Page 85 of The Romantic Agenda
Malcolm and Summer are still missing in action. The sun wentdown hours ago, it’s so far past her bedtime her shadow person is probably pissed that’s she’s late, and everyone knows you can only watch so many Nicolas Cage movies before your hold on reality begins to slip. If Joy hasn’t lost count, the credits for their third completed film are rolling on the screen. She snuggles closer to Fox, breathing in deeply. “I’m fine.”
His hands are on her thighs and her back.
“I’m awake.” Joy closes her eyes again. “We’re moving?” she says, voice thick with sleep. “Where did the couch go?”
“It’s still there.” Fox is carrying her up the stairs.
“This is cheating,oh my god.”
“Cheating how?” He sets her down in front of her door, holding her steady by the hips.
“I don’t know.” Joy rubs her face in defeat. “It just is.”
Fox leans in, and she tilts her head upward to meet him in the middle. At the last second, he bypasses her lips in favor of her ear. “Good night, Joy,” he whispers before leaving a kiss on her cheek.
Joy supposes that’s acceptable. Not what she wanted, but it’ll do. There’s still tomorrow. She still has roughly thirty-plus hours left to spend connected to him. Not that she’s counting. “Good night.”
Joy flies through her nighttime routine in record time and collapses into bed. She’s asleep before remembering to turn off the lights and turn on her makeshift nightlight. And she’s in full-blown snoring mode when someone knocks on the door.
The sound jolts her awake, heart racing with the sudden fear that only being caught unaware and defenseless can bring. “Yeah?”
It’s Malcolm. As expected. Hasn’t he visited her every night so far?
“Hey. You asleep?”
“Not currently. Come on.” Joy waves him in, moving over to make space for him on the bed. It’s only after he shakes his head no and sits on the floor that she remembers. Today was the Big Summer Day. She presses the heel of her hands into her eyes and takes a tired, shaking breath. The physical separation is starting. She stretches back out onto the bed to get comfortable. “How did it go?”
“Not at all like I expected.” Malcolm moves closer, resting his forearms on the edge of the mattress inches away from her.
Joy fills the gap, pillow folded under her head. “No?”
He shakes his head.
If that’s all he wants to give, she doesn’t feel right asking for more. The fact that he isn’t on the bed with her now tells her everything she needs to know anyway.
Malcolm asks, “What would I do without you?”
“Depends.” She covers her mouth to yawn. “Is it anif we never metsituation or anI diedsituation?”
“Jesus, Joy.”
“What? You asked a question. I’m asking specifics.” She pauses for a moment to blink away the tendrils of sleep tugging at her. “If I died, you’d be devastated, obviously. Weekly visits to my grave tree to talk to me, a sort of memorial shrine in your house full of your favorite pictures of us, and so on. Now, if we never met... I don’t know. I think you’d still be successful. And happy.”
“I’d miss you.” His voice is soft, and his touch is softer as he quickly brushes his nose against hers. “I wouldn’t know you, but I would miss you. Even if I was successful, happy, all my dreams came true, everything would always feel slightly off because you weren’t there. I wouldn’t know why, but I’d always feel sad about it. I think I’d always feel incomplete.”
“Don’t.” Joy wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. “What’s wrong? It was your big day. Everything’s good, right?”
Malcolm sniffles. There aren’t any more tears—just the one Joy caught. “Hey, do you remember how we met?”
Joy smiles. “I do. At the LGBT Alliance mixer.” This is one of their rituals and why she can remember it so well—out of nowhere, he’ll ask if she remembers and retell the entire ordeal. She loves listening to him, as if she doesn’t star in the story too, and seeing herself through his eyes.
Malcolm begins, “The club president decided to set up informational booths for each letter. I was the only ace member, so they put me in charge of the A-station.”
“Naturally.”
“You walked in wearing the shortest pair of jean shorts I’ve ever seen in my life, to this day, and a practically see-through tank top.”
“They weren’tthatshort.”
