All the Feels Read online

  “You all right, Liv?”

  “Fine,” she muttered. “Just squished.”

  “Mmm … sorry about that.”

  His fingers loosened on her back, and she immediately regretted her words, but there was no way she was going to explain in an elevator full of strangers that she wanted to be this close to Xander, just not this close to the rest of them.

  “I should text Joe and say you’re not coming for dinner,” Liv said.

  “Why wouldn’t I come along?”

  Liv looked up. “You don’t actually want to come with me, do you?”

  Xander gave a one-shoulder shrug. “On the spectrum of con experiences, online friends definitely make the cut.” He winked. “Besides, your secret’s out now, so I might as well meet my die-hard fans. This is my first big role, you know. I’ve never been famous before, dearest.”

  Liv shook her head. “You’re as bad as Tom Grander.”

  “Coming from you, that should be a compliment.”

  Liv snorted.

  “Believe me. This time, it’s not.”

  12

  “WE’RE ALL MAD HERE.”

  (ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND)

  Getting down from the ninth floor was exponentially more difficult than getting up to it. The first elevator that arrived was a wall of costumed fans.

  “We can fit,” Xander insisted.

  “Too full,” Liv said, panicked by the thought of a nine-story drop to their death. “Let’s grab the next one.”

  The second elevator arrived five minutes later. If anything, it was more overloaded than the first.

  “Oh God, we’ll never fit in there,” Liv moaned.

  “We could have.”

  The doors closed, leaving them behind.

  “Should we take the stairs?”

  “Stairs are for cardio, not con.” Xander pressed the up button. “DC has a secret everyone knows and no one tells newbies.”

  “And that is?”

  In seconds an elevator going up came rushing toward them. The doors opened, revealing a mostly empty interior.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “you have to go up to go down.”

  Liv followed him in, marveling at the scene below them. She could see the full scope of Dragon Con from her bird’s-eye vantage, the floor a living mass of bodies. Tiny, toy-size people in cosplay moved in bright splotches of color ten stories down. And it wasn’t just one section. The atrium level was equally packed, the hallways leading to ballrooms around the hotel teeming with people. With an unsettling rush, the elevator sprang upward, the figures shrinking to specks. Liv’s stomach contracted, and she pulled back from the glass. They were incredibly high.

  “I knew there’d be a lot of people,” she said unsteadily, “but I didn’t expect quite this many.”

  “There are people who come from all across America, from around the world, even. The whole Dragon Con experience brings geek culture together,” Xander said fondly. “Sure, the crowds are irritating at times, but con wouldn’t be con without them.” The door opened, and a crowd of people got on from the floors above.

  “You come every year?” Liv asked.

  “Every year since I turned sixteen and my mom gave in to my constant whining.”

  “You, whine?” Liv said wryly. “Never.”

  Xander rolled his eyes.

  “So what’s your favorite part?” Liv asked.

  “I love everything about it. The whole feeling of being able to be who I want to be.” He stared out the glass panels, his smile fading. “There’s no judgment here. We’re all just friends, fellow geeks. I love that feeling.”

  Liv wanted to ask him more, but the elevator stopped again, and a group of Marvel characters climbed on, chattering loudly. She hardly had room to breathe, let alone move. With a groan of connecting cables, the elevator started the sudden drop. Liv looked over at Xander, but he was staring out the window, lost in thought. Floor by floor, the doors opened, one or two people pushing in until every crack and crevice in the already small space was crammed with bodies. Liv had never felt such sympathy for sardines as she did now. As they picked up speed, Liv studiously avoided staring at the half-naked woman cosplaying as Leeloo from The Fifth Element. Instead, she read the warnings on the elevator door: 21 PEOPLE OR 4200 LBS. She closed her eyes, fighting the urge to scream.

  Sometimes it was better not to know.

  * * *

  Dinner was nothing like Liv had expected. After the brief rush of hysteria as everyone realized Liv had been behind Spartan Survived, she found herself at the center of a passionate discussion. Even when she’d answered all the pertinent questions, there was a steady stream of conversation to contend with. Liv struggled to categorize the friends she’d only known in digital format:

  @JoesWoes was Joanne, though everyone referred to her as Joe. Loud to the point of unsettling, Joe was one of those people who were easier to connect with online. Joe’s tone, Liv decided, was calmer in text, and Liv was glad that she’d gotten to know her via fandom first. Sarah, also known as @VeilMeister, had a different issue. Though Liv struggled with anxiety when talking to strangers or dealing with crowds, Sarah went catatonic. She stared mutely at her half-full plate when Liv asked her how she was finding con. Xander gave Liv a sympathetic look.

  A minute later, Liv’s phone buzzed.

  Liv looked over. Sarah was staring down at her phone, thumbs moving back and forth. Liv’s phone buzzed again.

  Liv tapped in a reply.

  Liv glanced up to see Sarah smiling to herself while the young woman at her side laughed and shouted. Vibrant and outgoing, this fangirl was a polar opposite to @VeilMeister’s painful shyness. Her name was Kelly, and Liv had known her for years as the fic-writer @SpartanGrrl, who specialized in High School AUs, Baby!fic, and all forms of romantic fluff. Kelly had a surplus of social skills, and she spent much of the conversation hanging on Xander’s every word. Liv wasn’t sure why that irritated her so much.

  A number of lesser-known fandom peeps attended dinner too: Leah and Denise were a lovely couple who spent the evening chatting quietly to each other. Ivy was a published science-fiction writer who had obsessions in the Starveil, Star Trek, and Farscape fandoms. She’d published her own series of books. Beth had flown in from England to attend the con and was as overwhelmed as Liv was. Alicia and Ivy were best friends who’d met in the X-Files fandom years before migrating over to Starveil. They’d attended the last six Dragon Cons together. Atlanta was their hub, a once-a-year holiday to connect with their “friends family” and escape their regular life.

  “Will you guys be coming next year, too?” Ivy asked Liv and Xander. “Alicia and I come every year.”

  “It’s our yearly pilgrimage,” Alicia added.

  Xander nudged Liv’s foot, and she looked up. “See?” he said. “It’s not just my fandom that makes the trek.”

  “I don’t know,” Liv said. “I hope I’ll come back.”

  Her phone buzzed.

  Liv tapped in a reply.

  “Well, I hope you do,” Alicia said, then nodded to Xander. “Because Dragon Con friends are like none other. You might not see each other for a year, but when you’re back together”—she snapped her fingers—“it’s like you never left.”

  Liv laughed and talked, gravitating toward those like-minded fandom peeps who seemed to share her passions. In minutes, she felt like they were friends she’d known for years. And in digital form, Liv thought, she actually had.

  Brian, on the other hand, seemed to have no friends at all, just accomplices. As one of the few men in the group, he had less in common with Liv than any of the women, but his lack of social graces put him further apart than his gender did. A computer programmer by trade, Brian considered himself above the average con-goer whom he described as “the sweating masses.” At dinner, he drank whiskey when everyone else ordered soda, and after downing his third shot, his inner dialogue began spilling into muttered obscenities.

  When t
he flustered waiter brought out the wrong type of whiskey, Brian burst into a harangue of angry swearing. Seeing Liv’s horrified expression, Joe explained, “Brian is a bit rough around the edges, but he’s got his good points, too.”

  He turned, giving Liv and Joanne an indignant scowl. “I can hear you, Joanne.” He took another drink. “I’m bad-tempered, not deaf.”

  She continued, undeterred. “Brian’s old school, raised on the West Coast with San Diego Comic-Con. It’s got its own brand of crazy.”

  “What does that mean?” Liv laughed.

  “Brian will wait in line for hours and hold your place,” Joe said. “He’s got standing stamina.”

  “For how long?”

  “All goddamned night, if necessary,” Brian grunted. Next to Brian, Xander smothered a laugh behind his gloved hand.

  “All night?” Liv said. “That’s crazy!”

  “Oh honey, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen the Starveil lineups at Comic-Con. They make Atlanta seem like child’s play. That’s when you need someone like Brian,” Joe said. “He can be an angel when he wants to.”

  “I’ve already got plans to hold our places for the Starveil panel,” Brian announced. “Joe’s going to tag me off for bathroom breaks.”

  “You’re coming to that, right, Liv?” Joe chimed.

  “I’m, uh … not sure,” she said, flashing to Tom Grander’s face and feeling the familiar pang of guilt.

  “But you have to be there!” Ivy gasped.

  “You came all the way to Atlanta for this!” Kelly echoed.

  Liv’s phone buzzed three times in a row, Sarah typing as fast as her thumbs could move.

  “I’ll think about it, guys, I promise,” Liv said. “I mean, I want to.” She winced. “I really do, I just … I’m not sure if…” She closed her eyes, remembering Tom’s seething words. “I just don’t know if I can.”

  The table erupted in chaos.

  “But you HAVE to go!”

  “Liv, PLEASE!

  “… the whole point of coming!”

  Buzz … buzz … buzz … buzz …

  “… what you’re talking about!”

  “… have to be there!”

  “Please, Liv. PLEASE!”

  Liv shrank back. She hated conflict, and here she was, caught in the middle of it. “Oh God,” she moaned.

  Xander stood, and all eyes turned to him. “I’m truly sorry to interrupt, but Liv and I really must go.” He pulled out his pocket watch, flicked it open, then closed it with a snap. “Time to go, Liv dearest. The train’s leaving the station. Good-bye everyone! Have a wonderful evening.”

  He gave a brief bow to the group, then tossed down a twenty to cover his share of the meal; Liv did the same. Brian eyed the pile of cash, but the server swooped in and took it away.

  “It was delightful meeting you all,” Xander said, waving happily. He offered his arm to Liv, and she grabbed hold of it.

  “But you can’t leave!” someone called. “Stay!”

  Liv pushed past the chairs, eager to escape. “Bye!”

  Outside she burst into a peal of laughter. “Oh my God, I was scared I’d have to admit what happened with Tom Grander!”

  “I could tell.”

  Liv shook her head. “I don’t even want to know how they’d react if they heard what he said to me.”

  Xander shrugged, heading down the street at a jaunty pace. “I’m sure they’d be fine.” He snorted. “Or at least most of them. As to Brian … I’m not betting on that horse.”

  “Thank you for coming along,” Liv said. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

  Xander’s pace slowed. “Why?”

  “Because … I assumed my friends were bothering you.”

  Xander chuckled. “Not at all, dearest. The stress directed at you concerned me, but the rest?” He waved his hand in the air. “Not so much. People are people, Liv, and at Dragon Con, it takes all sorts.”

  Liv’s footsteps slowed. “So you decided it was time to leave just because I was upset?”

  Xander winked. “Something like that.”

  * * *

  When Liv and Xander came in off the street, the music inside hit them like a wall of sound. Liv stumbled through the crowd, barely avoiding a head-on collision with a group of Battlestar Galactica fans dressed in military garb. They laughed and shouted, “So say we all,” as they neared. Liv looked past the viper jocks to the vaulted atrium. Busy a few hours before, the Marriott was now bulging at the seams.

  Celebrities mingled with their fans. Cosplayers posed with tourists. People danced and drank with Sodom and Gomorrah–like abandon. There wasn’t a set dance floor, just knots of people pulled into motion, others joining and then falling away as the urge took them.

  “Told you yesterday was a warm-up!” Xander shouted over the cacophony.

  Liv tried to answer, but her words disappeared into the roar of the music.

  When the Marriott’s crowds became too much, they headed to the Hyatt, where a drum circle was being held. A pounding rhythm filled the air of the dimly lit room, dancers—in costume and in street clothes—moving to some primal beat. Liv watched, rapt in the moment.

  A smile stole over Xander’s face. “You ready to connect to your inner hippie?”

  “I—I don’t know,” Liv said, her eyes widening as a troupe of belly dancers shimmied through the growing crowd. “I think maybe I’ll stand at the side and watch.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Xander said, stepping nearer.

  “What?”

  He was almost against her, his body starting to bob in time to the rhythm. It should have been a laugh-worthy sight: an aristocrat nodding his head to a primitive beat, but somehow Xander made it sexy.

  “C’mon, Liv,” he purred. “I’ve seen you dancing. I know that you can move. This is exactly the same.”

  Liv let out a high-pitched giggle. “But this isn’t dancing.”

  The bouncing moved from his legs to his hips.

  “I beg to differ.”

  Liv glanced over his shoulder to the growing crowd. Everyone else seemed caught up in the movement. “I don’t know,” she said. “There’s no music, just drums. It’s…”

  Xander’s fingers slid up her arm to her elbow, resting there. “Try to let go,” he whispered. “Feel, don’t think.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can.” He moved a breath closer. “For me, dearest.”

  Liv closed her eyes as his hands drew her up against him. A giggle rose up her throat, but the sound died as Xander’s hands circled her waist.

  “Let yourself go loose.”

  “I … I don’t know how,” she gasped.

  “You do.”

  His hands moved her hips back and forth—guiding rather than forcing—until his beat became hers, and suddenly she was moving, her body bouncing along to the sound of drums. Liv’s lashes fluttered open to find Xander staring down at her. His teeth flashed white in the dim room.

  “And now, we start to move…” And he pulled her into the dance.

  * * *

  The second leg of the night was spent in the Centennial ballroom, where they regained their breath at the Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog marathon. Liv sat at Xander’s side, his arm looped over the back of her chair. He gave a whispered commentary as the vlog series played on the projection screen. Liv grinned and laughed and sang, but her mind was caught on one detail: that having Xander’s arm around her felt inexplicably right and she wanted more. Dragon Con felt more magical than ever.

  When the marathon ended, they returned to the Marriott’s main atrium. It was awash with people, and cosplayers outnumbered the nameless fans two to one.

  “You were right,” Liv said. “I should’ve brought a costume.”

  Xander grinned as he led her to a knot of people dancing in the center of the floor. “Admitting it is the first step.”

  He began to gyrate in time to the pulsing techno beat, and this time
Liv took her place at his side with no prompting. “What’s the next step?”

  “What?!” he shouted.

  She threw her arms over his neck, pulling him forward. Xander’s eyes widened, his gaze dropping to her mouth and back up.

  “I said,” Liv shouted, “what’s the next step?”

  Xander grinned. “The next step will be coming back with me next year and bringing a costume for each of the days.”

  The music changed, and Liv twirled out of his arms. “Maybe,” she teased, winking at him over her shoulder. “Haven’t decided yet.”

  He followed her dance movement through the crowd. “Maybe’s not good enough,” he growled as he caught her hand. “But I’ll take it for now. And then I’ll work on changing your mind.”

  Breathless, Liv danced closer. “Good…”

  Liv and Xander danced endlessly, only stopping when exhaustion had them wobbling on their feet. They stood at the side of the floor, people-watching. Xander’s hair was matted with sweat, cheeks pink. His waistcoat hung unbuttoned, and his shirt was open enough to show a wide swath of muscled chest. When Liv saw it, her stomach tightened, and she looked away before he could see her blatantly staring. For a moment, she saw a familiar glint of blond hair, and her breath caught in her chest. She was certain she recognized the profile as Hank’s.

  The man turned.

  Tom Grander, surrounded by his entourage, stood a stone’s throw away from her. Their eyes met and caught. If hatred had a voltage, Liv would have been electrocuted on the spot. As it was, she was trapped in place. Her lungs refused to breathe. Her legs refused to move. Horrified, Liv watched as Tom leaned over to the man nearest him, whispering something in his ear. The other man, too, began to stare.

  “Liv? What’s…?” Xander’s tone shifted. “Oh, that arrogant bastard!”

  “I gotta go.” Liv forced her legs to comply.

  “Go where?” Xander shouted.

  “Bathroom break,” she said, staggering slightly. “Back in a sec.”

  She found the hallway leading to the restrooms but accidentally walked into an unlocked storage closet rather than the facilities. It was only then that Liv realized the lineup she’d seen wasn’t for a panel, but for the use of the toilets. After waiting in the bathroom line for an interminable time, she hid in the stall for ten full minutes, but there were too many people waiting to stay any longer.