Page 97 of Tapeworld Induction

“It’s okay… It’s okay, boy.”

He sniffed. “I like you calling me that…” He hesitated before finishing the sentence. “…girl.”

Her muscles tensed and relaxed. “I like hearing you say that too. I’m your girl. You’re my boy.”

He was thirty, and she was twenty-nine, and their nicknames for each other were boy and girl. Cute.

He hadn’t been in a real relationship in so long. He shuffled along the couch, stretching his legs out to the side, and moved to rest his head on her lap, with her accommodating it all, helping him get comfy.

Looking up at her from this vantage point, privilege swelled his chest. “You’re beautiful.”

She looked down at him, hand playing with his hair. “You are,” she said, her cheeks slightly red. “I’ve been holding something back as well, to be honest.”

“Oh.” He turned his head away, worry filling his gut. “What? I suppose you have a right to.”

She kept playing with the locks of his hair. “Actually, I’ve had a crush on you for years. Since your ReSports days.”

Now that shocked him. “You… Wow. I don’t know what to say!” He grinned and turned back towards her.

“When you said hi to me, in the club, I couldn’t believe it.” She let out a nervous giggle. “I recognised you immediately. ‘What the hell is Isaak Powers doing here, chatting me up?’ Like something out of a dream.” She traded a glance with him. “What came next was pretty wild too. Handing out the tape like that?”

“I wasn’t thinking. I wanted so much to impress you… But the Tapeworld’s so dangerous. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. I’m so happy you’re here with me right now.” Her smile struck his heart aflame. She looked out the window, finger still wrapped around one of his locks. “And to think I had to break in here earlier.”

“Excuse me?”

She relayed how the three of them had broken into his flat, how she’d had to shimmy along the ledge outside, risking her life in the real world. Then she talked about what happened after, in the Tapeworld, and how the black dots from before had evolved into humanoid shapes and attacked her.

His chest tightened. “You’ve put yourself in so much danger for me. We don’t know what being hurt in the Tapeworld means. You had to fight those grey… what, bots? Goddess… You really are a badass, huh? All that kickboxing training.”

Dylan casually flexed her arms, letting him admire her taut muscles. The sight stirred something in him. “It wasn’t easy,” she said. “But the way the Tapeworld makes me even stronger, that’s amazing.”

Guilt twisted his stomach. “What if the people you took out were like the man I shot? What if…?”

She stroked his hair. “We don’t know, that’s the truth of it. There’s no point torturing ourselves over it just yet.”

“But how can you be so calm about it?”

Changing her posture, the smile dropped off her face. “We come from different worlds. Mine comes with an intrinsic understanding of all the sacrifices it took to ensure humanity’s survival. The climate revolution wasn’t clean. Sometimes the path that’s morally pure won’t take you where you need to go.”

He pressed his lips together. All of that was true.

“We don’t even know what the Tapeworld is or where it comes from. We don’t know what those things that attacked us were. But I know it’s a wonderful place, where we can be creative, and have fun, and feel free, truly free, away from the surveillance of the Kingdoms and their Kings and Queens. I know I needed to save you. And I know I don’t care what or who I had to destroy to do it!”

The rage built up in her reminded him of himself, of when he broke his hand, when he snapped at her before, out of his senses, punching the couch in the Tapeworld and then stopped texting her. He blinked. Calm and passion and fury mingled in his chest.

“No one ever wanted to save me before,” he said finally.

“Well, I do.” She wrapped her arm around him, and leaned down to kiss him.

He welcomed her embrace, her lips, her tongue. He wanted everything. A weight lifted from his chest.

She bit her lip. “Are you feeling better now?”

“Fuck, yes. Thank you. For saving me.” He sat upright and hugged her, hand on the small of her back.

Their lips touched again.