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Episode 2

Episode 2

Midnight Fed had been loosed on the world.

My story. My art. My hideous progeny, if you wanted to get all Mary Shelley dramatic about it. Which, apparently, I did, since I woke up, rolled over, and mumbled to Sketch, “Welp. I guess I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper.”

In response to which, Sketch lifted one ear, as if to say: “Let’s leave the art-as-birth metaphors to the literary genius who actually had a tragic relationship with her IRL progeny, shall we?”

Good point.

Frankenstein (and Sketch’s scorn) aside, it was a hell of a feeling. Something that had been only mine for so long, could now be read by anyone. The world I had spent so much time hiding in, was now exposed. It was a raw, open feeling, spiked with fear. But if I dug beneath the fear, I could touch the spark of excitement.

I forced myself to make coffee, eat a Pop Tart, and take Sketch on our morning walk before I even opened my laptop. Outside the bite of autumn was in the air, and Halloween decorations enlivened our usual route. Sketch nosed at a pile of ghost-white pumpkins on a stoop and sneezed resentfully, as if to say: “Oh, right. It’s decorative gourd season, motherfuckers.”

I tried not to think about Midnight Fed as we passed rain-damp orange garland, window clings of mummies, vampires, and werewolves, and jack-o’-lanterns slumping on steps.

What was I expecting, exactly? There wasn’t going to be a flood of praise, sudden bestseller status, or a major denouncement. In fact, the most likely thing was that no one would notice Midnight Fed at all. That the world after its release would be identical to the world before it. That the Archie Gant after its release would be identical to the Archie Gant before it.

Except … I already wasn’t the same Archie Gant as I’d been twenty-four hours before. Because that Archie Gant hadn’t known Nathan C.

Nathan C., who’d swept into my life in a chat window and saved the day. Night. Whatever. Nathan C., who was letters on the screen and a voice in my ear. Nathan C. who—if I kept my nerve—might be a breathing, speaking human sitting across from me later today.

What did he look like? What did he smell like? And what the hell did the C. stand for? I threw out options to Sketch as we walked. Clark, Cooper, Christenson, Cook. Then I cringed to realize I’d been assuming he was white, so I tried Cho, Chidike, Chaudhary, Cruz. Then I realized the C. appended to his name might have just been internally assigned because there were multiple Nathans, and that his last name could start with any letter. That was when I started breathing fast and Sketch steered us toward home.

Safe inside, I poured a second cup of coffee, grabbed the other Pop Tart, and settled at my desk, Sketch at my feet.

Holy shit, there it was, alive on the internet: Midnight Fed, for all to see. I clicked through a few reader reviews, some blog spots my publisher had set up, and skimmed an article about the book in a comics magazine. Nothing dramatic, nothing amazing. My sigh of relief—and maybe just a little disappointment—echoed in the quiet of my apartment, and I closed the computer and got on with my day. Just an ordinary day, working on the next part of Midnight Fed.

For hours, I lost myself in the world of Malchi and a man whose hair was the deep cobalt of Malchi’s skin, so that when I drew them entwined, the man’s hair and Malchi’s skin flowed into one another ecstatically. The ring of my phone jerked me away from the page, blue tingeing my vision.

I answered without looking, because it could only be Faye.

“Hey, sis,” I said. I did a quick calculation. It was 2pm in New York, so that would make it 8pm in Berlin. “How was your day?”

“Shut up about my day. Today is your day! How was it? Is it, I mean. Congrats, by the way.”

“Thanks. It’s okay.”

“Please, Archie, I only have so much time before bed. If you keep rambling on like that, I won’t get the doctor-recommended eight hours.”

Faye’s voice, as usual, slid effortlessly between fondness and sarcasm. She could always make me smile.

“It’s strange. It’s like … one day you’re flipping channels and you see something that looks so familiar, but how could it be familiar, because you’ve never seen it before? Then you realize you must have seen it as a really little kid, and it left an impression but it had been buried until you saw it again. You know?”

“Nope.”

I snorted. “It’s just weird because the story … the world … it’s all lived in my head so long. And now I can click on Amazon, and it’s there. A book. Now anyone can live in it.”

I could hear Faye moving around. In the kitchen probably, given the clink and scrape of what sounded like dishes. She never could focus on one thing at once.

“Do you still dream about it? The world?”

“Yeah.”

Not as often as I once had. As a kid, it had felt like my entire dreamscape was the world of Midnight Fed, though then it had been nameless. It even seemed to creep out of my dreams, into waking life.

But that was just my overactive imagination.

“Have you talked to Mother and Father today?”

“No. You know I haven’t.”

“I thought maybe they’d reach out. Since it’s release day.”

“I blocked their numbers. You know that.” She started to say something, and then fell silent. “Faye,” I said, warningly. “What did you do?”

“Nothing! Well. I might’ve texted Mother and reminded her your book came out today.”

“Damn it, Faye!”

“I’m sorry! I just …”

“Ugh, what? Just say it.”

“I just didn’t want you to be alone today, sitting in your apartment, with no one to talk to about your book besides a damned dog!”

“Wow, Sketch, did you hear that? Did you know you’re damned? Did you know Faye thinks you’re going to hell, Sketch?”

Sketch rolled onto his back on my bed, tongue lolling out, as if to say: “Heaven and Hell are an overdetermined binary constructed for lackluster fictional affect and demonstrate how the inability to withstand uncertainty results in fear and banality.”

“No need to be dramatic, Archie.”

“You’re the one back-channeling text messages like a supervillain or a soap opera character because you think I’m some poor Dickensian urchin. I’m just chatting with my dog.”

“You are rather Dickensian, Arch, now that you mention it,” Faye sniffed.

“Fuck off. You’re the worst of times.”

Faye’s sniff turned to a laugh. “Okay, I’m sorry. No harm done, if you have her blocked anyway.”

But there was. Because now I’d wonder about it. Had my mother tried to call me today? To say congratulations, or—more likely—to tell me I was wasting my life. Had she told my father about the book release? I doubted it. She wouldn’t want to remind my father of the world of Midnight Fed. Not after the last time it had come up.

Faye didn’t know the whole story. To her, our father’s rages were temper—overreactions, sure, but nothing a little cooling off time wouldn’t fix. But then, he’d never thought she should be institutionalized. Never thought there was something wrong with her. He’d never decided that he would teach her once and for all what was acceptable and what wasn’t.

No, she didn’t know anywhere near the whole story. And I would never tell her. It was bad enough that she had a cold, superficial relationship with our parents. At least she knew they loved her. She didn’t need to lose that just because they thought I was a fucked-up loser.

“No. No harm done. It’s fine. Sorry.”

“I really did just hate the idea of you being alone today.”

“I know, I get it. Thanks. And actually, uh. Well, I might not be alone. Today. Maybe.” I cringed at the crack in my voice. It was hope hit with a hammer.

“What? Tell!”

I briefly outlined last night’s conversation with Nathan, and she omged at all the appropriate moments.

“It sounds like something out of a romance novel!” she said when I was done.

“Yeah, well. Not really my genre, but that means it ends well, right?”

“Yeah, bro. Happily ever after guaranteed.” I could hear the wistfulness in her voice. It was for me. It was always for me.

“Well, then, I guess I could do worse. Actually, sis, I should go. He’s gonna be off work soon, so …”

“Yes, of course, go, go. I’m really, really proud of you. You know that right?” Apparently cracking voices ran in the family.

“Yeah,” I choked out. “Thanks.”

I absolutely did not pace around my apartment, waiting for Nathan’s call. And as I did, Sketch followed me with his eyes, chin on paws, as if to say: “Get a life, Archibald. Get an effing life.”

Yeah, sometimes Sketch called me Archibald too. It was much better than when my father did it.

When the phone rang, I jumped. My heart pounded in my throat as I answered.

“Hey, Archie, happy Midnight Fed day.”

Nathan’s voice slid into my ear like honey.

“Hey. Thanks. Thank you. Nathan. Hi.”

“Hi, Archie.”

“Hi.”

Sketch whined. It required no translation.

“So, are you still up for letting me take you out to celebrate?”

He said it like I was doing him a favor, as opposed to being a pathetic shut-in who didn’t have anyone in his life.

“Yeah, if you still want to.”

“I do.”

I could hear the smile in his voice and I found myself smiling back.

“Okay.”

The sounds of the city filtered in through Nathan’s phone and through my window: similar but not identical soundscapes. If we were in a comic, I’d draw us in a horizontally split page. Nathan would be walking in the top panel, the width of the page showing the scope of the city stretching out before him. My half of the page would be mostly the brick exterior of my building, and almost at the edge of the page, my window, through which you’d see my jumbled little desk, and Sketch lying in the tangle of my rumpled bedclothes.

“Where do you want to go?” Nathan was asking, as I blinked away the image of us I’d drawn in my mind.

“Oh, uh, I don’t care. You pick. I’m in Bensonhurst.”

“No preference at all?”

He sounded casual, maybe even flirtatious, but it was stressing me out. All I wanted was not to have to choose.

“No.”

“Okay. Let me think for a minute and I’ll text you where to meet. Sound good?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m choosing to interpret your monosyllabic and disengaged responses as nerves, rather than a desire for me to fuck off, but you should tell me if you do.”

“No, no, I do. I mean, I don’t want you to fuck off. It’s, yeah, nerves. It’s fine.”

“Okay, Archie. I’ll text you right back. See you soon.”

The phone went silent and I collapsed on the bed next to Sketch.

“Don’t say anything,” I muttered, burying my face in the pillow.

My phone chimed a minute later and I dragged it to my face. When I saw where he wanted to meet, I sat bolt upright.

Nathan wanted to meet at Bartlett, a burger joint across from Green-Wood Cemetery. It was a well-known place, so it wasn’t shocking that he would like it. But it was also featured in Midnight Fed.

What were the odds that Nathan C. Had randomly chosen the restaurant beneath the apartment Malchi called home?

“What are the odds, Sketch?”

Sketch stretched out a paw and rested it on my knee, as if to say: “Don’t bring statistics into this, Archie,” or perhaps: “My math isn’t good enough to express how very low the odds are.” Or maybe even: “It’s clearly destiny, Archie!”

In a momentary and uncharacteristic surge of cheer, I decided to go with the latter.

After I showered, I scrambled to find a combination of clothing that didn’t make me look like what I was: a too-pale, too-thin white guy whose hair might generously be called wheat and ungenerously called dishwater blond; whose eyes might, in a certain light, look blue, but in most non-certain light were a gray as cold and colorless as he often felt.

I pushed my hair to the side, knowing it’d dry in floppy, unpredictable waves no matter what I did, and slid into my jacket, hoping it would add a little bulk to my appearance.

With a final deep breath and a double-check that I had my wallet and keys, I knelt beside Sketch and said, “No matter what happens, I’ll be back here with you in like three hours, max, so you don’t need to panic.”

Sketch pawed at the floor as if to say: “Getting back to me as quickly as possible isn’t precisely what should be foremost in your mind before a date. And we still know which of us is panicking.”

There was no arguing with any part of that.

I gulped deep breaths of fresh air and scuffed the heels of my worn sneakers as I walked to the D train. On the platform, glaring at my shoes and the frayed cuffs of my jeans, hoping Nathan didn’t take one look at me and fade back into the crowd, I realized I didn’t know what he looked like.

“Shit,” I muttered. Talk about awkward. I shot off a quick text as the train came: How will I recognize you? Getting on the train.

His reply slid in at 50th Street Station: I’ll find you. I saw your author pic, handsome ;)

My heart started pounding faster than the beat coming through the headphones of the man rocking out next to me. I’d forgotten about the picture in my book. Faye had taken it at my publisher’s insistence. According to them, it was easier for readers to connect with an author when they knew what he looked like.

Nathan had thought I was … handsome?

I stared at my reflection in the cloudy glass of the train door. My light eyes, pale brows, and messy hair made me look younger than I was. I narrowed my eyes to try and stop looking scared and just succeeded in looking mean. My mouth naturally turned down, so I looked upset even when I wasn’t. Handsome? Yeah, nope. I turned away from the glass for the rest of the ride.

Now, I stood in the northeastern corner of Green-Wood Cemetery, trying to work up the courage to cross the street to Bartlett. With my dark coat flapping around my in the waning afternoon light, I probably looked ghoulish. I would draw it as a full-page spread, the cemetery sprawling all around me. I’d draw myself leaning against a tomb, one knee bent, coat billowing around me like tattered shrouds, pale skin and hair ghostly.

I could leave. I could turn around and get back on the train—or, hell, walk home and enjoy the fresh air. I didn’t have to go in. I could delete Nathan’s number from my phone; block him the way I had my parents. I didn’t owe him anything.

Well, except that he had built my website basically from scratch on his own time. And he’d invited me out to celebrate because I had no one else …

“No,” I said to myself. “You don’t owe him anything. It’s not a debt. It’s a choice. Go because you liked him. He’s nice. Maybe it will be okay.”

Doubt whispered like wind through the graves. People didn’t just invite each other to dinner out of the goodness of their hearts. They expected things. Date things. Normal date things, like smiling and laughing and sharing.

I ground my knuckles into the rough stone of the grave behind me. Stop it.

“Fuck it,” I spat out. I patted my cheeks hard, took a deep breath, and stalked toward Bartlett.

I was too focused on forcing myself inside the door to notice the people outside the restaurant, so when I heard my name, I spun around, discombobulated.

“Archie?”

It was Nathan’s voice, but the man it was coming from looked nothing like I’d imagined Nathan would look. I hadn’t even realized I had pictured Nathan until I saw how wrong I’d been.

He was tall and tanned, with shaved dark brown hair and warm brown eyes that looked a bit like he was squinting, or just waking up. He ran a hand over his shaved head in a gesture that looked habitual, and shrugged broad shoulders.

“Hey,” the man who must have been Nathan said. He held out his hand, and I took it, only aware of how cold I was as the warmth of Nathan’s skin seeped into mine.

Nathan still had hold of my hand, and I wracked my brain for anything to say.

“You’re white,” I blurted. “I mean. Uh, shit.”

Nathan grinned. His smile was dazzling. He had a small space between his two front teeth, and dimples. Damn it.

“I am.”

“Sorry, I just, uh.” I shook my head. “I was walking Sketch—my dog—and I was thinking of what the ‘C’ might’ve stood for, and I was like ‘oh, Cook, Christensen, et cetera, and then I realized it was stupid to assume you were white, so then I … but, uh … Yeah.”

Nathan was still smiling. Nathan still had possession of my hand.

“Czerniak.”

“Pardon?”

“The C. It’s for Czerniak.” He spelled it.

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

“So you were thinking about me, hmm?”

“What? No. Oh. Just the C. I mean …”

Nathan raised his eyebrows, but didn’t argue. “Shall we?”

I nodded, and strode to the door before I could change my mind. It was racing. I had expected Nathan to be … cute. He’d been into my art, and I’d thought: edgy. Then he’d said grad student, and I’d thought: nerdy. A cute, edgy nerd. That’s what I’d been picturing. Someone with intelligent eyes and a sweet smile to go with that voice.

And part of me—if I were honest with myself—had been relieved, imagining an edgy nerd. Because I knew edgy nerds. Hell, I basically was one.

But this Nathan was something different. Something far more dangerous. This Nathan, with his warm, teasing eyes, his careless grin, and arms that looked like they could cradle or crush. He made my pulse race and my ears ring, and all he’d done was squeeze my hand.

As we made our way to our table, I imagined Sketch was there with me. I’d say, I’m fucked, Sketch. And Sketch would flop down beside me under the booth and rest his chin on my knees, as if to say: “I really think you’re approaching this with the entirely wrong attitude, Archie.” But what he’d actually mean was: “Yeah, you’re super fucked, bro,” and we’d both know it.

“So, how was Midnight Fed day?” Nathan asked, laying a napkin in his lap. He leaned in, and he didn’t seem to care about anything in the world except whatever I was about to say. The attention was humbling, and it made me feel reckless. I wanted to tell him things. Important things, meaningless things, and everything in between.

“It was okay, I think. I don’t really know how these things are supposed to go, I guess. It’s a big deal, but also it’s kind of nothing. Because it came out today, yeah, but it felt bigger when I finished it. Or when my publisher bought it. But that was a while ago now. Today was just like … an echo.”

The waiter took our drink orders and because I’d forgotten to look at the menu I got some cocktail she swore I would love. When it came, it was an alarming hue the livid purple of a fresh bruise.

“Did you hear what she said this is?” I asked Nathan when she was out of earshot.

He grinned and shook his head. “No, but it looks like a color you’d use in your comic.”

He was right and it endeared the cocktail to me, even if after several sips I still had no idea what I was drinking.

“Why did you want to meet here,” I found myself asking as I reached the bottom of the mystery drink.

“Do you not like it?”

“No, I do. But why?”

Nathan’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve been here a few times before, always liked the food. Ambiance isn’t too shabby either.”

“You didn’t, um … Never mind.”

“What?”

Furiously, I told myself: Come on. He did not rush out to his local bookseller in between teaching classes and texting you to buy your book, read it, see that this place figures in the book, and then invite you here to celebrate thematically!

“Nothing. I … it’s just a funny coincidence I guess. The incubus in Midnight Fed? He lives in an apartment above this restaurant. I don’t call it Bartlett in the book, but it looks the same, and it’s across from the cemetery.”

“Holy shit, what are the odds?” Nathan leaned in.

“Right?”

I looked away from his sparkling eyes and dimples. I looked down at the table because, odds or no odds, destiny or no destiny, it felt too good to believe.

“I didn’t get a chance to pick up the book today,” Nathan said. “But I can’t wait to read it.”

“Oh, god, you don’t have to.” My cheeks went hot the longer he looked at me, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Wow,” Nathan murmured, leaning in. “You blush like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could disappear. Wishing I was back in the safety of my apartment, a hundred moments away from this one. But, no. Because then I wouldn’t be here with Nathan. The blush crept down my throat.

“I’m sorry,” Nathan said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I shook my head. Nathan put a hand lightly over mine.

“Hey, this doesn’t have to be a big deal, okay? We’re supposed to be celebrating you. We can do whatever you want, go wherever you want. Okay?”

I opened my eyes and he took his hand away, eyes earnest on mine.

“Can we leave? I want to hang out with you,” I added quickly, as the light in his eyes dimmed. “Just, can we walk or something? I’m all …” I shook my hands out. I was tense and twitchy at the same time.

Nathan smiled, and there were those dimples, like magic.

Outside, I took a deep breath. The cool air felt good on my face even as I pulled my jacket around me against the chill. We walked north in silence for a few blocks, and watched strangely dressed people move from bar to bar. It took me a minute—and a woman in a cat woman costume—to remember that the next day was Halloween.

Nathan was humming softly, hands in his jacket pockets. With his strong profile silhouetted in the moonlight, he looked untouchable. Then he glanced down to see me staring, and he smiled, and it warmed me straight through.

“Sorry if I’m fucking this up,” I said.

He elbowed me in the ribs. “Get out of here, you’re not fucking anything up.”

“So, how was your class?”

In my mind, I saw Sketch perk up, the way he did when I used the word walk, as if to say: “Yes, good, well-played, young Archibald. A scrap of conversation!”

“It was pretty good. The students had Halloween-brain, so they were a little ya know.” He made an out of it gesture.

“What were you talking about?”

“The class is an Intro to Medieval History. Today we were talking about sumptuary laws.” He winked. “Totally galvanizing, right?”

“Uh. I don’t know what those are, so I can’t say. Is medieval history your specialty? Area? Thing.”

That smile again. It made his eyes narrow and those dimples pop. And hell, that little space between his two front teeth was kind of killing me. Would I be able to feel it with my tongue if we kissed?

“Yep, it’s my focus. I have three older sisters, and they went through this period of being obsessed with the King Arthur myth. They’d make me play pretend with them and act stuff out. That’s how I got into it, originally.”

I could see Nathan as a king. With his broad shoulders, confident bearing, and laid-back attitude, I’d sure as hell follow him.

“Were you Arthur?”

“Oh hell no. My sister Janine was usually Arthur because she was the oldest, so she got to pick. Helen liked to be Guinevere sometimes, or sometimes Elaine—conflicting moral impulses, yes, but she certainly knew she wanted Arthur.”

He grinned like that was a joke, so I smiled vaguely back, but I didn’t know enough about the King Arthur story to understand why.

“Teagan was always Nimue—Lady of the Lake. Which made me Lancelot, sometimes. Sometimes I’d be one of Nimue’s novices, or one of Arthur’s knights. Sometimes Arthur’s son. Depended on what story they were playing. There are so many versions.”

He broke off, running his palm over his shaved head.

Imagining big, tall Nathan getting bossed around by his sisters was pretty damned endearing. His smile was self-deprecating and charming and I smiled back. I could feel my cheeks start to heat again, looked away. He saw me, and it was frightening, but also intoxicating.

“Um. What were those law thingies?”

“Ah. Sumptuary laws. They were laws that governed things like who could wear certain colors and fabrics, or get certain foods, and other luxury items. Basically, it was a way to reinforce a rigid class structure.”

He stepped closer to me and I looked up at him. My head buzzed, trying to listen to what he was saying even as the raw, animal part of me reared up in response to his proximity.

“For example.” He ran a finger down the arm of my jacket. “If there’s a law that only nobility can wear certain colors and fabrics, people can tell at a glance if someone is noble.”

I swallowed hard. He spoke like he was used to being listened to.

“The color of your drink, back there?” He leaned in closer, as if he could taste it on the air between us.

“Purple,” I murmured.

“In Ancient Rome, only the Emperor could wear a purple cape. Tyrian purple, specifically. The dye was hellishly expensive. Made from the secretions of tens of thousands of a kind of sea snails found in the Mediterranean Sea.”

My mind was flooded with the image of sea snails crawling out of my drink, leaving trails of purple in their wake. It was half beautiful and half nauseating.

We were a breath apart, and I yearned to close the distance. To slide my hands over his shoulders and draw him to me.

“What now?” he said softly.

Kiss me. Hold me. Put your hands all over me.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

He drew back with an easy smile and my disappointment was palpable. “Okay. Want to walk around the cemetery? Celebrate with the dead?” He motioned east toward the cemetery. Then he winked, and it was ludicrous how well he pulled it off.

Nathan’s shoulder brushed mine, and in bolt of courage, I slid my arm through his for a moment. Just a quick press of crooked elbows, but a frisson shot through me at his touch and my head swam at my boldness.

When I moved away, he let me, but the space between us diminished and we bumped hips and shoulders as we walked close together. Gone was the urgency to speak, and with its departure, I finally relaxed.

I climbed over a low spot in the fence, my jacket snagging on it for a moment, like a skeletal hand dragging me backward. But I shook myself loose just in time to see Nathan’s powerful thighs flex as he hopped over after me.

Against the dark sky, the tombstones glowed like earthbound moons. In a city buzzing with light and noise, the still, dark paths were a respite. Our steps rustled damp leaves and the wind strummed tree branches above us. Someone had left a plastic pumpkin filled with yellow and orange zinnias in front of a grave stone.

Faye and I used to use those plastic pumpkins for trick-or-treating when we were kids. How had I gotten from there to here? From the kid trick-or-treating to the person standing in this cemetery the day his book came out?

“Holy shit,” I said, stopping short.

“What’s wrong?” Nathan asked, grabbing for my arm.

“Holy shit, I published a book today. Holy shit.”

Nathan took me by the shoulders and grinned. “Hell yeah you did.”

My answering smile felt goofy. I was overflowing with feeling, suddenly, and the force of it propelled me onto my toes.

I kissed him recklessly, nearly losing my balance in the process. It was more attack than kiss, and I dropped back onto my heels, cheeks heating with mortification.

But as I looked down at the scuffed toes of my sneakers, Nathan’s arms came back around me.

“I’m glad you’ve gotten into a celebratory mood,” he said. He cupped my face gently, palms cool against my furious blush. “Can we try that again?”

I opened my mouth to say something stupid like, “At your own risk,” but then I looked at Nathan. At his dark eyes, gone intense and smoldering; at the plush of his lower lip and the slash of his cheekbone. And I said nothing. I just nodded, and felt my pulse speed up as he leaned down and kissed me, slow and sweet.

His palm slid up my back and pressed us close. My breath hitched and I deepened the kiss, tasting his tongue with my own. Nathan’s groan rumbled through me and his hand tangled in my hair. He tasted like mint and the smoky mescal he’d ordered at Bartlett, and he kissed like he had all the time in the world.

I was impatient and greedy. It was the first kiss I’d shared in years. What if it was the only one I got for years to come? I wanted to remember everything so I could replay it in my mind once Nathan was gone and I was back in my apartment, high above the world, alone.

I tangled my tongue with his, blood thrumming and skin alive with need. Nathan gentled me with one hand and clutched at me with the other. My cheeks and throat were burning. My blush probably glowed, even in the dark.

When Nathan broke the kiss, I heard my desperate sound of disappointment, but it sounded like it was coming from far away.

“Damn,” Nathan murmured, looking at me with wonder. He trailed cool fingertips over my cheekbone, then down to my neck. “You’re so hot.”

I knew he meant my blush, but I let myself imagine, just for a moment, that he meant me.

In the aftermath of what was probably the best kiss of my life, awkwardness descended.

“Come on.” Nathan grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the fog of my warring thoughts, and dragged me off the path.

We stopped at the foot of a tall marble obelisk, the names of generations of the Janacek family cut deeply into the stone. Nathan dragged his finger along the top name.

“This guy, Horace Janacek, was a ship’s captain. One November, his ship ran aground of rocks, and his crew was lost, except for a young man who had been imprisoned on the ship for stealing food. After the shipwreck they had to work together to reach land. It took days, but they managed to survive. By the time they got to safety, Horace Janacek considered the man he’d imprisoned a son. They made their way to New York and began a successful partnership in the ship-building industry, and lived happily ever after. Okay, your turn.”

“Wait, what? Did you learn about them in grad school or something? Are they famous?”

“No.” Nathan grinned. “I made it up. Now you pick one and make up a story.”

I snorted out a laugh. I wanted to press close to him again, to feel the heat of his skin and the strength of his body. “I want to draw a shipwreck now.”

“You should. Can you add a shipwreck to Midnight Fed two?” He winked again.

“Yeah. I’ll send Malchi out to sea. Maybe he can try his powers on marine life. I don’t know, though. I’ve always imagined whales were already pretty happy. How could they not be? They’re whales. It seems like one of the top five best things to be.”

“What are the other four?”

I shrugged. “Dogs, definitely. Maybe cats; I don’t know. Some cats seem pretty pissed off. Octopi, for sure. And, um. Maybe eagles? No, hawks. Yeah. Well, probably lots of things I’ve never even heard about. It always seemed like snails had it pretty good, but now that I know people are squeezing them to make dye, maybe not so much. Or did you make that up too?”

“Nope.”

He slung an arm around my shoulder and my body rearranged itself to fit perfectly at his side. He steered us to an oddly shaped grave with an angel perching on top, its wings unfurled to frame it.

“Tell me a story, Archie?”

Thomasina Mott VanZandt, it said. 1879–1939. Held By Angels.

I drew it in my mind. I wanted to render the texture of the angel’s feathers, rough and soft at the same time.

“Okay, um. She grew up in an orphanage and never knew her parents. When she was fifteen, she realized she could see into people’s hearts and know whether they were good or bad. The next year she left the orphanage and made a living by telling fortunes, but she freaked people out because she knew their deepest shames and dearest accomplishments. After a few years, the angels found her. They told her she was one of them—half angel. That’s why she could see into human hearts. They couldn’t take her with them to wherever angels live. But they could protect her from evil. So she, uh … lived happily ever after? Well, until 1939. Which, actually, probably wasn’t the worst, given the war and all.”

“A+, Archie. Excellent story and excellent history-ing.”

I bumped him with my shoulder. It felt like we could stay here forever, making up stories of the people who were likely no longer even a jumble of bones beneath our feet.

“Listen,” Nathan said. “I should head home.”

Disappointment shot through me. So much for forever. I looked down. “Oh, sure, okay. Yeah, me too.”

He studied me, expression serious. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”

I nodded, but couldn’t think of how to thank him without sounding like a total loser. Thank you for caring enough to want to celebrate with me. Thank you for wanting to kiss me. Yeah, no.

“Can I see you again?” he asked, stepping close and tipping my chin up. I nodded and he kissed me before I had to say anything. Kissed me sweet and slow, fingertips tracing my jaw line and my ear and then trailing down my throat to rest at my racing pulse as our lips parted.

“Happy Midnight Fed day, Archie,” he murmured, cupping my cheek. He shot me a look that promised everything, raking me up and down, and ended in that sweet, dimpled smile.

Then he turned and strode away, leaving me grasping at the grave behind me so I didn’t melt into a puddle on the grass.

I walked to the train willing the cool night air to calm my flush, and slumped into an empty seat in a daze. I shifted my phone out of my back pocket before I crushed it between my ass and the plastic seat, and it lit up in my hand. Could it be Nathan? I swiped it open with my head still full of him. But it wasn’t a lovely-to-meet-you or I-had-a-great-time text. It was an email.

And it sent a shiver of joy up my spine.

I just read Midnight Fed and had to write to you. It was amazing. I’m speechless. How … how did you know?

The email address was from a string of numbers and letters, but … it was there. Someone had read Midnight Fed and they had liked it. It had meant something to them. They had felt like I understood. I felt my cheeks warm again, this time with satisfaction. I had made an impression. I had created something meaningful. Maybe I wasn’t useless. Maybe I wasn’t as pathetic as my father thought. After all, Nathan hadn’t seemed to think I was so bad.

On the way home, I kept touching my mouth, as if traces of Nathan’s kiss lingered on my lips. As I stepped off the train, I caught a glimpse of myself in the window. I still looked dazed, and an unfamiliar, tender smile played at the corners of my mouth. My hair was messier than usual, and I had no desire to fix it.

Sketch yipped softly at the sound of my key in the door, and when I locked it behind me, I slid down it to the floor.

“Holy shit, Sketch,” I said, feeling my cheeks flush all over again as I thought about Nathan’s kiss. “Holy shit.”

Sketch trotted up to me and stuck his nose in my face, scenting the unfamiliar smells. With one last sniff, he pulled back and sat down on his haunches, looking right at me, as if to say: “Holy shit, Archie. Holy shit.”

To be continued …

Roan Parrish lives in Philadelphia, where she is gradually attempting to write love stories in every genre.

When not writing, she can usually be found cutting her friends’ hair, meandering through whatever city she’s in while listening to torch songs and melodic death metal, or cooking overly elaborate meals. She loves bonfires, winter beaches, minor chord harmonies, and self-tattooing. One time she may or may not have baked a six-layer chocolate cake and then thrown it out the window in a fit of pique.

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