they don’t completely strip the foliage from their environments, which directly harms other species who rely on that undergrowth for food or protection from their predators!” Rebecca continued without pausing at the rude interruption.

“I think I’ve lost all respect for you, Rebecca,” Chloe scowled. “Parading around with the fur of harmless animals. You should honestly be ashamed of yourself. You know that hunters killing them for sport is wrong—that wearing fur is murder.”

“I don’t think it’s wrong at all!” Rebecca said in her sleepy voice, more than a hint of Mara creeping into her smile as she gave the neatly tucked fur that made up part of her bedroll a friendly pat. “Killing is also the natural way of things.”

“...You’re joking.” Chloe’s expression faltered. “You have to be joking.”

“I took this one bow hunting with my Uncle when I was sixteen,” Rebecca remembered. “I drank a cup of its blood! My Uncle did most of the skinning—because we wanted it in its best shape—but I fleshed the hide, salted, tanned, and stretched the buckskin myself. I’m proud of how this turned out. We ate all the meat, of course.”

“I… I think I’m going to be sick,” Chloe stared at the bedroll with revulsion. “Rebecca. You slept on that. You slept on a fur made out of dead animal. I’m going to puke.”

“I slept on the linens, silly-willy,” Rebecca crinkled her nose in a cute way at how overdramatic her friend was being. “But, there’s some tummy medicine down in the car if you need it.”

“I think it’s really cool, actually,” Megan spoke up, regarding Rebecca’s medieval camping kit with amazement.

The overweight girl hadn’t budged from her spot sitting up on the bed nearest the window all morning, content to watch the two newcomers as they went about their business.

“Oh, shut up,” Chloe retorted, shooting Megan a look of disgust. “You don’t—”

“Chloe!” Rebecca admonished in the stern voice she learned from her grandmother. “Be nice! I’m sorry, Miss Megan—Chloe’s feeling a little grouchy, this morning!”

“Uh, no—it’s okay,” Megan blinked. “I totally see both sides, and all. I get it. Like, I don’t think I could ever go hunting myself, but it’s obvious you actually respect—”

“There is no both sides,” Chloe snapped. “And there is no respect. Killing things for fun isn’t fucking open for debate, okay? It’s murder.”

“Language, Chloe, oh my goodness!” Rebecca put her hands on her hips. “What’s gotten into you, today?”

“I’m so fucking done with you,” Chloe hissed, gathering up the last of her things and making a beeline for the room’s already open door. “With all of you. With everyone.”

“Chloe—”

With one last dismissive look, Chloe made a face and then whirled on her slender dancer’s legs. The young woman stormed out of the hotel room and yanked the heavy door to slam closed loudly behind her. The awkward silence she left behind was frustrating, and Rebecca could only sigh for a moment and then shoot an apologetic look back towards Megan.

“Megan—I’m so sorry!” Rebecca lowered her head. “She’s... going through a lot right now, and I’m sure she’s just feeling a little sensitive about certain things. I’m sure she didn’t mean to be rude to you, and I know we’ve been just the worst guests, but—”

“No, no!” Megan quickly stood up. “It’s—you guys are totally fine, it’s been cool. Some of the things she said last night. Um. I probably... did smell really bad. Was it bad? Now I’m, like, worried that when Stephie—”

“Stephanie’s your friend, and she loves you no matter what,” Rebecca insisted, pulling on her sword belt and adjusting it to cinch properly around the waist of her tunic. “Please also just... make sure to wash up as often as you can, we all want you to take good care of yourself!”

“Was I gross?” Megan looked mortified. “Ohmigod, I want to die. You even got in the shower with me… was I totally gross? Oh my God…”

“You’re not gross,” Rebecca reassured the girl, crossing the room to give her what seemed like a much-needed hug. Megan was a bigger girl, but Rebecca didn’t find anything off-putting about that, it just meant she had a big plush body to squeeze. “You’re a lovely young woman with a huge heart who took total strangers into your care when you didn’t have to. Even when we made a big fuss in the hall last night, and Chloe was being a big meanie to you the whole time! Megan, I couldn’t ask for a better friend than you. I’m very glad to have met you.”

“You’re, um, you’re the coolest person I’ve ever met ever,” Megan said in a breathless voice.

“That’s sweet of you to say,” Rebecca said, releasing Megan from the tight embrace. “I need to go try to catch up to Chloe and make sure she’s okay. I’ll see you at the convention, maybe?”

“Actually, would it be cool if I tagged along?” Megan asked. “Since we’re going the same way, and everything…”

“Of course you can!” Rebecca smiled. “Is it okay if we stop by to check on Emily and Stephanie on the way?”

“Yeah! I hope they’re okay,” Megan said. “Can’t believe they all got in a fight like that last night.”

“Oh, it wasn’t a fight,” Rebecca insisted. “We’re all friends, and friends don’t fight! It was a teeny tiny little disagreement that I’m sure everyone already feels bad about.”

“Uh, what?” Megan quirked her head at Rebecca in apparent confusion. “No way, that was totally a fight. They were like, yelling and hitting each other and wrestling on the ground and everythi—”

“Well, maybe one of them fell!” Rebecca suggested in a chipper voice. “They were just… tussling a little bit. Like kids! I don’t think it was serious. Sometimes people say regrettable things in the heat of the moment. I don’t think it was a fight.”

“Rebecca, they drew blood,” Megan said. “That whole altercation was completely violent. If you hadn’t jumped in—”

“They did not draw blood!” Rebecca paused. “Everyone was fine, I made sure th—”

“You were bleeding,” Megan pointed out. “From that scratch. You got scratched and it bled—that’s drawn blood. Literally!”

“Oh, that doesn’t count,” Rebecca smiled and waved away the girl’s concerns. “That was an accident, and I wasn’t even involved really.”

“Yeah-huh it does too count!” Megan argued. “You were completely totally involved because without you stepping in—”

“It wasn’t going to escalate any further than that,” Rebecca assured her. “They’re friends. They wouldn’t have taken things too far.”

“You seem… very confident that they’re actually still friends,” Megan tried not to sound doubtful. “Like, yeah maybe they were friends, but from what I saw—”

“Of course I’m confident,” Rebecca said, giving Megan a strange look. “They’re friends!”

“Uhhh have you ever heard the phrase ‘loyal to a fault?’” Megan asked. “Not trying to be inconsiderate of your guys’ relationships, but I mean from what I see…”

“Yes, yes, I’ve heard of it,” Rebecca scrunched her nose cutely. “It’s a very silly phrase. Are you checking out today? Do we need to gather up all of your things?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, I guess,” Megan said. “Probably should, huh? Gotta get everything out by noon? Or, eleven maybe? What time is it now?”

“It’s not quite ten o’clock,” Rebecca said, checking the time on her phone before slipping it back into a leather pouch that hung from her belt. “Do you have your phone and your charger? Your wallet and ID and everything from your purse? Checked around the floor by the bed for anything that might have dropped down to be forgotten and lost forever?”

“Shouldn’t take me more than a minute to throw everything together,” Megan said. “I think most of this is food wrapper garbage anyways.”

“Are you throwing these away?” Rebecca gathered up discarded packaging from some figurines she’d bought yesterday.

“Yeah, those are trash,” Megan said with a guilty glance, watching as “I was gonna get all of that.”

Rebecca was a task-oriented person, and she contented herself to bustle around the hotel room tidying things up while Megan pulled on an oversized anime Shinobi Souls shirt and a pair of sweatpants. There was something satisfying about getting everything squared away and ready to go, and it was also a chance to express her gratitude. Megan was such a sweetheart letting us stay here when we were just complete strangers!

The scattered pieces of some sort of cosplay were placed neatly on the corner of a bed, the food wrappers were sent into the wastebin, and Rebecca stepped into the bathroom to make sure the little hotel shampoo bottle and bar of soap they’d used were thrown out into the bathroom’s bin—there was no sense in leaving more of a mess for housekeeping than necessary. As she dropped them in, however, the telltale sound of plastic clinking against something hard made her hesitate and take a second glance.

Someone’s cell phone was at the bottom of the bathroom’s little garbage pail.

“Megan?” Rebecca called, carefully fishing the phone out. “Do you have your phone?”

“Yeah, you already asked,” Megan confirmed. “Have it here with Stephie’s charger cable.”

“There’s a phone here in the bathroom,” Rebecca said, stepping around the corner to show the other girl. “It’s… all smashed.”

“Oh, wow,” Megan said. “Does it turn on?”

“Umm…?” Rebecca fiddled with the power button along the side, but the phone remained dark. The screen face was almost impossible to see with a dense spiderweb of cracks, and upon closer inspection she discovered that the entire device casing was slightly bent.

“Ooh yeah, that’s bricked,” Megan said. “Can I see?”

Helplessly offering it up, Rebecca watched as Megan tried to pry the back plate off with her fingernails. After a moment’s struggle, Megan turned to the dresser, carefully oriented the phone against the surface, and gave it a hard tap. The backing clattered off, and with surprisingly experienced movements the girl stripped out a number of internal components.

“Weird,” Megan said. “Someone even left the memory behind. Little microSD we can plug in and peek through. SIM card’s still here, and a possibly-still-good battery for a… looks like a Ceres Series Six?”

“Maybe it was Chloe’s?” Rebecca guessed with a wince. “I thought I heard something when she had herself locked up in there last night. She must have dropped it?”

“Maybe?” Megan gave her an uncertain shrug. “She didn’t really strike me as the type to have a three-year-old phone.”

“We can ask her about it,” Rebecca said. “This must be why she was in such a bad mood this morning! Her phone must’ve gotten damaged in their little scuffle last night.”

“Well, just so you know,” Megan warned, passing Rebecca the pieces she’d salvaged. “If that Chloe girl’s fighting with my Stephanie—I’m on Stephie’s side no matter what.”

“It was some silly disagreement, there aren’t any sides,” Rebecca shook her head in exasperation. “My goodness. All of you guys.”

Megan gave her a look, and then the room lapsed into silence as the heavyset went to finish stuffing and jamming her crumpled cosplay outfit into a travel bag. Fighting the urge to fidget at how suddenly uncomfortable she’d become, Rebecca tightened the belt she wore over her tunic and adjusted the pouches she wore so that they’d be out of the way as she walked.

If you have to lie—don’t smile when you do it, Rebecca thought, slowly letting her expression go slack. Gives yourself away, and insults whoever you’re speaking to. Grandma always used to say that, growing up.

Oh, I wish this wasn’t so AWKWARD! I feel like I was being Mara with her last night—just so brutally honest about my fears and concerns— and then now when I try to positive about everything, it feels like just wishful thinking. Like I’m lying to myself. AM I? Poor Megan must just think I’m like a crazy person.

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