Page 106 of My Cosplay Escape
A timer starts beeping. “Is something burning?” I ask.
Adam reaches for an oven mitt and retrieves a couple of tins from the oven. “I thought you knew that I knew.”
“Why would I keep going with the alter-ego thing if I thought you knew?”
“Lots of reasons. Method acting. It was fun—”
“I think they need to go back in.” I gesture at his cake pans.
“They’re burning.”
“No, the stuff that spilled over and is now on the bottom of your oven is burning.” I grab a clean fork from his drying rack and prick the cake. “These are still gooey.” I set the timer for five more minutes as Adam pops the cakes back in the oven. “Meeting up at the Student Union Starbucks wasn’t fun.”
“Ah.” Adam tosses the oven mitts down. “I was over the game we were playing, and I was worried that it was only a game. I mean, you kissed me”—he pauses and catches my eyes—“passionately the night before, but you wouldn’t let me come near you the morning after.”
I wince. “And then I asked to be just friends.”
Adam exhales, and his breath comes out shaky and fast. “Yeah. But then you texted me and wanted to meet in real life. And yeah, I ironed my shirt and was a complete ass. I’m sorry. I thought we were done with games and going to just talk, but you kept on playing. But of course you did. You thought I didn’t know you were you and also you in cosplay. How could you ever want to be with a guy who dated two women at the same time?”
“We weren’t dating,” I say. Adam tries to object, but I hold up a hand. “I think it’s why I never thought of you as a player. Did you make frosting too?”
Adam pulls out a bowl of white fluffy frosting from the fridge. “What were we then if we weren’t dating?”
“We were two friends spending time together. I knew it wasn’t your fault that some crazy kept jumping you at every opportunity.” I dip my finger in the bowl of frosting, taste it, and immediately grab a paper towel and spit it out into it.
“Now you’re just being mean. It’s not that bad.” Adam dips a spoon into the frosting and has a bite but then gags.
“What did you put in it?”
“Butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla.”
I hold up the bottle of fish sauce on the counter. “This vanilla?”
“Yeah. That’s… not vanilla.” Adam slides down to the floor of his kitchen, defeated.
I join him, and in the friendliest way possible, as far removed from I-want-to-grab-you-and-kiss-you-senseless as I can manage (because I still want that), I nudge his shoulder with my own. “I did go see a campus counselor. You had me convinced I was crazy.”
“Oh, this is definitely… something.”
“And… now that you know?”
“I have questions.” He considers. “The most pressing being, are you still going to be working for me homecoming weekend, or do I need to find someone else?”
Chapter Thirty
Gwen wraps my hair around the barrel of her curling iron.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” I say, picking at the hem of my dress. Well, Gwen’s dress that she’s letting me borrow on the condition that I took the hem up by four inches. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does too matter. You’re going to homecoming with Adam.”
“As an employee.” I sigh. “We parted, after I bared my soul and gave voice to my feelings for him, with a scheduling question.”
Gwen pulls a curl loose before spraying it. “Meaning?”
“He wanted to know if I was working this weekend. That’s friend-zone territory at best.”
Gwen chuckles. “Did I not tell you happily ever afters take a little more time in real life?”
