Page 10 of All In

Oliver shakes his head, but there’s nothing mean in it. Oliver is many things, but he’s never been cruel about the things that matter to the people he loves. He just doesn’t understand this particular thing, and he’s honest about that, which I respect more than if he pretended.

“I’ll never understand you,” he says.

“You’re not supposed to,” I say. “That’s what makes me interesting.”

Henry lifts his coffee mug in a small, solemn toast. “Have fun, cousin.”

“Plan to.”

“Maybe you can uh… hookup with an alien chick or something,” Oliver says.

I nearly choke.

“Just don’t accidentally get married,” Henry says. “Unless it’s to the love of your life, then carry on.”

“That is an oddly specific thing to say,” I say.

Henry’s face goes carefully, deliberately blank in a way that means he is absolutely thinking about something and has decided not to share it. “Experience,” he says simply.

I look at Oliver.

Oliver looks at his biscuit.

“Is there something I’m missing?” I ask.

“The sooner you finish your breakfast, the sooner you can get on the road,” Oliver says.

Fair enough.

I eat my bacon and drink my coffee, letting Ruthie top off my cup one more time. This time, when she calls me sweetheart, I order a piece of pie to go.

Because let’s be honest, the only thing that will make this convention even better is a slice of Ruthie’s pie.

chapter

three

Juniper

The convention floor is everything I remembered and somehow more.

Banners hang three stories high. The sheer number of booths in this exhibition hall is staggering. Even if I skipped official events and only walked this giant room, I don’t think I could hit every booth.

Somewhere to my left, a drum line of cosplay Mandalorians is doing a surprisingly tight synchronized walk past a popcorn cart, and a kid in a half-finished Iron Man suit is shrieking with joy at the sight of them. The air smells like fried food and new vinyl and that specific convention-center ozone smell that I swear only exists three days a year, exclusively for me.

I am, currently, Arwen Undómiel, and I feel every inch the elven princess.

The blue dress moves the way I dreamed it would when I was hand-stitching the underlayer at two in the morning. All that silk catching the overhead lights and throwing it back in slow, deliberate ripples makes it look as if the dress is partially made of water.

Two separate strangers have already asked for photos. A little girl in a Galadriel costume looked at me like I’d personally hung the moon, and her mother had to physically stop her from hugging my skirts. And the number of verbal compliments is astounding. No one even seems to mind that I went with my naturally dirty blonde colored hair rather than the dark raven-like hair.

This is the best day of the year, every year. I refuse to let anything take that from me.

Which is, unfortunately, the exact moment I see him.

Eric.

At least I’m pretty damn sure that’s Eric. He’s in full Klingon regalia, which is, frankly, a lot. From this distance the forehead ridges look pretty great. His brown hair is longer than it was last year, and it’s hard to tell because of his forehead ridges, but from the look of things, he might be rocking a mullet. But the rest of the costume is doing a little too much.