Page 71 of Dream Mates
The front pocket of the backpack held gum, a romance novel, and lip-gloss.
I pulled out the strange little teddy bear that had appeared in my arms at the clinic. It felt weird to have it. “Oh. Shit. I don’t know why I even took this. Some old guy gave it to me at the Temporal Authority hospital while I was scared. I think I’d had a seizure or something when they told me they were sending me someplace else. I can throw it away.”
Wes wrinkled his nose. “It smells odd.”
“If you’re going to throw it out, can I have it? I want an interdimensional stuffie. I’ll wash it first?” Riley held out her hand.
“Sure. I also have interdimensional candy. Not sure if we should eat it?” I handed her the stuffie and pulled out the little blue box.
Riley opened the box, which was filled with colorful star-shaped candies. She reached for one.
“Don’t eat them. We don’t know what they are.” Evan smacked her hand.
She smacked him back. Rolling her eyes, she popped it in her mouth. “Delicious. They’re chewy.”
Wes took the box and sniffed it. “Smells like fruity candy.”
“My interdimensional candy.” Riley grabbed the box, though she looked at me.
“Go for it.” Next, I pulled my floral fabric purse out of the main compartment. My money, bank card, driver’s license, everything was all there–and completely useless here.
“Her Fake Billionaire Boss’s Secret Baby?” Riley laughed, reading the back of my romance novel.
“I like boss romance novels. We had a book swap cart at work.” My water bottle was still there but it was empty. My earbuds held no charge. No phone though. Not that I expected it, because it had been broken by my boss.
I unzipped a compartment and frowned. “What the actual fuck?”
“If there are actual fucks are there theoretical fucks?” Riley opened a piece of gum, put it in her mouth, and made a face. “Grape? Are we five?”
“There are theoretical fucks. We did a whole project on it in one of my classes,” I laughed. “And yes, I have childish taste in gum. But this… they gave me mylaptop.I didn’t even have this that day at work. This is my personal laptop. Oh, they raided my apartment, looking for evidence. I wonder if it’ll run here.” I withdrew my battered, old, sticker-covered laptop and power supply. I frowned, running my fingers over the colorful stickers.
“Give it and the power supply here.” Wes held out his hands.
I handed it to him. There was nothing else from my apartment. Not that I had many mementos. Still, there were a couple of things I would’ve liked to have.
Wes examined the power supply. “I think I have a cord that would work, and the voltage seems compatible, do you want me to try to charge it?”
“Please? I’m curious as to what they left on it. Like, there’s movies and music and stuff. I’m making you watch movies I like.” I grinned at the thought of sharing things with them.
“Fuck yeah.” Riley smelled my hand cream and examined my lipstick.
Evan put my pink sunglasses on and struck a pose. “Me?”
“Absolutely.” I laughed. He looked good in them.
We put the show back on and watched the rest of it. Afterwards, Wes brought the laptop over. It booted up and I started looking for my files.
“Sweet baby Jesus, my dissertation is here. Wow. Actually, I think everything from my PhD program’s here.”
Well, almost. I frowned as I looked for something else. No. It wasn’t there.
But did that really surprise me?
“Why are you frowning?” Wes put his arms around me and kissed my temple.
“All my parallel world research is gone.” It wasn’t like I had access to my backups, though they’d probably deleted those as well.
“I guess that’s to be expected, and I don’t really need it now.” I wasn’t going to do anything with it, of course, but still, for so much work to have been deleted…
