Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Jamie took Edgar’s hand. “Thanks for wanting to spend time with me,” they said.
“And make you happy,” Edgar murmured.
Jamie’s hand tightened around his. “You do.” They caught his shoulder and turned him. “You make me really happy.”
Edgar’s chest tightened, and he swallowed hard. “You make me really happy too,” he tried to say, but it didn’t quite come out.
Jamie’s soft smile said they’d gotten the message. They leaned in and pressed a kiss to Edgar’s cheekbone, then another to the corner of his mouth.
“Is there anything I can do to make your experience any less horrible?” Jamie asked.
Edgar dismissed the idea automatically, then stopped himself. Jamie’s question had sounded sincere. And…was there?
He ran through the slide show of dread, looking for improvements that could be made.
“Maybe, um.” He shook his head. “I don’t wanna tell you what to do.”
“Please tell me what would make your time better. I’ll make my own choices.”
“I know you want me to be involved in the conversation. But, uh. When you prompt me, I can feel everyone looking at me, and my brain shuts down. I can’t think of any words, and then I panic.”
“Shit, Edgar, I had no idea.”
“Yeah, I… Sorry?”
They squeezed his shoulder and ran a palm down his back. “No problem. You’ve got it. What else?”
Edgar let out a breath of relief. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully.
“Okay, well. Pay attention to what you hate and tell me later?”
They kissed him on the lips, and then they walked to the table where Helen and Max sat.
“First round’s on me,” Helen announced and took their orders to the bar.
People snaked around the tables, meeting and greeting, admiring outfits, clinking glasses, and scrolling on phones. Edgar let his eyes blur slightly so he could scan the crowd for any nonhuman beings. The multiple disco balls in combination with smoke machines made it difficult, light refracting strangely off particles in the air, shapes flickering to life in one instant only to fade into the background the next.
“Hey!” Jamie cried.
Amelia was walking toward them, brandishing a table lamp with a peacock feather shade. “Look what I just found!” Amelia said.
Amelia, Edgar knew from Jamie’s stories, was constantly picking up things she thought might make good props in the future.
Then she turned to Edgar, and her eyes got wide. She exclaimed, “Ghost!”
Edgar froze, and his heart began to pound. How could he have been so oblivious to the world that one was able to sneak up on him? And—wait, Amelia could see ghosts too?
Then Jamie was squeezing his arm, and his heart rate went back to normal as he realized what Amelia was talking about.
“Wait ’til you see what a great ghost he is in the film,” she told Max and Helen, who was returning with their drinks.
Max lifted one eyebrow conspiratorially, and Helen said, “Huh. I can’t see it, to be honest, but I guess that’s why they call it acting.”
“He was amazing!” Jamie enthused. “He—” But then Jamie cut themself off, seeming to remember Edgar’s earlier request, and just smiled.
Amelia began describing the effects, and the attention shifted from Edgar. His breath came easier.
“Jamie did an amazing job with my makeup,” Edgar said. All eyes turned to him, but he didn’t let panic worm in. “They made my skin look like it was sloughing off.”
Helen waggled their eyebrows. “Awesome.”
And just like that, they were part of the conversation by choice.
When the lights dimmed and the show began, Edgar found that he was having a surprisingly good time, and that was more than he’d ever thought possible.
27
Jamie
“Try it now!” Jamie called, clawing sweaty hair out of their face.
From above, the chain saw roared back to life.
“Got it!” Randall yelled back.
Jamie pulled themself out of the tiny control room concealed beneath the stairs and closed the hidden door.
“Alright, are we good?” Marty called. “Shut up, please! Quiet! Are we all good?”
“I need two minutes,” someone called.
“Okay, everyone stay put.”
Jamie slipped their phone out and took a selfie of their sweaty, dust- and paint-streaked face and sent it to Edgar.
Jamie: T-minus 1 hour til we open the gates!
How do you look so good even covered in disgusting filth? Edgar replied. Congratulations, baby—I know it’s so great and scary.
Warmth flooded Jamie at Edgar’s words. It was happening a lot lately.
Jamie’s phone buzzed again, and they looked at it eagerly. But it was just a message from their mother on the family text thread, which conjured the opposite of warmth.
I know it’s still early to think about this, but your aunt Michaela will need to be picked up from the airport before the rehearsal dinner. Be a dear and get her, Jamie?
Sorry, I can’t. I’ll be at work.
“As you know,” they muttered.
Their mother typed for a long time and then apparently deleted the message.
Well can you at least take her to the hotel after the wedding, came Blythe’s eventual reply.