Page 71 of My Cosplay Escape
I call Tony, but he doesn’t answer. So I send a text.
Me: I’m going to be late for my shift. We got stuck in traffic. I’ll be there as soon as I can.
I call again later as we inch our way forward on I-5. Tony picks up.
I wince and lean my head against the cold car window. “I’m going to be really late.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. These things happen.” I hear a familiar lilting voice on the other end calling my manager’s name. “Right there, Gwen,” Tony calls. “I’ve got your shift covered, Sarah. Drive safe. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“He hung up in a hurry,” I say, tossing my phone down.
“Everything okay?” Adam asks.
We crawl forward a car length.
“He gave me the night off.”
It’s dark, but the glow of the other cars’ headlights reveals that Adam is trying hard not to smile. “That’s generous,” he says casually.
“Gwen has that effect on people. Especially people like Tony.”
“Gwen is your roomie?”
I smile. He’s a dog with a bone. “Gwen’s my friend. She and Tony have this on-again, off-again, cat-and-mouse… thing that I’m happy not to get in the way of.”
“So if I wanted to spend next Friday night with you, I just find a way to get Gwen to the gym?”
“Your car is too clean. I need a balled-up receipt or something to throw at you.”
We talk more about school. This is Adam’s last semester, which makes me a little sad. We talk about my training, and Adam is shocked that I’ve never signed up for any official races.
“I’m not sure if you know this, a lot of people don’t…” I lean in, he leans in. The traffic is at a standstill. I suppress my smile. Not as well as Adam, but effort is what counts here. “You can run for free. Whenever you want for however long you want.”
Adam laughs. “For reals?”
“Why would I want to pay to run a race when I can run alone, by myself, on my own schedule?”
“Bragging rights? The smug Insta posts of before and the sweaty after? It could be fun.”
“I’ll pass.”
“You like to be alone,” Adam observes.
“No.” I hate being alone. “I like to fly under the radar. You can’t disappoint people if they aren’t watching you.”
The traffic thins, and we’re driving through the gemstone streets of Pacific Beach. Opal. Tourmaline. Beryl.
“You have to tell me where you live. I can’t take you back to the Green Flash.”
“I’m actually going to do some weights. You can take me to my gym.”
“You are not. You ran this morning. I’m going to start imagining all kinds of terrible things about your home if you don’t tell me—”
“Yeah, well, they can’t be much worse than living with your mom in her office/spare bedroom because you’re buried under student loans and credit card debt, and there is no way you can make it in your own place until you graduate, which will take some time since you can barely scrape together tuition for a couple of classes.”
My breath is shallow. And while the truth came easily enough for once, it most certainly did not set me free. I’m still in Adam’s car, and we are still driving closer to my house and farther away from the gym.
“I’d like to meet your mom,” Adam says. And the words are spoken with space-farmboy levels of sincerity.
