~Sunday, January 1, 2017, 7:52AM, Manhattan, NYC~

“Almost…home,” Loki muttered between heavy breaths as he slowed his pace from a run to a jog and finally came to a stop at the corner of Church and Canal Street.

Slamming his left palm into the crosswalk button, he whipped his phone out of his right jacket pocket, and switched hands, yanking his right glove off with his teeth to use the touchscreen.  He was on the latter half of his daily lap around the lower west side, and despite listening to his supposedly motivational running playlist, he felt like sinking to the ground, putting his head between his knees, and staying there until someone called 911 out of concern for the absurdly sexy, though apparently catatonic human icicle on the sidewalk.  He bent down, trying to shield his phone from the drizzle as he scrolled through his playlist, hoping one of the tracks would stand out as a decent candidate.  Scroll, scroll, scroll—dull, blah, meh, ugh, eh, no, no, pass, oh HARD pass.  

“Dammit,” Loki hissed, glancing up at the cross-traffic light.  He scowled at the thing.

Evil, purposefully inconvenient machine, how are you STILL green??

Annoyed to no end, he returned his gaze to his phone, clouds of breath escaping his mouth and fogging up the cold screen.  Naturally, this turned the words into indecipherable blurry-lettered blobs.

Eyes rolling, he unzipped his jacket just enough to slide his phone inside, then rubbed it in circles on his shirt to dry off the screen.  He removed it once more, careful to not breathe directly on it this time, and resumed scrolling.  He frowned at the song titles.

Love is a Suicide?  Something to Die For?  Leave a Trace?  Love Without Tragedy?  Point of No Return?  Burn the Witch?  Wasted Youth?

Sucking in his cheeks, he looked sideways.

I’m sensing a pattern here, he mused, his lips pursing.

Usually, he interpreted the sounds blasting through his Air Pods as “the love, the hate, two sides, same coin, so…what the hell…might as well just put it in drive and see where I end up because it’s better than staying in one spot for fear of doing something wrong when it’s all a neutral coin toss.”  But today? —not so much.  No, the thumping bass in his ears only magnified a dreadful sense of urgency more along the lines of “my life is a ticking time bomb, my body has an expiration date, and dear god, not knowing the date scares the hell out of me.”  Would it be next year?  A few decades from now?  What was the average life expectancy?  75?  80?  If he made it that far, he’d be 80-years old in…um…wait…

Eyebrows pulling together, he scratched the back of his neck.

How old am I again? 33? I think? I lost count…goddammit, what year is this now? 2017?

Shoulders slumping at his ineptitude with numbers, he groaned softly.  Once again, he was allowing New Year’s Day to screw with his head.  This hyper self-critical analysis of the previous year was a beloved annual tradition that brought with it as much joy as the forced familial civility at his parents’ holiday dinner.   Happy Christmas, and god bless us all for not giving in to that hour-long desire to stab each other with our fancy forks.  Now get out of here because someone’s unaddressed daddy issues are two seconds from turning this place into a bloodbath.  Loki closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as his 2016 mental scrapbook flipped through the pages of its own accord.

That near-fatal split with his ex from the inside of a NYPD precinct jail cell in March had been such fun.  Sheer joy.  All treats, no tricks.  The best. 

Also in March, he’d survived that slightly less anxiety-laden moment in his editor’s office while awaiting her response to Starboy, his first and hopefully not last novel.  He’d been in a panic, positively terrified that the oft-terrifying Ms. Sharon Seder would rip the red pen out of the pen holder on her desk, draw one huge X across the front page, and throw the whole thing back in his face.  However, she’d looked him in the eye and said what every man in the world wanted to hear —

“My verdict? STUNNING.”

Even now, nearly a year later while waiting for this streetlight to change, Loki still felt a bit of weight lifting from his shoulders at the memory of those words.  He smirked a little, recalling what he’d said to her after she’d offered her verdict.

“I get that a lot, Sharon, though you’re the first to say it in an office setting.”

He stared dead-eyed at the crosswalk sign across the street. “Brilliant, expertly-timed innuendo,” he chuckled—a gravelly, unamused sound—under his breath. “My one superpower.”

Dropping his unseeing gaze once more to his playlist, he rolled his thumb up and down the screen, staring pointlessly at the song titles.  He shrugged his shoulders, preoccupied with analyzing the snapshots popping up on the inside wall of his skull as he clicked through the “LO in 2016” slides housed safely in a closely-guarded imaginary projector.

Starboy was a memoir that no one on the planet should have given two shits about.  New Yorkers might have known the name Loki Odinson, but certainly not the entire country, much less the world at large.  Even though his real-estate savvy father (dubbed “King Odin” by some insipid Bloomberg writer) had given the Manhattan elite 80 million reasons to know anyone with the Odinson name—reasons that were dispersed across multiple banks and accounts and capital assets—that hardly meant any of them would want to read a fictional novel about the youngest Odinson’s bad boy antics.  Loki had assumed that it would be written off immediately as 300 pages of narcissistic waxing poetic about the “struggles” faced by yet another angsty white male living in New York. He’d been wrong.  So wrong.

Somehow, in spite of his almost entirely unrelatable lifestyle, he’d successfully highlighted the relatable human struggles amidst the absurdity of fast cars, rock stars, rooftop bars, and sex-laden boudoirs—namely, a lifetime of hiding his ugliest scars. He’d started writing it two summers ago in a…near…final…moment of desperation, and he’d been transparent about that humbling moment during his press tour before his novel hit the bookstore shelves last July.

“Starboy saved my life, and I mean that in every sense of the word, because if I hadn’t started writing it…um…” Loki had paused, carefully considering his next words during that GMA interview last June, “God, I don’t want to trigger anyone here, especially not on a morning show, so, let’s just say that summer 2015 was the lowest point of my life.”

Loki’s novel was released with near-unanimous praise from every lit-crit on the planet, and come September 2016, it had scored the coveted #1 newcomer spot on the NYT-bestseller list.  His 2016 success compounded rapidly from there.  Blue-check verified @LokisWriting on Twitter and Instagram earned 100K new followers.  GQ magazine made “Star Boy Novel Style: Loki Odinson” the cover article in their November issue.

Also in November, he’d purchased that gorgeous 8th floor Soho apartment with sweeping floor to ceiling views of the city that he’d been salivating over for three years.  Ultimately, he’d earned just under a million USD, putting his net worth somewhere around nine and a half million, and thank goodness for it—he’d been running low on disposable income to buy shit he didn’t need. 

“So grateful, aren’t we,” he scoffed to himself.

Demonic ex-girlfriend situation notwithstanding, he should feel liberated and justified by his massive achievements of the last year. But no.  He still needed to do more.  He needed to be more.  More, more, more.  What “more” he needed to do or be, Loki didn’t know.  He only knew that writing a bestseller didn’t cut it.  More money in the bank didn’t cut it either.  The new apartment didn’t cut it.  The fame status leveling up didn’t cut it.  Sweet as most of them were, stans blowing up his mentions didn’t cut it.  Increasing numbers of “hot” socialites and influencers crowding him any time he took part in the lower west side nightlife absolutely did not cut it.

God, please no—I already had enough trendsetting, plastic dolls trying to get in my trousers BEFORE Starboy.

He rolled his eyes, knowing the thoughts running 90 miles an hour through his head right now would earn him zero victim points and possibly get him thrown in Twitter jail for calling women “plastic dolls” —hashtag NOT ALL! Listen up, Tweeps, many of those plastics were of the male persuasion, so, perhaps the internet cancel party attendees should check themselves for making heteronormative assumptions concerning his overly-privileged, insane takes.

But honestly, setting aside the pinpoint accuracy of any accusation of “insanity” aimed at him, he doubted that he would ever get over his “never satisfied with ANYTHING” attitude.  Apparently, no amount of “success” would ever give him the permission to take a break from his constant pursuit of identity.  

Quietly groaning under his breath, Loki stared daggers at the passing cars. The light was still green, and he still hadn’t landed on the right song.  There were too many choices!  It was for this reason that he always stared stupidly at waiters after listening to them list twenty different salad dressings.  Just…just forget it.  Bring out a plate of plain greens or whatever.  He should probably appreciate the fact that he could quite literally afford to overthink his first-world problems.

Oh look.  I am ruminating again.  Shocking.

As though his head wasn’t already in a vice thanks to this post-New-Year’s hangover, he also just had to continue this months-long spiral into the darker side of madness.  He made a face then.

Did I just say…the darker side of madness?  

Jaw tightening, he scoffed, “Stars above, I need help.” More help than even his shrink could provide.  The good doctor no doubt questioned her ability to help Loki at every appointment, especially that first one four years ago.  He’d seen it all over her face—wide-eyed, one eyebrow comically raised—while reading over his intake form.

Last Name: Odinson.  First Name: Loki.  Middle (optional): Oh, this one is optional?  Then, it won’t matter if I just make up an answer.  My middle name is Mischief.
DOB: 17 Feb 1983.  Age: Uh, 30? I wrote my birthdate, so YOU do the math.
Today’s date: Give me a moment to check my phone.  It claims that today is 22 Feb 2013. Thrilling information.
Street Address: 118 Spring Street #3 *this will not be my address for long because I MUST move somewhere with a view. I’m looking at 55 Thompson, and I WILL have it by the end of the Obama era, mark my words.  City: New York. State: NY. Zip: 10012.  Phone: (212) 864-3387. Consider yourself lucky to get my digits.
Height: 6’2. That’s code for “perfect” by the way.  Weight: Not sure why this matters, unless you’re trying to gather how difficult it would be to drag me to a padded room.  Last I checked, I was 180. So...fairly difficult.
Marital Status: I’ve received dozens of marriage proposals, four of which were deadly serious, and I am proud to say that I refused all of them.
Sex: GOD-LIKE MALE. (capitalized for extreme emphasis). *If this question was code for “sex or Nah?” my answer is “you wish, peasant”.
Sexual orientation (optional): Maybe I should say “straight” because I’m a man who is not attracted to men(at least those who my brain interprets as “men” upon a quick glance), but I don't really know, and I don’t even care. Is orientation based on attraction to sex or gender or both? Whatever. My answer to this one: N/A.
Gender Identity (optional): I sort of answered this in the previous section, didn’t I?  Well, to clarify, I’m a man, and I sometimes paint my nails black when I can’t sleep.  The monotony of the action quiets my mind. That, and the fumes make my head spin like I just popped four Xans.  NOW you can properly psychoanalyze me.
Occupation: Day job(eh): Contributing Editor/writer for 12 literary journals/magazines (Harpers and The New Yorker are probably the only ones you know) I’d prefer to be an author of a legitimate full-length published standalone novel, but that would require actually finishing one of the dozens of half-completed stories on my hard drive. *TLDR: FAILSON.
Highest education level: Oh, see this is where my need to be the smartest in the room propels me to list every academic achievement of my life, of which there are many.  For your sake, however, I’ll follow the instructions and only provide the highest level, which is a Masters degree. *summa cum laude from Harvard, by the way. See what I did there?  I subverted the system and got a bit...smart...with you.
Known chronic mood/mental disorders (provide the name of the prescribing MD and the date/s of diagnosis): Type 1 Bipolar Disorder (I know you’re shocked by that one) and Attention Deficit Disorder (I think it should be renamed “painfully creative disorder”...but that’s just me).  Both were diagnosed by the wonderful Dr. Louise Schneider, attending MD at Mount Sinai.  BPD in May 2011 and ADD in October 2012.
Reason for your visit today: I was scheduled for an insanity-check...sorry… “quarterly check-up” with my previous psychiatrist, the aforementioned Dr. Schneider, but she died in a car accident two weeks ago at only 48 years old.  I feel blindsided.  I know it’s possible to die “before one’s time” (what time is that? how is it determined?) but… Schneider?—My mind had me convinced that she was immortal. It’s disconcerting on another level.  As you can see, I have a talent for taking someone else’s tragedy and turning it into something about me. I imagine her children are beside themselves with grief, but the only real victim is me because it inconveniences me to search for a new doctor. Well, lucky for you, I’m here to interview you for the job.  Hope you’re cut out for it; as you can see, I’m quite the headcase.  But don’t let that scare you off.  I pay handsomely.  As in, I hand over my credit card every time we meet, and I’m incredibly good-looking while doing so.  You’re welcome.

((Admin only: Asked Loki if his answers on this intake form were meant to be satirical; his response was “those answers are more genuine than your hair color, doctor.” I am ashamed to admit that I laughed out loud at that.))

He might have snuck a peek at her open screen to look at the “admin only” notes on the way out of her office after that initial visit.  That had been the moment he’d decided to hire her for the job.  Perhaps at the next visit she could add “client explains his ‘darker side of madness’, exhibiting symptoms of POE-ESQUE TORTURED SOUL LARPING DISORDER” to her notes.

Well, perhaps he should complete the goth aesthetic and throw a black-market legit absinthe party at some point this year.  Perhaps the Green Fairy was calling his name.  Perhaps he would paint everything in shades of green and black, barely visible under flickering gaslights diffused by pain-numbing opium pipe smoke.

Sucking in his cheeks, Loki raised an eyebrow—huh, he genuinely might do that this October 31st.  Forget dancing to fun creepy classics like Thriller and I Put a Spell on You.  No, instead, his friends would be subjected to moody bass, dark guitars, excessively angsty lyrics, likely written on tear-stained papers, and sung by a person who started wearing black eyeliner at age 3—that kind of thing.  The Marilyn Manson cover of Sweet Dreams would fit perfectly in that scene.

Eh.  October was light years away.  He just needed to focus on right now.  January 1.  Cold, wet, sad, alone.

Great idea—focusing on my CURRENT feelings will truly improve my quality of life.

Still scrolling, he frowned at the Antigravity playlist tracks, increasingly annoyed with the options until, thankfully, he reached the last song on the list—Starboy by the incomparable artist The Weeknd.  

“Oh, that one’s perfect,” he muttered, tapping the title.

Was there a better way to reaffirm the vapid, meaningless status of his existence than hearing another man sing “we don’t pray for love, we just pray for cars”?  Considering most of this phenomenal artist’s work was pretty goddamn dark, it was a perfect match for the day at hand.  Though, this new album didn’t crush Loki’s soul as thoroughly as the previous one had, which was probably a good thing.  It would help cure the Poe-Esque Tortured Soul Larping Disorder currently infecting his brain.

The cross traffic finally stopped behind the newly turned red light, and he ran through the crosswalk at a pace just this side of sprinting.  He wanted to go home.  Now.

He was freezing his tail off, and the mostly empty streets were a little too reminiscent of The Walking Dead for his liking.  New Year’s Day or not, New York was not supposed to sleep.  Goddamn, a hot shower would be phenomenal.  So much for these gloves—useless things—his fingers were probably getting frostbite.

He pushed harder, his legs protesting the extra effort in the cold by increasing the burning sensation in his quads.  Runner’s high should have kicked in by now, but apparently, his body wasn’t in the mood to pump a few endorphins into his system.  2017 was off to a great start.

Should’ve stayed in bed…or at least bothered to chase ten goddamn aspirin with two litres of water before this moronic run.

God, he despised the forced revelry of December 31st.  Why should he celebrate “moving on” into the next arbitrary year that would follow the same pattern as every one prior to it?  He was still Loki Odinson.  He was still wrecked by the same slightly volatile “might roll/might crash” problem in the space between his ears.  Still traumatized by that…thing…that happened when he was 17.  Still had a restraining order against his ex-girlfriend because that woman was still the Antichrist (and he wasn’t even religious!).  Still a disappointment to his father.  Still trying to prove that he could do something of value.

Running a hand through his hair, angry at the mere thought of his father, Loki picked up his pace.  He pushed more aggravating hair off his face, ignoring any further self-deprecating words in favor of simply listening to the song playing in his AirPods.  Trapped inside his sluggish, self-obsessed post-liquor brain, he made a wrong turn onto Canal Street.

Of course, he did not realize this for several minutes.  He groaned, beyond pissed with his legs for dragging him up Greene Street instead of Thompson several blocks west.  Though, perhaps he should cut himself a bit of slack—he’d only run this route a thousand times, so this directional confusion was long overdue.

Nostrils flaring, he ground his teeth together.  Right now, he ought to feel the sweet warm relief of his building lobby’s central heating system, but no no no, that would have been too merciful for 2017.  Imagine his shock that the first day of a new year had literally taken a turn for the worse, forcing him to spend another ten minutes brooding in this cold, wet weather.

Par for the course, at this point—fuck, I hate January.

Once again, the new year was entirely dead on arrival.  No turning new leaves over for him…for 30 consecutive years.  The only silver lines in sight were those awful things trying to sneak in between the far superior black hair on his head, which he’d plucked out angrily with a pair of tweezers this morning. 

“It is 38 degrees and raining, and I took a goddamn detour,” he growled under his breath, shooting a look at the clouds above.

He could hear the forecast now—“Well, folks, looks like Mother Nature won’t be wishing New Yorkers a happy new year today (ha ha ha laugh laugh *slaps knee*) because it’s going to be nothing but grey skies for the foreseeable future.  We’ll be looking for that sunlight and let you know as soon as it’s on the way!”—Ugh, what absolute vomit.

Losing interest in the silent, sad attempts at humor in his mind, he focused on the Spring Street sign up ahead, squinting into the misty rain that had started up again.  Phenomenal.  He wasn’t just feeling “down” anymore.  No no no, that wasn’t good enough.  The universe needed to add another layer of flavor—something bitter, perhaps—to the negativity cocktail shaker in his skull.  And the winner was (drumroll, please) sheer anger aimed at those low hanging, flat clouds that couldn’t decide if they wanted to be rain clouds or not.

He wanted to scream at the clouds—Enough with the back-and-forth freezing drizzle!  

They weren’t giving his body a chance to adjust to one or the other.  Every moment he’d caught up to the stinging of cold-water droplets hitting his face, those goddamn clouds would pull back, thereby confusing the hell out of his senses with five minutes of dry air.  Then BOOM —more rain.  Why hadn’t he put on a ball cap to at least shield his face from the heavier raindrops?  He’d only worn a measly hooded pullover, and it was useless in this weather.

Not as useless as my should-be “smartest in the room” head, which apparently, needs a forecast to tell me that it is WINTER.

“If only Spring street was actual spring,” he muttered, rounding the corner so quickly he nearly slipped on the wet concrete, barely avoiding skinning his calf on one of the dead Christmas trees on the pavement waiting to be picked up by the city.   

Cursing under his breath, he bobbed his head with each word coming through his Air Pods—”girls get loose when they hear this song, 100 on the dash get me close to God, We don’t pray for love, we just pray for cars”—then hooked a left onto West Broadway.

He ran maybe twenty feet before skidding to a stop abruptly, his Nikes squeaking on the soaked pavement just in time to hear a woman shriek “JESUS!” while grabbing his arms.  Eyes blowing wide at the “oh no” sensation of tilting too far forward to keep his balance, he instinctively caught her by the waist and shifted his weight onto his heels to correct the unfortunate gravity situation.  He blinked rapidly, his retinas struggling to adjust their focus from a wide-frame image of a full lower west side block to this sudden new face close-up about two inches from his nose.

Loki did a quick scan of her features.  She had silvery eyes with legitimately iridescent sunbursts around the pupils, which were looking up at him through long dark eyelashes blinking as quickly as his own.  Her cheeks were somewhat pink, probably partly from the cold, but mostly from embarrassment.  Deep purple shadows filled the hollows beneath her high cheekbones and under her jaw.  Silver eyes, pink cheeks, purple shadows, and last, but definitely not least, were a pair of dark red lips, slightly parted with little puffs of breath escaping between them in time with the rapid rising and falling of her chest.

Dear gods…who IS this gorgeous girl?

LO, pick your jaw up from the ground, and say something, you idiot.

Reluctantly letting go of her waist, he slowly reached up to remove his earbuds and produced a small grin.

“Where’s the fire, darling?” he asked, one eyebrow raising a bit.

There was a tense second wherein everything just…sort of…stopped.  Time itself froze, the clock gears grinding to a halt as this stunner of a girl pressed her pretty lips together while participating in this unintentional staring contest with him.  Fuck, he hoped she didn’t hate him for calling her “darling” like some entitled pick-up artist coming on to her at a bar.  It had been an honest slip.  Her hands were still on his arms, and it made him feel warm and stupid and a bit whoozy actually, so of course he’d unironically said some lame line.  Just as he opened his mouth to apologize all over himself, a laugh burst through her tightly sealed lips, her head falling back from the force of it.

“I’m…s-s-sorry,” she sputtered, clearly trying to regain her composure. Looking up at him again, she sighed, still chuckling quietly. “That was amazing.”

Head tilting, his grin grew into a full blown smile. “What was amazing?”

Surely, she didn’t mean that stupid “darling” line was amazing.  No no no, that was a mathematical impossibility.  This gorgeous creature must have been using the word “amazing” in a purely mocking manner.  No way in hell was she laughing because he’d managed to charm her with those words.

“This whole situation is amazing,” she croaked, starting to lose it again. “Nearly fell on my backside, and I damn near took you with me!  I mean, come on, imagine seeing that from across the street or something.  My god, I am such a fail meme.”

Loki snorted quietly under his breath as the visual flashed across his mind.  Hopefully, she hadn’t heard it.  Not that it really mattered, since her smile hadn’t faded from her face.  He stared at her pretty teeth for a few seconds, the words “radiant” and “warmth” and “sunlight” flitting through his mind.

Sunlight, indeed—the dreary, bone-aching cold had completely disappeared from his body in the last two minutes, replaced by a warm, glowy feeling deep in his stomach.  He’d collided with summer incarnate, apparently, and it made him feel giddy as a teenage boy with a crush.  Her voice, her face, the sensation of her hands through his sleeves—all of it excited him far more than it should have.

Wow, bad day to go commando.

He would do well to take about ten steps back from her because someone with this overly magnetic effect on him could shatter him, but his track record of future-minded self-preservation wasn’t exactly…great.  His headspace was already in shambles, so why bother trying to preserve it?  He wanted to stay with this girl, if she allowed him to do so, and he hadn’t truly wanted anyone or anything for quite awhile.  For years now, he’d only wanted to escape, to run away, not toward anyone or anything.  Now, in the course of five minutes, he wanted to hit the gas, pedal to the metal, and speed through every goddamn yellow light to get to her as fast as possible.

“Well,” he paused, trying to come up with a witty response to her self-deprecating fail meme remark, “nothing is more beloved across all demographics than fail videos.  Perhaps you should just go with it.”

She scoffed, though the grin on her face betrayed her obviously feigned offense.  Well, if nothing else came of this interaction, at least he could say that she appreciated well-executed banter.  That said, considering she hadn’t broken their eye contact yet, nor let go of his arms, he had a feeling something else would arise from this lucky chance meeting.  Her thumbs rubbed circles on his sleeves, and he glanced down at her hands.  The glossy black polish on her neatly-trimmed nails had a mirror-like effect, reflecting the diffused daylight behind the clouds.  

He smirked a little, surprisingly pleased that they weren’t some demure pinkish color.  It was of no consequence, but god, he truly loved black nails—it was after all, such a sexy color, second only to genuinely emerald green because he had yet to move beyond the goth-god persona of his youth.  They weren’t long, barely past her fingertips, and hell, at that perfect length, she could drag those nails down his back without drawing blood.  

Would she be upset if he grabbed her waist and pulled her flush against him?  Because come on, she still hadn’t let go of him.  Licking his lips, he swallowed, anxious to get her name, her number, and her signature on the “please let me love you” contract he was currently drawing up in his head.

LOVE??  You’re insane, LO.

Can’t argue with that, but it’s less offensive than a “please let me fuck you” contract.

Fair enough, but nonetheless, take it down a notch, LO.

I would take it down, but I swear I’m getting drunk off this girl.

“Good thing I wasn’t holding hot coffee,” she said, her eyes flicking down to his mouth when he unconsciously licked his lips again.

Fucking hell, if she didn’t let go of his arms in the next five seconds, his brain cells would abandon their collective purpose to avoid getting slapped and/or kicked in the crotch by a female and resort to prehistoric displays of “mating suitability” such as, but not limited to, picking fights and showing his teeth to the first unfortunate additional male-presenting character in this scene or “unintentionally” mentioning his height—“Even if you HAD been holding hot coffee, darling, at least it wouldn’t have scalded my face since I’m all the way up here in the stratosphere, and you barely reach my shoulders.  That would have been funnier if I were unusually tall, but I’m only 6 foot 2.”

He bit the insides of his cheeks so he wouldn’t say that shit out loud.  Oh, he was growing stupid.  Gravity was dragging his IQ to the pavement to balance out the absurd rising situation in his joggers.  All this from five minutes with this (so far) nameless woman.

“Sorry,” she said, dropping her eyes and laughing nervously as she removed her hands from him and stepped back to put a socially acceptable distance between them.

As she pushed loose strands of gorgeous dark hair behind her ears, he watched her carefully for any signs of discomfort in addition to what he hoped was just nervous excitement.  His eyebrows pulled together of their own accord, forcing his facial muscles into a deep frown because the distance between them physically hurt him.

Good god, his reaction to her was completely irrational.  He didn’t even know her name.  He knew that she was absolutely gorgeous, that her voice was sexy as hell, and considering the accent, that she was from the UK.  A Londoner, maybe?  Maybe she was from Oxford like him?  Fuck, he hoped she wasn’t just visiting an American friend or something and would go back home in a few days.

Please be an expat like me.  Please be an expat like me.

It occurred to him then that he hadn’t responded to her apology.  What was she apologizing for?  Putting her hands on him?  Ha.  She ought to apologize for letting go.  Shaking his head, a barely there movement of his neck muscles, he produced another crooked grin.

“No need to apologize, gor-…” he stopped himself before saying “gorgeous girl” like the desperate fool he was.  He turned his head away and faked a cough into the crook of his arm, giving his brain a few seconds to recover from almost overselling himself.  

Clearing his throat, he gestured to the dreadful, low-hanging, never ending blah clouds. “Gorgeous…day…would have been the end of that thought.  Obviously.”

She eyed the sky, then lowered her gaze to meet his eyes once more and smiled. “Obviously, you are completely mental if you call this a gorgeous day.”

“Obviously, I was aiming for humor.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, pursing her lips, “I gathered.  It wasn’t a bullseye, but you landed on the board at least.”

He raised an eyebrow, genuinely impressed. “Did you write a script prior to this conversation?  You’re too quick-thinking.  You must have practiced ahead of time.”

“Or,” she held up a finger, “now try to keep up with this, slow boy… I simply have a quick wit.”

“Slow boy?” He repeated, unable to control the laugh bubbling up in his chest.

If anyone else had called him that, he would have immediately and smoothly produced a snarky comeback.  Coming from her, though?  Pfft—he might actually compliment her for being so damn brilliant on the fly.  Oh, what he wouldn’t give to shove this girl’s back up against that brick wall behind her, hook his elbow under her knee, and get a proper taste of her sharp tongue for at least an hour straight.  

Covering her mouth, she laughed into her palm. “Yes.  I did call you a slow boy, and I feel a bit bad for it.  Did I go too far?  I’m genuinely sorry.  I swear I was just kidding.” Giving him a sheepish look, she tilted her head to one shoulder. “You know…just wordplay.”

He tilted his head, mirroring her stance, and smirked. “I assure you, I can handle wordplay.”

And foreplay.

“I’m a writer,” he added, “so, you know…kind of my specialty.”

Her eyes widened a touch, and she looked him up and down a couple times, clearly trying to recall if she recognized him.

“A writer?” she asked, squinting at him as he nodded. “As in, novels or editorials or…?”

“Novels.  Well,” he paused, holding up a finger, “one novel, that is.  But it’s done well enough.  It was released last summer.”

“Have I heard of it?”

“Possibly,” he replied, shrugging one shoulder.

Raising her eyebrows, she stared at him, likely waiting for him to give more details.  When he only continued smirking at her silently, she chuckled and threw her hands up.

“Well, what’s the title?”

He pocketed his hands, somewhat anxious now.  If she hadn’t heard of it, he would be pathetically disappointed.  Or maybe she had heard of it, and had been so unimpressed with the reviews that she hadn’t bothered to read it.  Millions of possibilities, none of which were good.  

“It’s called Starboy,” he said, forcing a casual tone despite the sinking feeling in his stomach.

It took her a moment, but when the name registered, her eyes blew wide. “Holy…oh my god, you wrote that?  Loki Odinson, right?  My best friend is going to die when I tell her I met you.  She’s read it like seven times now.  Admittedly, I haven’t read it, but…wow.  Maybe I should.  Jesus.  I mean,” she paused, giving him another once over and nodding, “wow.”

Well, that was a much better response than he’d expected.  He couldn’t help but smile at the look on her face, her jaw nearly unhinging.  The tension in his shoulders relaxed, his previous anxiety flying straight out the proverbial window to make room for a clever confidence that had become synonymous with his newly-minted “Loki STARBOY Odinson” persona.

“I realize that I’m not as handsome as my picture on the back cover of the book,” he said, trying to keep a straight face when she rolled her eyes, “but in my defense, you caught me on the last few minutes of an hour-long run, which isn’t my best look.  Also, I’m a bit hungover, and this damn rain and cold has added a lovely clammy quality to the sweat, you know?” He gestured to himself. “I no doubt resemble a drowned rat right now.”

She scoffed. “If you’re a drowned rat, then I am half-eaten roadkill.”

Pursing his lips, he raised an eyebrow. “Was that a compliment?”

“For you, it was.” She laughed. “Jesus Christ.  When Darce said not to google the Starboy author because he was-” she made air quotes “-annoyingly attractive, she wasn’t lying.”

His eyes widened for a split-second before the smile spreading across his face crinkled them.

Bloody hell, she shouldn’t say that to me.

“Oh god, don’t encourage my vanity,” he groaned, reaching up to rub his temples. “My head will explode.”

“That would be a shame.  You have a lovely head.  Specifically, your hair.  She did not mention your hair, and for the life of me, I do not know why she would keep such important information from me.”

“Who is this ‘she’ person?” Loki asked, smiling as he scratched the back of his neck. “And do you mean the color or the length?”

“Uh…both.  Every boy I crushed on at school had that same thing going on,” she said, pointing to the strands hanging in his face, “though to be fair, I think most of them dyed their hair that color to make the goth girls weak, you know?  Granted, I can’t actually see how long yours is, but if it’s long enough to pull back in a hair tie like you’ve done, that’s good enough for me.”

Grinning so widely it hurt his cheeks, his teeth digging into his bottom lip, he inched closer. “As in, good enough to make you weak?”

She snickered, dragging a hand down her face. “Well, I did nearly fall over when I first saw you, soooo…I guess so.”

“Wow, I’d just assumed you were unfathomably clumsy.”

“Thank you for that,” she said, straight-faced.

“You’re welcome,” he replied without hesitation, smiling wider than the goddamn Cheshire Cat.

“I can’t believe I ran into… you know,” she said, gesturing up and down his torso, “a sort of… famous person.”

He leaned down, bending his head toward her while locking eyes with her from under his brow. “And I can’t believe that you still haven’t told me your name.”

“Oh, my apologies,” she cleared her throat, offering her hand to him as a bright smile split her face. “Sigyn Frey, architect and stand up comedian.”

One eyebrow shooting to his hairline, he reached out to shake her hand. “You do stand up?”

“Well, I try to,” she sighed, pushing her free hand through her hair, “but I’m much better at falling down.”

“OH MY GOD,” he burst out loud, releasing her hand to instead pull his hands down his face and laugh loudly behind them.  Son of a bitch, this girl was legitimately hilarious.

“Okay, I lied,” she chuckled, her shoulders shaking, “I’m only an architect, not a comedian.”

“Oh, I beg to differ, Sigyn Frey,” he croaked, rubbing his eyes. “Look at me.  I’ve been reduced to tears.” Seriously, this woman was amazing.  Every second with her was increasing his quality of life.

“Welcome to my perpetually crying world, Loki Odinson.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” he said, rolling his eyes, “I am the king of Perpetual Crying.”

She held up a hand, wiggling her fingers at his face.  “No no no, I remember hearing somewhere that people call you-”

“Prince Lo,” he spoke over her, rolling his eyes at the moniker, “yes, I know.  Believe me, I know.”

She hadn’t yet dropped her hand, which left her fingers about two inches from his mouth, and he deserved a gold medal for not leaning forward to catch those fingers between his teeth.  What a low bar—the lowest gold “standard” ever.

“Oh dear,” she said, making a classic cringe face, “Sounds like you might not be fond of that name.”

“Definitely not.”

“Understood.  I won’t call you that.  What about when people call you Starboy?”

“I at least prefer it over Slow Boy,” he said, giving her a pointed look.

“Fair enough,” she laughed quietly.

He smiled, thrilled by the genuinely happy, light-hearted sound of Sigyn’s laughter.  It was such a departure from his ex’s evil cackles, which had grated on his ears worse than nails on a chalkboard.  Jesus, that woman had always guffawed like a Disney villain.  The slightest hint of thunder rolled in the distance, and he instinctively looked up at the clouds, his eyes slamming shut when an exceptionally heavy raindrop landed right smack between them, bouncing off the bridge of his nose and splattering into both of his eyes.

“Ouch,” he hissed, reaching up to shield his eyes from further raindrop attacks. “Here’s the thing, Sigyn, I’d love to talk more, but would you be amenable to doing so some other time when I’m not sweaty or suffering the aftereffects of excessive alcohol?” He winced as the clouds turned on him, switching from sporadic droplets to sustained rain.

Sigyn pulled her jacket hood up, then pocketed her hands, raising her voice over the increasingly loud rain. “Not to mention the good soaking we’re about to get.  God, your hood is drenched!  Yeah, you definitely need to go home so you don’t catch a cold or anything!  When do you want to meet up again?”

Bouncing on his heels—a weak attempt to warm up—he grinned, then stepped closer. “Tomorrow morning?”

“You want to get together in the morning?”  she asked, her face lighting up like a Christmas tree—like New Years fireworks. “Wow, usually I make them take me to dinner first.”

He forced a laugh to (hopefully) disguise the extra blood rushing to his cheeks at her insinuation. “Well, you see, I’m rather hoping that you won’t mind if I skip over the traditional steps because, despite your name-calling, I’m definitely not a slow boy.”

One corner of her mouth turned down, transforming her blinding sunshine smile into a crooked little grin that should come with an adult content disclaimer.

WARNING: VIXEN.  AVOID PROLONGED EYE CONTACT, AND MAINTAIN A DISTANCE OF AT LEAST 3 FEET, OR DANGEROUSLY EXCESSIVE HORNINESS MAY OCCUR.

Apparently, he would have to turn his shower faucet to cold if he wanted to live after discovering this woman who had been under his nose for god only knew how long.  She’d lowered her head because of the rain, forcing her to look up at him through those long, dark lashes, and the heart-racing effect was maddening.  For the love, what eye color was listed on her driver’s license?—fucking SILVER?  Maybe the rain had distorted his vision, or maybe those starry flecks glittering in her irises only existed in contrast to her jet-black mascara.  Either way, no way in hell would he be the first to look away.  Ten thousand seconds of hard breathing later, she finally responded to his “I’m definitely not a slow boy” comment.

“Let me guess,” she said, taking a step closer, “despite living in a city with thousands of taxis, easy access on every corner to mass transit, where one can walk anywhere… you own a fast car, don’t you?  Probably some hot little, expensive, 2-door, European sports car.”

Why the hell had she moved this close to him?  Was she trying to make him stupid?  Somehow, he produced a quick, clever(ish) answer.

“For practical purposes only,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Again, her face lit up. “Nailed it.”

“It’s not an outlandish Maclaren or anything,” he clarified, keeping his tone playful despite feeling a bit defensive. “It’s just an F-type.”

Her mouth fell open. “You mean a Jaguar F-Type?”

Eyebrows knitting crookedly, he held her wide-eyed stare. “Yes?”

She looked downright offended by his words.  Alright, maybe not offended, but certainly shocked by this new information.  Come on, even though he adored F-Types, they weren’t that impressive.  Sure, he turned heads in it, but one needn’t be a multi-millionaire to afford them.  Was that a wildly out of touch take?

Shaking her head, she flung up a hand and chuckled. “Just an F-type, he says unironically.”

He reached up to push annoying loose strands of wet hair behind his ears.  Feeling genuinely defensive now, he blew out a breath.

“I meant ‘just’ only as in comparison to…” he trailed off as the absurdity of his ivory tower defense hit him right between the eyes.  Oh, that he could press the rewind button on this conversation, and dub over his last two more-money-than-sense comments with something a bit less brainless, but alas, life wasn’t a damn cassette tape.  Despising the heat flooding his cheeks, he pushed more hair off his face, and growled softly under his breath.

He sighed heavily. “Bloody hell, please forget everything I just said.  I will now check my privilege at the door lest my body ends up at the bottom of the Hudson, weighed down by gold bricks in my pockets.”

Sigyn tilted her head, her eyes boring a hole into his as she hesitantly set her hand on his shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. “I swear I won’t let your body end up at the bottom of the Hudson,” she said, a slow smile spreading across her face.

He looked down at her hand, then lifted his gaze to meet hers again, replaying her words— I swear I won’t let your body end up at the bottom of the Hudson.  God, that was…that was an intense thing to say to him.  She couldn’t possibly know how much he’d needed to hear that today.  This woman was, for all intents and purposes, a complete stranger, yet here he stood, feeling like he knew her.  Really knew her.

Chest aching, he eyed the Ground Support Cafe glass door. “Will you meet me here tomorrow morning?  Same time?”

Without hesitation, she said, “Absolutely, I will. Now go home, wherever that is, and get warm, alright?” She gave him a small wave and a big smile that warmed him more than the sun in July, then she turned around, and hurried up West Broadway.

Grinning (probably stupidly), he stayed glued to his spot on the pavement, watching her run across the road, the puddles splashing up onto her jeans, as she disappeared behind a corner building on Prince Street.  Was her building on Prince?  Perhaps Prince was just part of the route home, a means to the end, to her real destination.  If she didn’t live on Prince Street, it was replaceable to her.  It was a “just passing through” street somewhere in her neighborhood—not what she really needed; she could take it or leave it.  Or…or…or…

Or…maybe I could stop conflating Prince Street with Prince LO because everything isn’t a goddamn METAPHOR.

Eyes rolling, he turned up his music, then spun on his heel, and ran down West Broadway, grinning all the way to his building.

~12:42 am,  January 1, 2020 ~

Present Day

Sitting on the edge of Sigyn’s bed, Loki stared at her closed bathroom door on the opposite side of her small living room.  Only minutes ago, she’d been moaning underneath him.  The button-fly of his jeans had been too tight back then , but now?

Now I’m not even HALF-hard while waiting for her to finish retching on the other side of that stupid door.

The sound was muffled, so it could be worse, but that sliver of a silver lining couldn’t stop his mind from running wild with the questions of why her stomach had turned over within the blink of an eye.  She wasn’t acting remotely drunk, but maybe during the last three months, she’d become more adept at speaking clearly (with actual words) while under the influence.  Maybe she’d coped with alcohol as much as he had since October, and was becoming a touch too skilled at handling her liquor.

So… just how many drinks did she have at Strange?

Or was it a sudden surge of anxiety-induced nausea?  Anxiety that stemmed from a misplaced belief that he was trying to stake his claim on her with his mouth?  Perhaps it wasn’t his lips so much as it was his hips that had been the problem.  Admittedly, he had ground them rather aggressively between her legs, but surely he’d earned a bit of credit for having enough self-control to keep his trousers on, right?  He hadn’t even touched his belt, much less unbuckled it.

“Excuses excuses,” he sighed, pushing loose strands of annoying-as-fuck hair behind his ear.

Merriam Webster should add “male privilege” to their website and put his picture next to it.  Yes, he’d really earned high praise for keeping her safe from his dick with a layer of denim while putting his hands down her dress.  No harm, no foul.  

Tapping his heels nervously on her bedroom rug, he chewed his lip.  Thing was, she’d pulled him on top of her after he’d told her that he wouldn’t be angry with her if she’d changed her mind.  She’d sworn that she was okay; that she wouldn’t break .  And she’d been more than a little aggressive with her hands too.  Clearly, her second thoughts from when he’d paused to take that chair into her living room had turned into third thoughts.  Perhaps hugging the commode would inspire fourth thoughts- something like “let me ride you like it’s the end of the world, Loki.”

Don’t count on it, LO.

“Bloody hell,” he mumbled, setting his elbows on his knees and bowing his back as he bent forward and put his head in his hands.  Talk about taking a turn for the worse.  Honestly, with all this back and forth, he felt like he might be sick too.

He heard the squeak of her bathroom faucet then, followed by running water and her electric toothbrush.  Blowing out a heavy breath through his mouth, he lifted his head again when the toothbrush stopped.  She would open that door any second now, and he had no clue what he should say to her.

Feel better?

Thanks for brushing your teeth?

Why did you throw up at all?

Are you drunk?

Are you real or did I just hallucinate this entire experience?

May I put my face between your thighs?

Do you think I only came here to get my helluva-drug-forever-dream-girl-fuck-fix?

Do you know how WRONG you are for thinking that?

Do you realize what you did to me in September?

And October? And November? And DECEMBER?

Did you EVER love me?

WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY I WAS WORTH DROWNING FOR??

“I think she only missed the idea of me, not the real me, so…” he went quiet, trying to gain control of his shaky voice. “I should leave, shouldn’t I,” he whispered to the empty room, waiting for the walls to answer him, to tell him what to do.

TELL ME!

Naturally, the walls remained silent, though he would have sworn he saw writing appear on them.  Brow creasing, he frowned, feeling as though gravity had singled out the corners of his mouth to pull them to the ground faster than the rest of his face.  No, the “writing” was just shadows created by fireworks.  He shook his head, his eyes slamming shut to stop his brain from seeing things that weren’t there.

A minute or so later, when she still hadn’t come out of the bathroom, he opened his eyes and squinted at the door.  Okay, what, was she bloody hiding from him?  Pushing off the bed, feeling like someone had set a two-hundred pound bar across his shoulders, he walked across the living room toward her bathroom.  He reached up to knock on the door, but he hesitated, his hand hovering mid-air an inch from the hard surface.  Nostrils flaring, he sucked in a breath as a shiver shot down his spine.  Jesus- the hairs on the back of his neck (the ones that were too fine and short to stay in his hair tie) were legitimately standing up.

For god’s sake, LO.  What, are you scared the damn door will burn you?

He looked sideways, thinking how utterly perfect that word choice was.  Would it burn him?  Well, sunlight did have a tendency to turn his nose and cheeks pink if he forgot to put sunscreen on during summer, and if one considered what (or who) was on the other side of this door, then, in a metaphorical sense, it was possible that he would get burned.  However, since it was now December… wait… no… January… maybe that winter sun wouldn’t do the same damage.

Oh, but… are STAR boys subject to the seasonal shifts of life on Earth?  Your head is in outer space, is it not?

“Oh my god, I hate you,” he hissed through his teeth at that too-poignant voice in his head.  Taking a deep breath, he set the knuckle of his first finger on the door and knocked gently. “Sig?”

Please answer me, sweetheart.  I don’t care if you burn me.

His heart shot straight up through the roof when she responded.

“Yeah, sorry, just… I’ll be out in a second.  I’m so SO sorry, Loki.”

His lungs released the breath they’d been holding to the point of nearly passing out like a goddamn corset-wearing princess.  She’d said his name with such contrition, her tone suggesting that he hadn’t done anything wrong, and he was grateful for it.

“Just cleaning myself up a bit,” she continued, forcing a firm tone as she washed her hands.  It was a confident tone, a “totally fine in here” tone to hide how scared and shaken up and broken apart she felt.

Oh hell, if only he knew how in love she was with him, how much she needed him, not only in this crushing-yet-beloved city, but needed him everywhere .  Her universe was crumbling further, bit by bit, square inch by square inch, every second that he wasn’t with her.  Not “with her” as in physically in her presence, but “with her” as her boyfriend.

As in, “he is in my life and loves me as much as I love him.”

In these last three months, she’d been forced to take a good hard look in the mirror, and her reflection had not been forgiving.  Her behavior in the month before she’d literally slammed her door in his face had been inexcusable.  Oh but she’d made plenty of excuses for herself, hadn’t she?  And this went further back than just September.

It wasn’t her fault that Tony had died, right?  It wasn’t her fault that Loki had been “too possessive” of her time, right?  She’d had no control over her work schedule, right?  She couldn’t be expected to examine her priorities… you know… like HE HAD… right?  And and and-

“Spare me the monthly reports, please,” she murmured under her breath as she washed her hands.

She’d ruminated on the painful, shameful details of this entire year to no end.  Enough was enough.  She was burying herself under that shame, which was probably what she deserved.  For a time.  This was penance… or something.  God, she needed professional help, otherwise she would never move forward.  Not that she particularly wanted to move forward.  Not without Loki.  She didn’t want to go anywhere unless it was with him.  The chances of that, however, weren’t great.  How could he believe her now if she told him that she would give him anything that he asked of her?  She’d already quit her old job and found a new one, so at least he didn’t have to go through that mess again.  She only had herself to blame for this shitshow.  No way in hell did he want to get back together- he was just here because New Years had made him extra sad.

You don’t know that, hon.

Okay, well, considering what she’d done to him, it seemed the most likely reason for his presence.  How in all the world could she at least get him to consider… friendship?  It wasn’t the whole package, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Show him the letter, hon.

Oh god… but… what if he hates it?

We’ve been over this, Sigyn. He wrote a NOVEL for you.  He showed it to the entire PLANET.  So, buck up, and show him that letter that you should have sent to him when you wrote it THREE WEEKS AGO.

Licking her lips, she swallowed.  A heartbroken “please come back to me” scream was trying to burst through her not-so-tough shell, and maybe she should just let it happen.  Maybe she should open this door, get on her knees, and beg him to forgive her for being so heartless.  For playing unfair games with him.  For being so ungrateful for the sacrifices he’d made for her after Tony died.  For letting him shell out his love so generously and giving him nothing but crumbs in return.

Dammit.  She was going to self-talk herself straight into that toilet bowl all over again if she didn’t just grow up, and tell him all of those words that may or may not convince him to love her like he used to.  Before she could talk herself out of it, she opened the door and gasped quietly when her face collided with Loki’s chest.  She lifted her eyes to his face, setting every detail of this second to memory.

“God, you are so gorgeous,” she said, voice shaking.

Heart pounding at her words, which he had not expected at all, he bent down to her eye level, unable to suppress a slight smirk.  Despite the aching desire to lean in and kiss her just for calling him “gorgeous” to his face, he held himself back.  After all, he couldn’t be sure if she was on the verge of getting rid of more of her dinner.

“And you are…” he trailed off, his eyes zeroing in on her bottom lip, which she was now biting.

Mouthwatering…

Don’t say that.

Tilting his head, still focused on those lips, he asked, “How’s your gag reflex right now?”

She raised an eyebrow at him.  “That was… direct.”

It took him a second to put two and two together, then he quite literally facepalmed. “Jesus.  I meant how is your stomach .  As in, you aren’t about to get sick again, are you?”

She flashed a toothy smile at him, then put her hand over her mouth . “I didn’t actually get sick.  More of a-” she made a face “-dry heaving situation.”

He squinted at her. “Lovely.  What happened?  Too much to drink?”

Please say no.  My conscience would eat me alive if I tried anything when you’re drunk, gorgeous girl…

“I had all of two drinks, Loki,” she sighed, stepping around him and walking toward her bedroom, her stilettos clicking loudly on the hardwood. “Though I would have had far more if they hadn’t charged forty damn dollars per glass.  Highway robbery.”

Loki followed her, staring at her legs as they criss-crossed slightly in front of her with each step.  God, the way she walked accented her hips perfectly.  He was becoming more stupid by the second.  He had thousands of questions about September (and the first hours of his October hell), but he doubted his tongue would be able to form the necessary words.  No, the only thing his tongue could do right now was just loll out of his mouth because… legs .  She stopped in front of her bed and picked up her copy of Looking for Sunlight from her pillow.  Fingers running over the cover lovingly, she turned around to face him.

“I’ve read this book a hundred times,” she said wistfully, flipping through the pages to find the envelope that she’d addressed to him weeks ago.  She’d even put a stamp on it, but rather than dropping it in the mailbox, she’d been using it as a bookmark.

You are SUCH a coward, Sigyn.

He raised his dazed eyes from her thighs to the book in her hand, which she was now clutching to her chest as though it was the most precious thing in the world.  His chest tightened at the sight.

She might not love me anymore, but at least she still loves my book.

“I meant every word,” he said, struggling to keep his voice from breaking.

Lips pressing together, she gave him a sad little grin, then produced a plain white envelope- one with his name, address, and postage on it -from the space between the book cover and her chest.  He blinked silently at the thing, unsure what to make of it.  She held it out to him.

“I meant every word too,” she whispered, her lip trembling as he slowly reached forward and took it from her hand. “I can’t force you to read it… a-a-and,” she stumbled over the word a bit and pinched the bridge of her nose, “I under-” deep breaths “-stand if you d-d-don’t want to-” oh please don’t cry again “-but I-”

“Of course I’ll read it,” he spoke over her, sliding his thumb under the seal to break it open.  God, she’d used actual sealing wax and everything.  He lifted his eyes to her face again and raised an eyebrow. “May I?”

Blinking several times, she waved a hand and nodded quickly. “Sorry, yes, of course.  Um… I’ll give you some privacy,” she said, setting the book on her nightstand and hurrying toward her bedroom doors.

He grabbed her hand as she slid by him, and she turned slightly to look up at him.  Perhaps it was juvenile, but he feared that if she left his sight, she would disappear completely.  For good.   That was… that was not an option anymore.  He needed this girl.

MY girl.

“Stay,” he whispered, running his thumb over her knuckles.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to watch you read it.” Good god, his hand fit around hers perfectly, as though it was supposed to be there.

His eyes flicked down to the letter, the crease between his eyebrows deepening tenfold. “That bad?  How much will this hurt me?”

Her eyes went wide, and she turned toward him completely. “No no no no, it’s nothing like that.  It’s not some sort of list of supposed transgressions that you committed against me or anything.  No, definitely not.  It’s more of a… um…” she swallowed, “a confession.”

His jaw didn’t exactly drop to the floor, but it was damn near close. “Did you cheat on me?”

“Oh my god, NO,” she practically shrieked . “Never ever ever EVER.  I can’t even…” her voice failed her, and she dropped her forehead to his chest. “Absolutely not.  No other man could come close to…” again her voice gave up on her.

His shirt smelled so good, and it was so soft against her cheek.  To think, this soft fabric was concealing such a firm chest.  And shoulders.  And arms.  Not to mention those stomach muscles.  Suddenly, she seriously regretted asking him to read a 10-page (front and back) letter just now.  She should have waited until the post-game.  She should be feeling every inch of his skin right now instead.

“Thank god,” he breathed, wrapping one arm around her waist, the other around her shoulders, and leaned down to kiss her hair.  He squeezed the envelope in his hand.  “I would have burned this thing if that’s what you meant.” The soft crunching sound of the paper crinkling in his grip bounced off the exposed brick walls and wood floor as though their little New Years scene were playing out inside of a cathedral rather than a pre-war one-bedroom in Manhattan.

“I’ll just be in the other room,” she said, struggling to keep her hands away from him lest they slip under his shirt and ruin her resolve to be fair to him .  He needed to know.  He needed to see her handwritten words with his own eyes, just as she’d seen his words on the first page of her book.  He deserved at least that much before making a massive decision about his future with her.

What if reading it makes him decide to walk out the door, hon?  Are you willing to accept that?

Clearing her throat, she exaggerated a sniffle. “Need to grab a tissue,” she said, using the excuse to step away. “Don’t want to ruin your pullover with my runny nose.  I know how much that thing cost.”

Could she accept it if he left?  Well, so long as he had the full story, so long as she knew that this was his choice without her manipulating him with puppy-dog eyes and trembling lips (and a leggy dress with plunging neckline and high heels) then, yes, she could learn to accept it if he decided to leave her tonight.  Here’s what she couldn’t accept: letting him think that HE needed to “crawl back” to her, to her apartment- the place where his heart took hit after hit, and his back took stab after stab.  Sure, he bore some responsibility regarding their combined spiral in September; he was by no means an angel.  But she couldn’t stand the undoubted fact that he believed that she thought herself the innocent victim here.  And in believing that lie, he had probably convinced himself that he was the villain here.

Not even CLOSE, Starboy.

“ That’s what laundry soap is for,” he muttered uselessly as she left the bedroom.  He didn’t care about his stupid pullover, but fine… whatever.

Sinking down to the edge of her bed once more, he gingerly pulled the letter out of the envelope.  He stared wide-eyed, his lips parting as he thumbed through multiple full-sized pages of paper.  Some of the inside perforated edges looked as though she’d ripped them a bit too aggressively from a spiral-bound notebook.  Chewing his lip unconsciously, he examined each page, flipping from front to back, then turning them over again.  The tri-fold horizontal creases were perfectly straight and split evenly.  If one hadn’t known she was an architect, they would after one look at her penmanship.  Clean edges, distinct lines, neutral pen pressure, barely slanted, all uppercase, each letter matched the height of the one next to it.

“How many…” he whispered, barely audible as he counted the pages.  In three and a half decades, no one had ever given him more than a few lines of niceties on the inside of a birthday or Christmas card.

Ten pages.  Front and back.  So… twenty.  Sig had put a literal pen to twenty full pages of paper for him.

“My god,” he breathed, lifting his eyes from the short story in his hand to look at the open doors instead.

What kind of confession was this?  A part of him was scared to read it.  Couldn’t he just tell her that it meant the world to him that she’d cared enough to write something for him- something this substantial -without having to read the potentially painful details?  Shit- he couldn’t do this.  Setting the pages down on her nightstand right beside him, he leaned over and put his head in his hands again.  After a few silent moments of shaky breathing, which he hoped wasn’t loud enough for Sig to hear from the other side of the wall, Loki swiveled his head to eye the intimidating papers.

“Don’t be a coward,” he said tightly under his breath, and with his cheek still resting in his palm, he reached over to grab them.

However, when his fingers grazed the papers, he retracted his hand an inch, and then reached underneath them to pick up her Looking for Sunlight hardback instead.  Maybe seeing his own handwriting- his January 2019 “confession” to her -would give him the courage he lacked to read her words to him.  Opening the book carefully for fear of disturbing the words resting inside, he turned to the dedication page.  Eyes boring a hole into the ink, he mouthed his own words.

“On January 1, 2017, I was a 32-year old loaded gun, a bottle of oxy…hungover…freezing…dead Christmas trees who had more life left in them than I did…new Nikes from my father in lieu of any affection…rounded the corner…skidded to a stop…you grabbed my arms to keep from falling…where’s the fire, darling…you pulled a pen out of your bag…grabbed my hand…wrote your number on my palm and signed your name…”

Swallowing thickly, he reached up to rub his eyes.  He could barely see the words.

“Another dollar,” he muttered, turning to the next page- the first actual page of the book.  They weren’t handwritten words, but he’d written them for Sig nonetheless.  Another page.  And another.  Again.  Again.  He paused on the first page of the third chapter, not just skimming, but reading each word, giving his full attention to the lines of serif-font print:

“Dreamy as fuck- that’s what she called me… No, not to my face.  I overheard her say it to her friend at the other end of the bar… Yes, I KNOW it’s a compliment.  It’s also a death sentence… Because I’m a guaranteed DISAPPOINTMENT, that’s why.  She already put me on this goddamn pedestal, and I have nowhere to go but down… What do you think I mean?… I mean that she should WAIT a bit before deciding to look at me like I hung the moon…  No no no no, you aren’t listening…  You know what?  Nevermind.  I’m hanging up now.”

I don’t actually have anyone to hang up on.  I’m not on the phone.  It’s just another silent conversation with myself.  I would do well to have a conversation with Suna, considering she’s standing right here.  Probably not wise to let her think I don’t want to be ALL OVER her right now.

She looks up at me, twirling the small black cocktail straw in her drink. “Don’t you just DESPISE all these Wall Street frat boys congratulating themselves for being gods among men?”

Her question is cold water on a hot day.  Refreshing and rare.

“Spoiled pricks,” she continues, “they don’t deserve a dime to their names.”

I don’t filter my response.  I think Suna would prefer to know just how moronic this “dreamy-as-fuck” man gets when he’s three sheets to the wind.

“Seems to go with the territory,” I say, eyeing the crowded room narrowly. “Ridiculous establishment.  You know who’s worse than those spoiled pricks?”

I return my eyes to her when she says “oh do tell” or something like that.  I gesture flippantly to a group of princesses who I doubt are legally allowed to be in this place.  The group next to them are a bit older, thank god, but age is undoubtedly the only distinction between them.

“The overly made up girls trying to get a hold of all those spoiled pricks’ unearned dimes by flashing fake smiles and fake tits and flipping their fake hair and batting their fake eyelashes.  Conniving thieves.  They look like plastic dolls, and those idiots fall for it.  Whatever.  They can have them.  I have no interest in playing with a fucking doll.  That sounds like a term for sex doll, which isn’t what I meant.  But if the shoe fits… or in this case, if the dick fits.” I feel my lips pursing with more gravitas than Derek Zoolander as I look sideways. “That joke came out of nowhere.”

It wasn’t even a GOOD joke.  I’ve had too much alcohol.  It’s making me loose-lipped and simple.  Speaking of lips- I’m so in love with Suna’s mouth right now.  So pretty… so REAL.  No fillers.  Not fake.  Those lips are just like her words actually.  If anyone here is dreamy, it’s HER, not me.  I better not open my mouth and say this shit to her after I’ve had this much liquor.

“I swear I meant plastic dolls,” I add, attempting to clarify. “You know… as in toys… I don’t mean sex toys… I mean…” My voice fades, which is probably for the best, but unfortunately, I don’t close my mouth.  It hangs open stupidly like it did every second of every maths class I suffered through as a boy.  I roll my eyes.  I have no idea what the hell I am saying. “I’ll try this again.  I associate fake plastic types with unthinking, lifeless, perfect looking dolls, and I despise both.”

I assume she will glare at me and walk away, but she surprises me by saying, “I agree.  Playing with dolls as a little girl is exactly why I’m so goddamn unsatisfied with my own reflection.  Here’s Barbie’s next slogan-” she clears her throat and makes air quotes with her fingers “-’Warping every mirror all kinds of wrong since 1989’.  I came up with that on my own while you were rambling about sex toys.”

My god, I want to kiss this woman.  Her mouth isn’t just pretty- it’s clever.  Maybe if my lips touched hers, she could transfer some of that quick wit to me.  I’m usually so much better at this.

“I like the way you talk,” I manage, unable to pull my eyes away from her lips.

“And I think YOU talk like an Ivy League, Gen Xer elitist who just listened to ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ in your fancy car before you walked in here, then you got a bit too tipsy, and you really regret it because you can’t come up with anything more clever than ‘I like the way you talk’, and now you want to bolt.”

She knows 90s Radiohead references, and she was barely five years old at that time, and that makes HER an elitist too.  But I think I’ll save that zinger for another time.

“I’m a Xennial, not an Xer,” I correct her, clucking my tongue while shaking my head, “but you are disturbingly spot on otherwise.”

Suna leans closer.  MUCH closer.  The tip of her nose is touching mine now, and if she angles her head to touch her lips to mine, I’ll be done for.  She doesn’t, and I am both incredibly relieved and beyond disappointed.

“If you’re leaving,” she whispers, looking up at me through eyelashes that must weigh more than she does, “let me come with you.”

Oh what I wouldn’t give to make her come with me… in every sense of the word.

“I am moved that you want to come with me,” I answer, forcing a thick layer of snark into my tone while putting a few inches of distance between our mouths so I don’t use my tongue for something other than talking, “though I’m 99% sure it’s only because you want to ride in my car.”

I try to step back, but she follows me, setting her hand on my chest.  Her thumb runs along the silver zipper of my open black jacket, and it is far more erotic than it should be.  I hope that her hand sliding underneath the leather is meant to be an invitation for my hands to touch her too because I have never wanted a woman this much.

She arches one dark eyebrow and pulls on my collar, forcing me to bend toward her. “Not ONLY your car,” she says, biting into a smile, “but I do want you to hit the gas.”

I can’t help but scrape my teeth over my lip. “I bet you do.”

Her head tilts toward her shoulder, exposing more of her neck to me, while gazing at me through narrow eyes. “I’m not talking about fucking.”

I give her a look, one that any sane person would give her in response to her OBVIOUSLY untrue words.  The sound that escapes my mouth could only be described as an ‘extremely offended’ scoff.

“Yes, you are,” I retort, lifting my thumb to run across her bottom lip just to watch her cheeks and neck flush, thereby PROVING my next words. “You would give anything to fuck me to the stars and back, you pretty little liar.”

Her jaw drops, much like her skirt will later tonight in my apartment. “Oh my god!”

Yes, I am very loose-lipped.  But what I said wasn’t stupid or simple.  Saying that gives her a better idea of who I am.  If she’s going to come to this absurd conclusion that I’m anything special, it won’t only be because she’s convinced I look amazing without my clothes on.

Much like the thing in my trousers, the corner of my mouth twitches.  “Am I wrong?”

Suna grips my shirt more tightly under my jacket, her eyes lowering to stare at my mouth. “What I want is to watch you bite your lip and laugh with the moonroof open,” she says, smiling and closing her eyes and letting her head fall back as though her fantasy is playing out in real time, “and the wind whipping your hair around your face.  I want you to put your hand in my hair-” she lifts her head to lock eyes with me again “-while you PUT YOUR FOOT ON THE GAS.”

“I can do that,” I say without hesitation, grabbing her hand and dragging her toward the door.

And I’ll also do FAR more than that.  My car is not going to be enough.  It’s classy and sexy and fast and…drumroll please…dreamy.  Perfect fit for her perfect, pretend dream boy.  When I open the door for her and offer my hand to help her into the passenger seat, she smirks and calls me a ‘charmer’.

“That’s code for ‘liar’, and I am NOT a liar,” I say through my teeth before closing the door.

She bites her goddamn lip again as I round the front of the car, and I don’t understand how I can possibly see that with these headlights blinding me.  Suna’s teeth must be brighter than the sun itself.  I settle into the driver’s seat, my jaw aching from my attempts to control the natural inclination to clench it every other second for the better part of four hours now.

Her voice pierces an excessively tense silence after a minute or so. “That silver tongue suggests otherwise.”

Now I’m pissed.  I’ve had it with everyone saying ‘silver tongue’ like it’s the worst thing ever.

“Here’s an idea,” I say, my eyes narrowing at the red taillights just beyond the windshield. “How about we use our tongues for something other than talking so I don’t say something to piss you off, and YOU don’t say anything ELSE to piss ME off, otherwise I’ll pull this car over, and you’ll WALK home.”

“Wow, that’s the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“Just you wait til I’m sober.”

“You might feel loose in the shoulders, dream boy, but you are nowhere near drunk.  However, I will HAPPILY drive, if you feel compromised by two measly ounces of whiskey over the course of four hours.”

My god, I might just white-knuckle this steering wheel to death.  She’s right.  I’m not drunk.  I’m just an idiot who wishes that he had an easy excuse for his idiocy.

Still staring ahead, I ask, “Didn’t we agree to stop talking?”

Her face falls. “Oh no, but…” she starts, her lips trembling.  If she cries, I WILL pull this car over. “But… but…” she continues, “but I thought you LIKED the way I talk?”

Suppressing an eyeroll, I side-eye her.  She’s grinning, and I have HAD it with that mouth of hers.  Voice, words, tongue, lips- ALL of it is rerouting the blood from my head into my trousers instead, and now I am at the mercy of my own dick.  Which also means I can’t be the smartest in the room for reasons other than trying to cope with beverages that didn’t even taste good!

Good thing we’re now out of my car, and I’m dragging her into the elevator in my building.  I really didn’t want to steam up the windows in the middle of the street like a pair of love drunk idiots.  Did I say LOVE drunk?  Yes, and that’s fair.  I want her to fall in love with me, not just into BED with me, and I need to reach more than her goddamn g-spot to convince her…

Loki closed the book and returned it to Sigyn’s nightstand. “I meant every word,” he whispered, repeating his words (and her words) from earlier as he carefully pinched her letter between his thumb and forefinger and picked it up.

I want her to fall in love with me, not just into BED with me…

Blowing out a breath, he dared to look at the first few lines:

Dear Loki,
Today is December 7, 2019, and I don’t know if I’ll work up the courage to send this letter to you, but I’m trying this new thing called “being honest with myself” and if you don’t mind, I’m going to pour my heart out to your ghost right now…

He swallowed anxiously.  Oh god, one sentence in, and his chest was already tight.  He wanted to run out her door as sure as his alter ego wanted to ‘bolt’ from Suna.  But only because everything about her made him want to drown for her, and the words on these pages might tell him that he shouldn’t.  He just wanted to love her.  He didn’t need to know what she’d written to his ghost .  He didn’t need to know if she would drown for him too.

Yes, you do, LO.

“Goddammit,” he growled under his breath, then returned his eyes to the page:

“I was at the wedding tonight.  I got there really REALLY early (the ushers looked at me like I had two heads) because I was irrationally scared of being late, of disappointing yet another friend, and that earned me a seat right behind the pews reserved for family at the front.  It was the third row on Carol’s side of the aisle, and I don’t think I looked at anything other than the church doors for thirty minutes straight.  I knew you would come through those doors at some point, and I didn’t want to miss seeing you.  Even though I knew you wouldn’t come anywhere near me, I could at least see your face again.

Darce and Bucky came up to sit with me, thank heaven.  I think I would have bolted if they hadn’t.  He was so nice.  I could tell he felt kind of like a traitor to you though.  He was clearly doing it for Darce’s sake.  She was talking to me about this or that, and I just nodded along, trying to look like I was paying attention to her.  I was twisted toward the aisle (on purpose), anxious to see you in my periphery.  It felt like an hour at least went by, and you STILL weren’t there.  The anxiety was unbearable.  I wish I had swiped one of those Xanax from your laptop bag before you left.  It would have been a life-saver.

That Genghis Khan song started playing then(by the way, Carol and Val picked killer songs for the pre-ceremony)... you know the one I mean, right?  God, we danced like a couple of fools to it in your living room last St. Patrick’s Day.  There was no rhyme or reason to it.  You just turned up the speakers and used the remote like a microphone, and dear god, you sang it with a fake Irish accent, and it was HILARIOUS.  Anyway, I’m sitting there in the church, totally spacing on Darce because I’m still looking at those doors, and singing along silently in my head: 

“I don’t have the right 
To ask where you go at night 
But the waves hit my head 
To think someone’s in your bed… 
I get a little bit Genghis Khan 
I don’t want you to get it on 
With nobody else but me 
With nobody else but me…” 

Oh, isn’t the piano FANTASTIC in that one?  It sounds like New York to me.  Does that make sense?  It has so much SOUL.  It’s not vapid or plastic like LA.  (Probably because we’re all too busy crying over our rent checks to even THINK about cosmetic surgery)  That was a joke, and it FAILED.  As though California is any more “affordable”...HA.

Sorry.  I’m going off on tangents.  Tangents is a funny word.  Do you picture gents laying by the pool?  Tan...gents?  Get it?  Oh my god, I should write that down.  Wait… look-y there!  Already did!...

Pressing his lips together, Loki pinched the bridge of his nose, trying not to split his sides.  Sig was just on the other side of that wall, and he didn’t want her to hear him laugh out loud.  She would completely misinterpret it as cruel and insensitive, which was completely off base.  Honestly, so far, her story-telling was adorable and funny as hell.  As was he, apparently, last March while drunkenly attempting an Irish accent during an impromptu living room concert about “getting a little bit Genghis Khan” over his girl’s whereabouts at night.  He remembered that night, and he hadn’t exactly been faking the conviction in the words.  “Possessive” might as well be his middle name.  Blinking several times, he pushed away thousands of images in his head of the times he had put his arm around her when they were out with friends or at bars or wherever, just so every other man in the room would know this girl was his .  He sighed heavily and continued reading her words:

Anyway… I was sitting in one of those first rows, then Thor walked in with Jane hanging on his arm, and I knew you couldn’t be far behind them.  Another ten nauseating, nerve wracking seconds went by, and FINALLY you walked in.  It was such a movie moment with this perfect soundtrack, perfect soft lighting, and you in that perfect dark grey suit that cost like a BILLION dollars and ought to be illegal because...oh my god- just kill me now.

My eyelids felt far too heavy to open them all the way- like how you wrote that Suna’s eyelashes had to weigh more than she did.  Yep.  Exactly.  Darce asked if I was okay.  She said I looked “dazed and confused.”  Yeah, you think?  I was more than a little lost in that barely there upward curve of your mouth when your brother leaned over to you and said something...funny...I guess.  You didn’t look my way, which was probably for the best, because I might have passed out.  I hadn’t seen you in two godawful months, and even though that’s hardly enough time to forget how fucking gorgeous you are, it was like seeing you for the first time.

I wasn’t, but I WAS getting the first glimpse of those shadows under your cheekbones, and those envy-inducing long, dark eyelashes, and those UNREAL jade green eyes, and don’t get me started on your hair.  In other words, everything about you was giving me one of those “someone fetch me my smelling salts!” moments that feels really stupid but really good.  We’ll set aside the fact that the moment was tinged with an unbearable ache in my chest because I’m not ready to go there yet.

My mum calls these moments “reminder butterflies.”  She says she still gets them with Dad.  I don’t remember exactly how she described them, so I’ll just say how they feel to ME.  They remind me of that dreamy floaty feeling that happened NON-STOP when we started dating nearly three years ago now.  It’s that drug-like euphoric “oh my god, Mum, I’m falling so HARD for him” feeling.

They’re AMAZING moments, but they’re fleeting.  I know this love drunk feeling right now won’t intoxicate me for the next six months like the first time.  You can’t possibly give me that CONSTANT high anymore.  I can only fall for you once, and I already did that in 2017.  I can’t actively fall in love with you again.  It’s done…

He squinted at the page, his mouth twisting into a scowl.  Had she written that he couldn’t give her a constant high anymore?

Yeah, no shit, sweetheart.  Forgive me for being a measly Earthling.

Dear god, so much for laughing.  He might need a drink to get through the rest of this letter.  Rolling his eyes, he re-read the previous sentence before continuing down the page:

I’ll never again be overwhelmed with 24/7 star eyes just because you EXIST.  I’ll never again lose my goddamn mind, thinking about you EVERY SECOND like I did after you smiled at me on New Years Day 2017.  I kid you not, Loki- after you said “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sigyn Frey” and turned around to resume your morning run, I remember feeling that if I went blind then, that would be okay because I had the chance to see you that ONE time.  I felt like that for months.  

Reminder butterflies feel like that, but they only last a few days at most.

I.  Will.  Take.  It.

If they’re from YOU, I want them.  I don’t need to feel a rush from you for months.  I don’t need it for weeks.  I don’t need it for days.  I WANT it, sure.  It feels like heaven.  But you are SO MUCH MORE than a cloud nine rush.

I am such a shit writer, but I’ll try to explain what I mean…

Gripping the pages more tightly, Loki chewed his lip, feeling as though his heart was growing three times in size.  Please let there be a part in here that said he was worth drowning for.  It seemed like she might be getting there, but he needed her to get there faster.  He rubbed his eyes- a preemptive strike against the jar-boy enemy.  Her words were all over the place, and his emotional response was trying to keep up:

In my 20s I thought that if that rush started to fade into the background, I must have picked the wrong guy.  The second I realized the rush from some guy was disappearing, it would ruin everything.  I would suddenly be a girl who had lost interest in what used to be the most EXCITING shiny new toy, but now was desperate for December to come around again, so I could unwrap a newer, BETTER present.  The next one would be the RIGHT present, and the right one would never grow old- both figuratively and literally. 

At the time, I wouldn’t have admitted that I was thinking of boyfriends the way I thought of Christmas toys.  I just knew I didn’t want THEM to think of ME that way.  Well, I’m not in my 20s anymore.  It’s 2019, and I am a 31 year old woman, and this year I realized that I am an utter fucking hypocrite.  That realization broke my heart more thoroughly than any man ever did.  

The realization that I’M the villain in my story- in the story I dragged you into -is STILL breaking me.  Learning that I have been the bad guy all along is...well...it’s a process, and it is not a fun one.  I wish it had been a rapid onset epiphany.  I wish I could have just ripped the Band-Aid off.  But it didn’t work that way for me.  It is a slow, painful, peeling away of my skin.

It started after Tony died in April this year.  Bit by bit, I started to understand what that nightmare where I’m trying to run away from the monster but can’t run fast enough REALLY means.  You know the one I’m talking about.  It’s the one where you’d swear your legs are stuck in slow motion because the scenery isn’t changing- because when you look behind your shoulder, the monster is still there. 

In that nightmare, I’m exhausted and crying and terrified, and I know one of these seconds is going to be the one when it catches me and rips my heart out.  Why doesn’t this scenery EVER change?  Why does the monster always stay about ten steps behind me, but never actually catches me?  Why won’t it just get it over with?  I genuinely believe that death would be preferable to this never-ending terror.  Coward that I am, I keep running nevertheless.

Thousands of these syndicated rerun dreams later, it has FINALLY hit me that I was on a treadmill, and that goddamn hypocritical, prideful, selfish monster was ME all along.  All I had to do was stop running, let it do its worst, and the nonstop fear of being eaten alive would be over.  But I was not ready to let it rip my heart out yet.  I was not ready to let it kill my ego.  So I kept running, and the monstrous version of me kept chasing down the better parts of me.  Kept those better parts from taking the starring role in my story.  In OUR story.

I already said I broke my own heart when I realized I was a hypocrite- a monster.  That happened right before you left for Europe in June.  I swore to myself that I would be the BEST, most loving, most giving girlfriend when you got home.  I think I was fairly good at keeping that promise during August.  Wasn’t that an AMAZING month?

So what the hell happened in September?  How did my promise derail so monumentally after only ONE month?  I’ll tell you why.  It’s because I never actually stopped running on that treadmill.  thought it was good enough to simply know WHO was chasing me.  I didn’t want to let it make a martyr out of me.  What if the worthiest version of me didn’t arise out of the ashes, so to speak?

You walked out of my door on October 1st, and that is when I decided to stop running.  I’m telling you- it was so much more painful than the “oh shit, I’m the bad guy” realization.  I hate that I waited so long to give up.  Maybe you would still love me if I’d done it sooner.

Piece of advice to my future self: IT’S OKAY TO BE A QUITTER.

It’s okay to say I’M DONE. TIME TO TURN IN THAT RESIGNATION LETTER.

I mean- yeah I feel like a failure, but is it that bad if the thing I lost was the all-consuming ego race?  No, it wouldn’t be bad if that was ALL I lost.  But I lost EVERYTHING.

I waited too long to lose the worst parts of me, and in the process I lost the most perfectly imperfect love of my life.  I thought YOU broke MY heart.  Oh my GOD- I thought SO wrong.  It was me all along.  I did the breaking.  I broke your heart, and I broke mine.

We went through some shit.  We had dream lover highs and pissed off lows, and I was okay with both.  That sounds idiotic, but here’s why I liked the “lows” too: if we were fighting, that meant our INTENSE passion was still there.  If we were fighting, it was because WE were worth fighting for!  It was just the flip side of calling in “sick” to work because I NEEDED to spend all day tangled in bedsheets with you.  Fighting usually turned into fucking anyway, so all good...right?  Jesus.  Now I’m picturing you naked, and I’m kind of falling apart.  You felt like heaven.  I wish I could write better.  I don’t have good enough adjectives.  I don’t have your beautiful mind.  I know you DESPISE your mind, but...it is so perfect, Loki.  I can’t even-

FOREVER DREAM BOY.

You know I don’t believe in god.  But I’m positive if that entity existed, it would look and feel like you when you’re inside me.  When you’re all around me.  This hurts.  This hurts so much.  Writing this letter hurts so much.

And I am out of tissues.  Dammit.

I’m so goddamn in love with you.  I can’t believe I did this.  I can’t believe I lost you.  You were mine, and I was yours, and it was what everyone on this planet wishes they had, and it’s all my fault that it’s over.  I can’t believe I fucked this up so royally.

We didn’t just have highs and lows, did we.  We had in-betweens, and those were the parts that brought out the worst in me.  My perfect Christmas toy love didn’t thrill me LIKE HE OUGHT TO during the in-betweens.  Nevermind the fact that YOU weren’t thrilled either yet hadn’t disappeared on me like every other guy had before you.  Oh no, that wasn’t good enough for a self-entitled brat like me.  I had the gall to believe you didn’t love me during the in-betweens.  I accused you of it every time those in-betweens rolled back around.  And every time the hurt was written all over your face.  I think I was trying to force a fight.  To force the passion to start revving back up.  You know what that is?  That is emotional abuse, and I had no idea I was capable of being an abuser.  I thought I was only a survivor.  I learned too late that I can be both.

I did that.  I really did that.  I am WRECKED with shame for doing that to you.  I have never felt guilt like this.  It’s burning a hole in my core, and I deserve it.

You know what I don’t deserve?

You.

I don’t deserve you.  I should not be allowed to feel reminder butterflies.  They feel too good, and I don’t deserve to feel good.  But oh god I want to feel them over and over again.  And I only want to feel them from you.

You have no idea what you did to me when I saw you tonight, Starboy.  You really nailed it with that book title.  I know it’s a “dying star” theme, but I’ve never seen anyone live so genuinely as you.  LOVE so genuinely as you.  And allow me to add to the metaphor-

I love you to the fucking stars and back.  A thousand times.  A million times.  INFINITY times.

I saw you walk through those doors at the back of the church, and you sent me floating right back up to that high again.  I flashed back to the beginning- back to when I just KNEW you would change my life.  But tonight was different because you- amazing, beautiful, wonderful you -you already changed my life.  I wasn’t waiting and hoping and praying you would say “I swear I’m not like the others, Sig. I’m not going anywhere unless it’s with you.”  Because you already did that.  You already did SO MUCH MORE than that.

You already wrote an entire damn BOOK for me.

Please listen to me, dreamy ghost of Loki.  No matter the fact that I crashed from our high, no matter the fact that I let the in-betweens get to me and destroyed the most beautiful thing that WILL EVER HAPPEN TO ME, no matter the fact that you aren’t going to crawl into bed with me tonight and make love to me the way you used to- 

I will never ever forget that the most precious, priceless, perfectly imperfect person ever- Loki Love of My Life Odinson -wrote an absolutely gut-wrenching, life-changing, mind-bending, heart-breaking book called Looking for Sunlight, and he wrote it FOR ME.  You ARE worth drowning for, Loki…

Giving up the fight against the water in his eyes, he put a hand over his mouth as it fell open.  There it was.  She’d said it.  She’d written it.  She’d really done that.  Jaw clenched, he pushed to his feet and started toward her living room as he finished the last few lines:

...I would have done it a thousand times over when you were mine, and I still would even now.  I’ll do it forever.  I’ll drown for you.  It doesn’t sound fun, but Jesus… I’ll do it for YOU because I will never stop loving you, Starboy, and I miss you beyond words.  I’ve put thousands of dollars in thousands of jars for you, and I’m not done yet.  I’ll keep breathing, but I’ll never be alive like I was when you were mine.  And even if it’s not with me, I hope with all my shattered heart that you will be happy.

Love forever,

Sigyn 

P.S.- It’s a little too early to say this, and honestly I don’t want to say it at all, but...
Happy 2020.  Even if yours aren’t mine anymore, all my new years are yours.

“Loki?”

He looked up at the sound of her voice, only then realizing that he had left her bedroom.  Seated on her couch with her knees pulled to her chest, she was visibly shaking.

“My god, Sig,” he muttered, letting the pages fall to the floor as he made a beeline for her.

Her eyes blew wide, her heart sobbing at the sight of him haphazardly tossing away all those paper words that she’d fought to pull out of her own goddamn word tornadoes.

Not exactly confetti, is it.

Releasing her tight hold on her legs, she started to scramble off the couch to catch all those little pieces of her before they landed on the unworthy, not-perfectly-clean floor, but he caught her first.  She shrieked, clutching at his shoulders, clumsily trying to regain her balance while falling backward onto what she hoped was a soft couch cushion.

“Loki, what-”

He closed his mouth over hers before she could finish whatever the hell that question would have been as they landed on the too-small couch.  Oh fucking hell, she could not have responded better to it, moaning into the kiss and grabbing him anywhere…no… everywhere she could reach.  His hands were just as scatterbrained as hers, unable to stay in one spot because every part of her felt too good to his palms- how could he possibly choose?  He angled his head to deepen an already deep kiss, then grabbed the back of her knee, his head spinning from the mere sound of her gasping underneath him.  His shirt bunched up as she dragged it up his side, and he groaned, rolling his hips with more vigor.  He’d been waiting a thousand bloody years for this moment with her.

Oh god, get me out of these fucking clothes NOW.

He was only half-aware of her voice saying “I’m so in love with y-…” as he stood up, yanking her with him (apparently he’d wound his arms tightly around her waist at some point), and walked backwards to her bedroom once more.  God, he was absolutely out of his mind for this woman.

Hello, my name is Loki Odinson, and I’ll die if Sigyn Frey doesn’t say yes when I ask her to be my wife.

“Me too,” he barely managed in response to her admission of love.  The back of his knees hit the edge of her bed, and he fell back with her on top of him.

Oh my god, I AM SO HAPPY.

He was floating… flying… soaring… living forever… immortal and in love, and the girl he loved was just as in love with him.  She broke their kiss long enough to smile against his mouth.

Shaking her head while holding his face, she muttered, “Can’t believe you want me still.”

“Never stopped wanting you, sweeth-…” his mouth snapped shut as she scooted over his belt buckle.  Chest rising and falling a bit faster, he chewed his lip, loving the feel of his stomach twisting in excited knots.

“I swear I’ll never pull that September shit again,” she said, watching him carefully for any sign of discomfort or hesitance, “and I swear I’ll always be honest and won’t hide from you because obviously that was a disaster, and I am so so so so sorry.”

She paused, her heart picking up speed as he lifted his gorgeous green eyes to hers again.  After taking a deep breath, she added, “Can we…?”

He watched her blink slowly, her long dark eyelashes casting shadows over her now flushed cheeks, and he slowly lowered his gaze to her neck and chest.

Oh fuck- we’re doing this…this is actually going to happen…less than an hour ago, I was a dead man walking…

He should make sure he understood her correctly.  He doubted he was reading this situation incorrectly, but still.  He took a deep breath.

“Are you asking me if I’ll-” His words failed him, as though his mouth literally lost function, because, god almighty, she was now full on pressing into his crotch.  Well hell.  Anything left to say had flown to the back of his mind.  A gorgeous gift- the only one he’d ever wanted -had written a 20-page love letter to him, then fallen into his lap, and was now rolling her hips over his jeans.  Brow furrowing, he groaned, sliding his hands down her sides.

She curled her fingers around the back of his neck and pulled his open mouth to hers, internally screaming “OH GOD YES” as he reached up to tangle his fingers in her hair.  She leaned away for a moment, eyeing him carefully because she needed to know that he would…

“Stay,” she whispered.

Leaning with her, trying to follow her mouth, he shook his head rapidly. “I’m not going anywhere, I swear.”

His lips barely grazed hers when she pulled further away, and he growled at the loss, once again following her.

Come. Back. Here.

“All night?” she asked, letting him kiss her for a few seconds.

He nodded, running his hand up her spine and into her hair as his mouth moved in tandem with hers.  The incessant undulating slide of her hips back and forth pulled a deep groan from his chest, and he couldn’t help but let his head fall back.

She bit her lip, staring at his pale throat.  She’d never been able to resist his neck, not that she wanted to, since he had the most irresistible neck in the universe.  Tilting her head, she leaned forward to place a slow, open-mouthed kiss just below his adam’s apple.

“You’re not going anywhere?” she whispered as she worked her way up to the hinge of his jaw, feeling light-headed from the heat and smell of his skin.

He smelled like heaven- like a leather jacket had soaked up the smoky scent of bergamot tea leaves tossed into a bonfire, and someone had collected the smell, bottled it up, and started selling it as “LO’s Throat” next to Armani Code and D&G Pour Homme at Bergdorff’s or something.

Loki would have nodded in response to her question- no, he was absolutely not going anywhere -but his neck felt like it had turned to jelly thanks to her lips and tongue sliding all over it.  He managed to form some semblance of English-sounding words.

“Not…go-…any…I…” The oddly strung together train of not-words derailed entirely when he felt her hand slide all the way down his pullover, below his belt buckle, then wrap her fingers around him through his jeans.

Tightening her grip, she began to slowly run her hand up and down.  She bit her lip, rolling her hips more, well, greedily when his jaw dropped.  She loved watching his chest rise and fall faster and that strained sound (was it a growl or a moan?) in the back of his throat was so so so so SO sexy.

“Swear it,” she said, using her other hand to lift his head for him, and looked into his dazed eyes.

Breathing hard through his mouth, he gave her an exasperated look.  “I already did swear it!”  For hell’s sake, why was she making him talk right now?!

“Don’t yell at me,” she frowned, leaning further into him, sliding her lips over his for just a second.

“Can’t you tell the difference between yelling and sobbing?”

Dear god, he was whining.  As in, “didn’t get my way” toddler whining .  But he couldn’t help himself- she really was trying to kill him.  For how long had he been hard now?  Thirty minutes?  Surely not.  It had to have been hours .  When she spoke again, her voice was so soft, so shaky, so…in love.  It squeezed his heart so tight, it was enough to distract him from the hand squeezing him through his trousers.

“I’m just making sure,” she let go of the back of his neck to point back and forth between the few inches separating their chests, “because right now, what I need most is to feel you inside me again, but I also need you to be here when I wake up.”

Eyes wide, he blinked at her, his mouth falling open a little.  How could she not know this?  Of course , he didn’t only want a physical reconnection.  It was so much more profound than that.  Yes, he would be here when she woke up.  He would bring her coffee and breakfast if she wanted, or better yet, walk through the deserted New Years Day streets, stop at Ground Support, and then he would take her home with him.

Breathing deeply through his nose, he then exhaled through his mouth. “I told you I am not going anywh-”

His words were cut off by her tongue darting into his open mouth, and before he realized what was happening, his back was on the mattress.  Sigyn leaned over him, cradling the back of his head in her hands and kissing him like his mouth tasted better than those gin and tonics she loved so much, like she was getting just as drunk off of him.

Jesus, sweetheart.  Go right ahead.  Drink up.   

When she sat up and slipped her hands underneath his pullover, his stomach clenched at the sensation of her hands smoothing over his bare skin, her thumbs dipping inside the waistband of his boxer briefs.  He would have said “I never stopped loving you” right then, but the sentence got lost in the back of his throat because gravity, or maybe it was her incessant rolling hips, was pulling her unzipped dress down over her shoulders at the slowest pace ever.  The tease was maddening.

“Bloody hell,” he murmured, his eyes widening when she tilted her head back, her face toward the ceiling, and that goddamn gorgeous dress fell down completely, pooling around her waist and exposing everything to him.

She brought her head back up and leaned down over him again, her hands sliding up his stomach, forcing his pullover up to his neck.  He raised his arms over his head on instinct, and she dragged the shirt off.  Brow furrowing, she bit her lip, and made a pained sound as her eyes roved over his bare chest and stomach.

“So fucking gorgeous,” she said under her breath, pressing her body down against his, the skin to skin contact with him (finally!) making her head spin like she’d finished off a bottle of wine all by herself.

Once again, he couldn’t make words.  At all.  Just… sounds.  Groans.  Soft gasps.  Croaks.  The sensation of her breasts flush against him was, no joke (and no hyperbole), intoxicating .  Eyes sliding closed, he flattened his hand against the small of her back and cupped her face with his other hand, pulling her open mouth to his.

BOOM.

BOOM.

BOOM.

Fireworks- how ridiculously poetic.

Crying softly against his lips, Sigyn reached down between them, nimbly unbuckling his belt with one hand and tugging his button fly open.  He responded with a sharp hiss, and rocked his hips up into her with more force, sliding both hands down to her ass.  Oh god, she loved his hands on her.  She wanted to spend the rest of her life right here.

Hello, my name is Sigyn, and I think I’ll die if Loki Odinson never asks me to be his wife.

She helped him push the waistband of his jeans and boxer briefs over hips, biting her lip at the sight of what she hadn’t seen in so goddamn long.

Oh fuck me…

Literally.

PLEASE.

Wrapping her hand around him, she leaned over and slowly kissed the hollow of his throat, and once more, he rocked up into her, his grip on her hips tightening tenfold.

“Sig, oh my god,” he breathed, lifting his head again and catching her lips with his.  Opening his mouth wider, he rolled his tongue over hers, and slid one hand up her spine and into her hair.

Fucking hell, you gorgeous girl…

He’d never been this high in his life.  And that was saying something.  Her lips might as well have been candy- sweet as hell and worth indulging to the point of a stomach ache.  He wasn’t diabetic, but this girl could probably put him in a coma.  He was two seconds from begging her to ride him, but he should have known he didn’t need to ask.  Hovering over him and biting her lip, she slid down onto him as though it was the most natural thing in the universe.  Eyes rolling back into his head, he groaned as she dropped her mouth to his again.

Grinding her hips over his, Sigyn cupped his face with both hands.  This was heaven.  This was Valhalla.  This was LIFE.  Dear god, she’d never been so confident that THIS was the man she wanted to make a baby with.  Honestly.  Seriously.  Desperately.  Stupidly.  Her IUD would make sure that didn’t happen (THANK YOU) but a huge part of her just knew that it would happen… at some point.  Loki would be the father of her children.  Whenever the universe said “ NOW we’re ready” , it would happen.  She wasn’t complete without him, and she didn’t care if that sounded archaic or antiquated or whatever.  Yes, he was a man , and yes, she was desperate to be anything he wanted, anything he needed.  But that was FINE because this was her choice .  This was okay.  It was better than okay.  It was WONDERFUL.  He would give her anything, and she would give him anything.

I WOULD DROWN FOR HIM.

Oh, that she had said that to him in October.  She gave an internal eye roll as soon as she thought it.  Never mind.  That didn’t matter now.  It was January .  The start of a new year.  It was 2020.  Who knew what was in store for them?  Maybe it would be a NIGHTMARE , but at least they would be traversing it together.  She adored New York, but honestly, it had a tendency to highlight the worst of people, and she knew that she was no exception.

“Oh god,” she groaned, her thighs aching from supporting her weight as she straddled him.

Up…

Down…

Up…

Down…

Up…

Down…

He felt AMAZING.  Her body was drowning in Loki, dreaming of him, chasing him through Wonderland…

She heard him say “ Let me help, sweetheart” and suddenly, she was on her back, and he was sliding in and out of her like a… god… for lack of a better word.

With one hand in her hair, he reached down to gently grab the hem of that gorgeous dress- bless Saint Laurent for such a work of art -and pulled it up over her hips.

“Careful, love,” he hissed, slipping it over her head. “So beautiful.”  That was one expensive dress.

And the girl in it is PRICELESS.

He rolled his hips forward and back, over and over…

Again…

And again…

And again…

And again…

And again…

“Oh fuck,” she panted against his mouth, crossing her ankles behind his back. “Oh my god… oh my god… oh my god…Loki…”

Behind a closed-lip smile, he grit his teeth.  “ Oh god” was right.  He felt like a god.  A god who could make her come.  A god who could give her an F-type for Christmas.  A god who could buy her this dress that she’d probably gone into debt just to “wow” him tonight.  A god who could pay for their grandchildren’s college tuition.

Push… pull… push… pull… push… pull…

She was close- he could feel it.  Heaven help him, this was not easy.  He was three months sex-sober, and impressive or not, his dick had its limits.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said through his teeth, moving his mouth to the pulsepoint in her neck.  Tongue on her skin, he ground his hips into her with more force.  “Sig…” oh shit, he was done for… “please, please, I can’t…”

He heard her say “ it’s FINE” with all the conviction in the world, her fingers curling into his hair, and his mouth fell open, his mind and body sky-rocketing up to cloud nine to live amongst the stars for a beautiful ten seconds of his lifeline.  Ten seconds of beauty and perfection that the stars themselves, in all their stunning magnitude, couldn’t replicate.

If I die right now, I’ll be okay. It won’t be death.  It will only be moving through space and time to another dimension where Sigyn Frey smiles at me and welcomes me home.

He blew out a heavy breath through his mouth.  Shit… she hadn’t finished.

“It’s not the end of the world, Loki,” she said, kissing underneath his ear. “I’m in heaven because you’re here.”

He gave her a withering look.

Talk about a low bar…

Eyes roving over her face, he allowed more of his weight (within reason) to settle onto her.

“And you deserve better than that,” he said, pushing her hair behind her ears.  Bloody hell- he felt like a king and a peasant at once.  It was disconcerting.  

“Oh my god,” she groaned, rolling her eyes, then rubbing his nose with hers, “stop feeling guilty over nothing .  This-” she ran her hands from his ribs down to his hips and back up to wrap her arms around his waist “-was phenomenal, and I mean otherworldly phenomenal.”

He grinned crookedly. “Otherworldly?  If that’s how you feel just because I’m here-”

“Here inside me,” she spoke over him, clarifying her earlier point.

“If that’s how you feel,” he repeated himself, his smirk growing into a full-blown smile, “then I truly did level up to a god.”

“Niiiiice,” she laughed out loud, her head falling back.

“It wasn’t that funny,” he chuckled for a moment, but the humor ended quickly because every muscle in her body had tightened from her excessive laughing- EVERY muscle -one of which was particularly…

Gripping.

Didn’t you say you “can’t level up to ‘god’ until book 3” to one of those nurses at Sig’s doctor’s appointment in May?

Did I?

Think so.

Well then… mission accomplished.

Sliding his hand under her neck and into her hair, he lowered his mouth to the dip between her collarbone, which she’d so generously exposed to him by throwing her head back like that.

The tip of his tongue barely touched her skin before he closed his lips over it, and her laugh turned into a strained, quiet whine.  She arched her neck further, her toes already curling as his mouth moved closer to her jaw, teasing her with a bit more of his tongue in each kiss.  Oh hell, she could feel him hardening again.

And you thought he was “done” with you…

“Oh fuck…” she whispered through her teeth, then he pulled away from her throat and lowered his face to hers.

Eyes closing as their parted lips met, he gripped her hair more tightly, determined to avoid an anticlimactic night for her.  Sure, she’d said that she was thrilled or he was otherworldly or what not, and he knew she wasn’t pretending, but… no.  Just… no.  His girl was going to get off, and he could make that happen in thirty more seconds.  Guaranteed.  Keeping his hand in her hair and his mouth on hers, he stretched his arm down to hook his elbow under her thigh, then leaned forward again, lifting her higher and draping her knee over his shoulder as more and more blasts of fireworks lit up the room faster and faster.  Oh the timing .  The finale was coming shortly.

NICE .

Sigyn would have cried out, but his mouth was stifling her.  His entire body was stifling her, and it was hot as hell.  Literally.  She was breaking into a sweat around her temples and neck and chest.  Clinging to his shoulder with one hand, she grabbed his face with the other, her thumb running along his jaw as he moved over her.  The higher angle didn’t only let him push deeper.  It let him slide his lower stomach perfectly over the oh-so-good ache between her thighs.

God. Almighty.

Her leg over his shoulder started shaking, and she stopped kissing him, no doubt looking slack-jawed and drugged.  More blasts… again… again.  Good lord, her room looked like someone had set up a goddamn strobe light across the street.  The coil inside her was so tight, and it was getting tighter by the millisecond.

“Oh god… oh god…” she bit into her lip, letting go of him to stretch her arms back behind her head and slam her palms against the wall, forcing him as far into her as possible as the first little random electric spasms hit her.

Feeling her start to twitch around him, Loki slipped his elbow out from under her leg, and reached over her to curl his fingers around hers.  Gasping and pushing with everything he had, he watched her, ecstatic and overly proud of his accomplishment , as her mouth fell open, her head fell back, and those random spasms turned into impossibly tight, evenly-spaced pulses that he hoped felt more explosive to her than that last round of absurdly loud blasts and pops and crackles and booms and flashes of light in every shade of the rainbow happening outside.

He bit into a smile, slowing his pace to a standstill as his girl floated back to the ground- or bed, in this case -from her own cloud nine Wonderland.  A good -trip Wonderland.  A trip that did not include the red queen ordering her deck of guards to decapitate you.  Her arms went completely limp and would have fallen- possibly directly onto her face -if not for his hands holding hers against the wall still.  Relaxing his grip, he gingerly brought her dead weight arms back down and set them around his neck.  However, they slid right off, landing on the bedcover with a thud, and without opening her eyes, she sighed heavily, a grin spreading across her face.

Raising an eyebrow, he smirked. “That good, hm?”

Still smiling, her tongue poked through her teeth, responding with something between a giggle and a drawn-out whistle. “Apparently.”

~ Several hours later, 8:52 am, January 1, 2020 ~

Eyes fluttering open slowly, Sigyn squinted and put a hand over her eyes.  She turned over, scowling a bit at the clock on her wall.  She would have slept longer if not for the sunlight streaming through her window.

DIRECTLY ON MY FACE.

She wasn’t really upset, though.  No, she was so goddamn happy.  If anyone had asked her yesterday if she would wake up next to Starboy this morning, she would’ve called them crazy.  Her hips and thighs were unbelievably sore, and god, she loved it.  Was he this sore, too?  Doubtful.  He was in too good of shape to be sore after a couple rounds of sex.  Really good sex.  Otherworldly sex.  She bit her lip at the thought and turned over again, smiling wide, to get a look at the guy who’d taken her to the stars and back last night.  Her smile fell immediately.

His spot was empty.  He wasn’t there.  Eyebrows pulling together, she sat upright and rubbed her eyes.  Damn blurry morning vision.  Surely, she was imagining that empty space next to her.  When she pulled her hands away from her eyes, he still wasn’t there.  The sheets were wrinkled, and if she squinted, she could make out the shape of his body.  Eyes blowing wide and lip trembling, she pushed up off the bed.

The rug felt abnormally cold under her bare feet as she tip-toed around the bed, anxiously playing with the hem of her long, oversized, off-the-shoulder, grey sweatshirt that proudly proclaimed in pink block letters that she was “born in the 80s”.  She chewed her lip, turning in a slow circle, eyeing every square inch of her room looking for any evidence of his presence.  Up, down, left, right, shadows, highlights, dim corners, under, above.  Keys?  No.  Phone?  No.  Wallet?  No.  Shirt?  No.  Boots?  Socks?  Pullover?  Trousers?  Definitely not.

Nothing.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, switching from chewing her lip to chewing her thumbnail as she went into her living room, stepping around the space with less confidence than a kid playing “the floor is lava!”

Blinking at the burning in her eyes, she put both hands over her mouth. “No no no no no no no no no no no…”

He left.  He left me again.

“This isn’t happening,” she whispered behind her palms as several tears in quick succession tumbled down her cheeks.

She moved quickly then, scouring the place for a note or something.  Where the bloody hell was it?  Goddammit- there had to be one!  Coffee table?  Key table?  Kitchen counter?  On the fridge door?  Couch?  Under the cushion?  Behind the wall painting over her TV?!  No no no no no!!

“How can he do this to me?” she croaked, sinking down into her kitchen table chair.  Oh god, she was just getting what she deserved, wasn’t she?

Call him.  Text him.  Run to his building.  DO SOMETHING.

Sniffling loudly, she pushed to her feet and walked back into her bedroom.  She’d dropped her phone on her bed last night when Loki had picked her up and carried her to it.

Then he fucked me twice.

Then left me before the sun came up.

Or after I fell asleep.

Whenever that was.

Either way, dear god, I would rather be dead right now.

Heartbreak was a terrible thing, wasn’t it- something that could make an otherwise healthy person think that no longer existing on this planet, but perhaps just… darkness… and the beauty of no longer thinking or feeling… was preferable to breathing.  Oh god, maybe she was overreacting.  Maybe she’d misinterpreted this, and was now seeing everything through the lens of a girl who had been-

Her phone chirped at her then, cutting off her despondent thoughts.  Furrowing her brow, she scrambled to yank the sheets back.  Where was it?

Under your pillow, hon.

Oh right.

Eyes rolling, she shook her head and grabbed her pillow, then tossed it behind her shoulder.  Her little rectangular digital savior laid there, waiting for her to accept the hand that it had reached toward her after falling overboard for the thousandth time.  Swiping it up from the mattress, she opened her texts, and let out a massive breath.  A  breath that left her light-headed and dopey because the “contact” who had texted her was “Loki Forever Dream Starboy Odinson”, and his picture had her reliving last night and aching to get lost with him all over again in those sheets that she’d just all but destroyed to find her phone.

As though you didn’t already want that…

“Fuck, he’s perfect,” she breathed, swiping right to see his words.

Loki: Hey sweetheart.  Did you get my note?  I left it on my pillow.  Well, technically it is YOUR pillow, but that’s neither here nor there.  Maybe it fell off the bed or something.  I won’t lie- I was trying to be romantic.  Trying TOO HARD.  Forgive this lovesick fool of a man, please.  It said “meet me at Ground Support”.  Will you please text me to let me know if/when you are headed this way?

Feeling as though a thousand pounds had been lifted from her shoulders, she blew out a breath and responded instantly.

Sigyn: Just woke up.  I did not see your note, and… I’ll be honest… I have been freaking out ON A LEVEL.  I am on my way right now.  Love you to the stars and back.

Turning in a dizzying circle, her eyes roved over the floor of her bedroom, searching for a pair of trousers.  She growled and hurried to her chest of drawers, yanking the second drawer from the top open and yanking it open to grab the first pair she saw.  They happened to be black yoga pants with a rainbow stripe up the sides, and they were a little too tight, but at least the ankles fit easily into her boots.  She dashed to her door, grabbing her crossbody purse from her key table as she ran out.  Clumsily, she struggled to lock it, then ran down the stairs two at a time, which was surprisingly difficult.  She nearly fell four times.

Out the building door, turn left, run to the first intersection, turn right on to West Broadway, hurry hurry hurry… dear god, run FASTER.

Breathing hard, her eyes widened a bit, and she slowed her steps as she crossed Spring Street and approached the best coffee shop on planet Earth.  A sleek, glacier white F-type (eeeee-lectric white, as she called it) was parked on the street right next to Ground Support, and a stunner of a man was leaning against the hood, his hands in his pockets and his ankles crossed.  His black hair was pulled into a small bun at the base of his neck, and a pair of classic black Ray Ban Wayfarers sat on his nose.  He flashed her a perfect smile as she approached him.

“Foot on the gas, sixth gear, 0 to 60, heart rate through that moonroof, I don’t know where the hell we’re going, but…” he pulled his sunglasses down and raised an eyebrow, “Feel like burning rubber with me, gorgeous girl?”

She pressed her lips together, heart rate shooting straight up through the invisible moonroof over her head.

Loki quoting his own goddamn words to me shouldn’t be THIS hot.

He pushed off the hood of the car and took a step toward her. “I caught you biting your lip when I pulled up to your building in these blacked out, ultra expensive, custom-made wheels.  I’m a mess, but I swear you’ll love me.  I’ll take you on the ride of your life.  You’re too smart and far too well-read for me to teach you much of anything, but if you will just get in this goddamn car, I’ll show you how to live fast and die right.”

Dear god, she actually burst into tears.

“Hell yes, Starboy,” she said, biting into a smile as she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. “Where are we going?”

He lowered his face to hers and kissed her, then pulled away and opened the door. “Get in.”

Clicking her seatbelt into place, she looked at him sideways as he pulled away from the curb and sped off down the deserted New Years Day 2020 street in New York City.

“Seriously, Loki,” she said, grinning ear to ear, “where are we going?”

He turned to look at her and shifted into fourth gear, anxious to get to sixth in the Lincoln Tunnel. “Does the destination really matter?  Or is the ride itself what makes us who we are?  That tells who we wish to spend the rest of our lives with?  The rest of this ride with?”

Reaching up to open the moonroof, even though it was absolutely freezing, he flashed her his iconic smile, and she smiled back.

You’re brighter than the sun, sweetheart.

“I don’t care where we go,” she replied, reaching over to take his hand. “As long as it’s with you, I’m good.”

Still smiling, he returned his eyes to the road. “To the stars, it is.”

Sigyn leaned her head back, shivering from the New Years Day cold coming through the moonroof, and smiled, even happier than she’d been on January 1st three years ago when she first fell into Loki Odinson’s arms.

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GOODBYE STARBOY AND SUNLIGHT GIRL. ALL MY NEW YEARS ARE YOURS.

-Jen Eowynir

From the bottom of our hearts here at FrigidImmortals.com, thank you for reading New Year. We ask that you would please do us a favor by leaving comments/reviews because those truly are the greatest sources of help and humble joy for Jen and the Eowynir Admin Team.

The New Year Fever Dreams Sage continues in Part Two:

NEON DAYDREAMS

“SAFE WITH YOU” BY DELANEY JANE, THE LAST SONG FOR SIGYN ELENA FREY

“BABY, I’LL BE RIGHT THERE BY YOUR SIDE. I’LL LOVE YOU THROUGH THE HIGHS AND THROUGH THE LOWS. SO YOU CAN CALL ME WHENEVER, ABOUT WHATEVER. I’M HERE FOR YOU FOR THE REST OF FOREVER.”

– “LOVESICK” BY TREVOR DANIEL, THE FINAL THEME SONG FOR LOKI STARBOY ODINSON

What Readers Have Said

About CH 12 “Happy New Year, Love”

“I love it. It was beautiful and heartbreaking and beautiful all over again. 2020 may be an absolute nightmare but Loki and Sig will get through it alright as long as they have each other. Thank you for writing this wonderful story. (Btw, I am crazy about Fearless Immortals and I’m super excited to find out what happens next)”

-Ferbette, on CH 12 “Happy New Year, Love” (AO3)

“Your writing is absolutely beautiful and you are damn right this story helped me through the year! I stretched this last chapter out over a couple of days just to make it last longer. I like to think that their adventure through their 2020 would inspire Loki to write another book about the next stage in their lives.”

-Mischief76, on CH 12 “Happy New Year, Love” (AO3)

“This story was beautiful, captivating, magical, sad, lovely, nerve-wrecking, enchanting and overall amazing. It’s sad to see this end. Lovely story, lovely chapters, lovely characters and wonderful author. Enough said.”

-Maïté, on CH 12 “Happy New Year, Love” (AO3)

“AAAAH I absolutely loved this story ”

-PennySparker, on CH 12 “Happy New Year, Love” (AO3)

“So I reread this because of Neon and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

-Burningarbitterheart (commenting on New Year Same Habit while waiting for the next Neon Daydreams update)

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New Year Chapter links: ¹ We’re Just Strangers ² Hello, My Name is Loki ³ A Helluva Drug ⁴ Written in the Dying Stars ⁵ This Helen of Troy (Worth Drowning For) ⁶ STARBOY INTERLUDE ⁷ Live Fast, Die Right (Crashing Hard) ⁸ It’s Called “Being Present” (Hit the Gas) ⁹ Burn it to the Ground, Sig. (Just Don’t Burn Me) ¹⁰ Hotel Hell, Closing Bell ¹¹ Do Not Go Gently (Run West, Boy) ¹² Happy New Year, Love. **Visit the Saga main page here.

**Saga extra features: NYC The New Year Dreamscape Digital Daydreams A Thousand Words

*CHAPTER TWELVE FEATURED MUSIC: “Genghis Khan“ by Miike Snow

*Notes from the author, upon original posting in January 2020:
I have a few last thoughts. "Is it January?"—Apparently it IS January, and I was terribly naughty and did not publish this on time. *bangs head on desk*  Apologies for the delay. I did publish this final chapter on AO3 by my New Year's Eve/Day deadline, thank god, but a terribly-timed kitchen emergency (strictly "need to know") came up that night, and it screwed up my not-exactly-well-laid plans for THIS site. Listen, procrastination has been the name of my game for three decades. I damn well better improve that habit in 2021. (New year, same habit...what do ya know?!) Now, even though this update is a week late, I'll share my thoughts as they were on December 31, 2020, when I first shared Loki and Sig's ending with the AO3 readers.

Saying goodbye to New Year, Same Habit ON our real-world New Year’s Eve at MIDNIGHT (New York City standard Eastern time) is one of the most bittersweet moments of my adult life.  Perhaps that sounds dramatic (it is, I know), but this story has been my lifeline in 2020.  I think most of us would agree that this year has been an absolute DISASTER of a year, and amidst all the pain and suffering, amidst lockdowns and the loss of physical touch, the loss of loved ones, the layoffs… oh my god, sometimes the only relief (psychologically) I found was in the favorite songs, films, and most of all, BOOKS.  My god, the STORIES.  I often wonder if I am the only one who felt this way.

This year shed a new light on all art forms for me.  Oh, how poetic, in a painful yet cathartic manner, that in a year where the entire planet ground to a standstill, in a year where my mid-town streets in my 6-million-strong city felt and looked empty and DEAD, it was the stories, the previously made films, the local art gallery next door that I can only observe from behind their windows since it had to shut its doors, and hundreds of songs that were more ALIVE than ever for me.  I’ve seen them, listened to them, or read them a hundred times, so, one would assume that they would affect me no differently than the previous hundred times.  Not so.  Somehow, those works of art MOVED and CHANGED and, oddly, BREATHED, as though they’d taken the place of the hundreds of people stuck indoors who I used to pass on the sidewalk while walking or biking to work, to lunch, to grab a coffee, to the park, or dinner dates.  Much like that art, writing THIS story inspired me in NEW ways, shined a light on NEW ideas, and gave me NEW insights, as though this imaginary world was the only sunlight in the dark reality of this 2020 orbit around our sun.  It helped me (and maybe you, dear reader- most likely from multiple stories from multiple authors) KEEP GOING when just getting out of bed was a monumental task.

As I write this final note for you all (and myself), I’ve already written the end of this story; for Loki and Sig, 2020 has only just begun.  I won’t write their 2020 for them, but I envision them in real world New York, pushing through this past year, trying to support each other and be lights for each other when their "city that never sleeps" feels dark and empty.  Loki said "don't let me down, 2020" and even though I WANT to continue his story, to show exactly how this past year would have treated him, I also don't want to force his future to go one way or another.  I'll leave it in my head, and I'll let everyone who read New Year, Same Habit envision the rest of Loki and Sig’s lives however they want to.  I do not want to say goodbye to Starboy or his Sunlight Girl, but I take solace in knowing that this story will live in someone else's mind as well as mine, affecting them in different ways than it has affected me, at different TIMES than it has affected me; that makes it NEW every day. 

Farewell, 2020.  You've been goddamn awful to a tragic amount of the world, but I'll give you credit for this- the pain reminded me not to take the people I love for granted.  I think Loki and Sig would say the same.  They would also say this: Here's to 2021 and the yet-to-be-written stories that it will bring us.  Happy New Year, everyone.

Take care, stay safe, stay alive, and stay wonderful,

Jen

~2:00 am, Oct 1, 2019~

Loki looked across the Mercer Kitchen downstairs bar, staring at Sigyn as she chatted with Carol.  Idly swirling the black cocktail mixing straw in his whiskey and coke, he pursed his lips, one eyebrow raising a touch when his girl laughed at the apparently hilarious words coming out of her colleague’s mouth.  Months ago, when he hadn’t been a lonely waste of space, he would have contained the knee-jerk jealous scoff that was presently escaping his lips.  No, that wasn’t true, because it was an altogether false premise.  Containment was hardly necessary when he’d felt secure in his relationship, when he wasn’t jealous and bitter about the whole damn thing.

Tonight was supposed to be fun.  Well, according to Val- the one responsible for this “congrats on the go-ahead and two enthusiastic thumbs up from your editor on Satellite Tides!” shindig -it would be fun, to which he’d deadpanned “what is this word ‘fun’ of which you speak? Don’t know what that is.” 

He’d earned a shoulder jab for that one.  Fair enough.  Sulking during his own party was, in her words, the ultimate “Prince Petty” response, and that might have been the first time he’d ever thought Prince Lo was a preferable moniker to anything.  But he hadn’t given her, or anyone else, even the slightest indication that Sig had everything to do with his princely behavior, so how should Val know to be less offended at his rather pronounced permanent scowl?

This September had broken its already shitty record of being the absolute worst month of every year for two decades.  Sure, he’d finished the book right on time, and more than that, his editor fawned over this one even more than her previous fawnings over Starboy and Looking for Sunlight, but at what cost?  For the life of him, he didn’t know why the hell Sig had been so angry at him for focusing on his damn job when a deadline loomed ahead.  She, of all people, knew that career-related “my income, and my editor’s income for that matter, hinge on MY ability to do this job as well, if not BETTER than, the predecessors” level of stress.  Here was a woman who’d refused to quit her job despite the sexual-harasser-in-chief lording over her, despite the sometimes seventy hour workweeks, despite the lack of paid bereavement leave, despite the fact that her loving boyfriend could float her through a new job search and had offered to countless times.

As though that one architecture firm was the only one in New York. As though it was the highest paying one (newsflash: it wasn’t!). As though every other boss would leer at her when she wore formfitting- though still professional -skirts, trousers, jackets… all of it. As though his father didn’t have the powerful connections within the New York real estate industry to ensure Ms. Sigyn Frey received the best opportunities and clients. Good lord, even he could set aside his monumental daddy issues if it meant Sig was chosen to redesign one of the exhibits in MOMA’s permanent collection, which did happen by the way… in July.

Yes, despite wishing she would have crossed the Atlantic with him, despite feeling deep in his bones that she’d had other reasons for staying in New York that had nothing to do with work, he’d set aside time every day of that tour to help accelerate his girl’s career goals, and she didn’t even know it. He knew better than to say he’d helped her, to suggest that she might owe him something. Oh but he wanted to tell her, in great detail, that while he’d been sleeping in different hotels every damn night in Europe, between the exhausting hours of book-signing and chatting and racking his brain for new charming quips for each and every fan to make them feel special, he’d also been working behind the scenes with his father (via Facetime, heaven help him) to arrange that top-notch, career opportunity of a lifetime for her! So… you know… maybe she could cut him some slack for spending an excessive amount of time playing catch-up in his own career during September.

It would feel good to throw it in her face, though. To, rather dramatically, prove just how absurd her “are you trying to make me abandon my career for you?” accusation was. She’d tossed that nonsense at him back in bloody January when he’d shown up at her office after hours intent on helping her shut it down for the day. That had been the extent of it. She’d been working nonstop, and he’d missed her. He’d been a boyfriend who wanted to see his girlfriend for a bit more than one hour a day.

THE HORROR.

And that had been only two weeks after he’d given her the literal FIRST hardback copy of Looking for Sunlight, no less. Oh but then he abandoned HER for an eight week book tour that he definitely wanted to go on, didn’t he. How very inconsiderate of him. And even more inconsiderate- he gave her every waking hour when he came back, only to then punish her by taking back a few of those hours to be able to have Satellite Tides on his editor’s desk by the September 28th agreed upon due date.

Still swirling his drink, he saw her glance at him once, twice, three times. Her cheeks were pink, perhaps from the unnecessary heat coming through the ceiling vents, or maybe it was his obvious staring. Did she like him staring? Was that an aroused blush or an embarrassed one? Did she think he was looking at her like this because he wanted to drag her into a restroom stall and pull her hair just right? Or did she know in her heart of cold hearts that he was more likely fuming that she never gave him an explanation for her hypocrisy, and that he was looking for that explanation somewhere on her face? He’d lost the will to verbally ask anymore, to wriggle the answer out of her skull after half-a-dozen attempts to meet her clearly impossible standard of “forever dream boy” by listening to her nonsensical ramblings-on about how he had changed.  He’d also lost the will to sit there in silent reverence as though she’d just given him some enlightened gospel truth that ought to change him back to August Loki.

Whatever the hell that meant.

Good god, it made him think that she must have written “August Loki” in a hidden diary somewhere, probably surrounded by hearts.  And by contrast, she had no doubt turned a page and drawn a quick sketch of him with horns and scribbled “September Loki” all over the face.  Bloody hell, 2019 had been more bipolar than the untreated version of himself.  Eyes lifting to gaze sadly at the ceiling, he inhaled and exhaled slowly until he got that distinct dizzy feeling that always accompanied properly-executed anxiety breathing.  He could not be more ready to bid farewell to this disaster of a year.  He needed the relative stability of 2017 and 2018 to come back.

Don’t let me down, 2020.  BE KIND. PLEASE REWIND.

Please give my girl and me a second chance.

His brother’s voice appeared next to his ear then, pulling his eyes away from the ceiling to focus on the blond gym rat standing next to him.

“Oh my god, brother, stop swirling that cocktail stick, or I’ll knock that drink out of your hand.”

Eyebrows pulling together, Loki blinked at him silently for a few moments before responding. “Cocktail stick?”

“Think he means the mixing straw.” It was JB’s voice on his other side, clearly amused, if the quiet snort from behind his palm over his mouth was any indication. “But you once told me that Thor Odinson was the most stick-obsessed person on the planet, so I guess it makes sense that he would call it a cocktail stick.”

Eyes on his brother, Loki smirked and leaned sideways toward JB, who leaned toward him in turn. “I feel like there are a thousand dick jokes to be made in response to this situation.”

Thor pointed at him. “Do NOT mock the way I say-”

“Cocktail?” Loki raised his eyebrows. “Hard emphasis on the ‘cock’ syllable?”

“The irony here is that the biggest goddamn prick in the room is you, Prince Lo,” his brother retorted, tossing back a shot of tequila.

“Jesus,” Bucky laughed, pulling a hand down his face, then eyed Loki, “totally thought he said you had the biggest prick in the room, man.”

Coughing into his elbow, Thor’s nose scrunched up. “Ugh VOMIT.”

“Vomit, indeed,” Loki agreed, resuming the swirling of his “cocktail stick” (wow) with more force just to annoy the hell out of his brother. “Calling the trouser snake a ‘prick’ is even worse than… I don’t know…” he squinted down at the glass in his hand, looking for the non-existent punchline of this impromptu joke somewhere in the amber liquid.  “Ummmm… calling it a… uh… vvvvv-” he lingered on the ‘v’, slightly distracted by the buzzing sensation that the sound created behind his teeth as they scraped over his bottom lip.

Thor leaned closer. “Vvvvvvv… what?  Loki, are you having a stroke?”

Yes.  A joke stroke, to be specific.

Ignoring his brother, he continued buzzing the v too long. “Vvvvvv-elll…”

Oh the ‘L’ is equally as fun, making my tongue trill like this, like when I kiss Sig, like when she says my name slowly against my mouth… “LLLLLLo-”

Rolling his eyes, he licked his teeth and cleared his throat.  He was not going to get caught up in the better times of the past.  He was going to be present.  Right here and now, he was going to finish this stupid joke.

“Worse than calling it the vvvvelll-vet… shaft of love,” he said, straight-faced for approximately two seconds before his aloof façade cracked, and he burst into a fit of hysterical laughing.

Thor grinned slightly, then raised an eyebrow at Bucky. “Fifty bucks says he stole that from a Buzzfeed ‘writing smut 101’ article after taking some stupid quiz for under-sexxed thirsty millenials.”

Lifting his hand up in front of Thor, Bucky opened his palm. “Might as well pay up, bro.  Not to get overly graphic, but this one here-” he gestured to Loki with his thumb behind his shoulder “-is probably the least ‘under-sexxed’ of everyone in this room.”

Jaw clenching, Loki’s laughing mood flew out the door faster than his girl coming out of Ground Support on New Year’s Day a thousand bloody years ago.  His friend wasn’t wrong about his excessively active sex life, and in another time, a comment like that would have put a smug smirk on his face.  However, at present, it only reminded him of the sad reality of a dwindling should-have-been-his-endgame relationship.  They fought and fucked, sometimes literally both at once.  If she wasn’t forcing his back against metaphorical walls with hurtful nonsense accusations of irrelevant this-and-thats, he was bruising her back against their bedroom walls, trying to force a love that he knew was sinking in the western sky to please, please, please just stay above that imminent-death horizon for a bit longer.

I would have done anything for her.

Correction: I did EVERYTHING for her.

He heard Thor say, “Ooooh, has my baby brother been triggered?  Did my joke strike a sex nerve with Star-” He stopped talking abruptly and cringed.  “Ick, oh I seriously regret having putting the word ‘sex’ in front of nerve.”

“We all regret that you did that, pal,” Bucky said, leaning over the bar a bit to flag down the bartender.  When he caught her eye, he held up his drink and mouthed “one more” while tapping the glass.  He turned back to face the Odinson brothers who were caught in a frowning contest with each other. “You two should go back to the dumb stick jokes.  They seemed-” he raised an eyebrow at Loki “-safer, somehow.”

Snapping his fingers twice, Thor pointed at his brother’s face so closely, he nearly poked the tip of his nose. “What was that one about sticks and stealing cars or something?”

Eyes narrowing, Loki slapped the hand away from his face. “Are you referring to the ‘stick shifts are millennial anti-theft devices’ quip I made when I borrowed your car this summer?”

“Ooh nice one,” Bucky said, taking a sip of the fresh old-fashioned that he’d just grabbed from the bar as Loki shrugged.

Not exactly my original material but whatever.

Head shaking, Thor whistled under his breath. “By the way, that joke would sting if us early 80s babies weren’t now called Xennials inst-”

“We early 80s babies,” Loki cut him off, clucking his tongue. “Us is an object pronoun, but you used it as the subject of a clause.  Pesky personal pronouns can be such a bitch to master for the simple-minded.”

His big brother didn’t miss a beat. “Simple-minded is preferable to whatever the hell is going on in that space between your ears.  You have always been a bit of a disillusioned, Prozac Nation poster boy, but you were less moody before Harvard.  I told Mum your excessive schooling would give you RBF.”

“Wow,” Loki snorted softly, setting his elbow on the counter and leaning on it. “All this time I thought she must have dropped you on your head as a baby, when in actuality you chose to be a paint-chip-eating-moron.” He brought the whiskey and coke (mostly whiskey) to his lips and took a small sip. “This explains why you are so blithely optimistic that people outside of Xennial Twitter have validated the existence of our special little microgeneration.” Another sip. “You might be pushing 40, Thor, but you will be lumped in with current 25-year olds for at least another decade.” He reached up to pull the black Wayfarer sunglasses from their place on the top of his head down onto his nose and flashed a smile. “Deal with it.”

“You fucking deal with it, you walking meme of a man,” Thor scoffed, straightening the zippered collar of his acid-wash blue denim jacket.

Eyes following his brother’s movements, Loki made a face.  How had he only just now noticed it?  Acid-wash? GOD.  All “designer” parties responsible for that trend, both past and present, should receive life sentences for their crimes against humanity.  Thor interrupted his homicidal musings, his voice as loud and unappealing as that jacket.

“I won’t be lumped in with 20-somethings.  I’ll just add Gen Xer to my Twitter biography.  Problem solved,” he said, smirking as he pulled his phone out of the inside pocket of the highly offensive jacket and opened the app.

Sliding his sunglasses down a touch, Loki looked sideways at him. “You might as well add stable genius while you’re at it, you clown.  One cannot be a golden retriever in human form and be an Xer.”

“True story,” Bucky agreed, patting Loki on the back twice.

Scratching his chin, Thor gazed up at the pendant lights hanging over the bar. “So that’s why every woman wants to pet me.”

“Oh look, JB, he made a joke,” Loki droned, eyes rolling as his brother laughed.  He pushed his sunglasses back up on top of his head and took another sip, shifting his stance, so he could see Sigyn more easily.  He missed her.  He was pissed with her too, of course.  But he still missed her.  He couldn’t help it.

This helluva drug girl.

“I’m closer to being an Xer than you,” Thor said, smiling when his brother’s gaze slid back to him.

Fighting to keep his jaw from flat out unhinging at that ludicrous statement, Loki inclined his chin slightly. “Says the happy puppy, his tongue lolling out and tail wagging excitedly, directly after calling me a disillusioned, Prozac Nation poster boy.”

“So I never had a manic Monday like some people-” his brother waved a hand at him “-doesn’t mean I didn’t listen to Nirvana just as much as you did, Loki.”

“Name one Nirvana song other than ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.”

Looking sideways, Thor squinted. “There was…ah…started with an L, I think…Liddy something?  Liddy Yum?”

Loki stared blankly at him.

Dear. God.

“Either you do not know them well enough to remember the song title,” he said, swiping his drink off the counter and finishing the last of it in one go, “or more likely, you just can’t pronounce the word Lithium.”

“I don’t know how you deal with the side effects,” Thor muttered, giving him a pitying look.

“I don’t know how I’m dealing with this conversation with only one drink.” Loki set the glass down with more force than necessary.  A second later, a server behind the counter hurried over and took the empty tumbler, then produced a new one for him from behind her back.  He blinked, somewhat dumbfounded by this woman’s attentiveness, which seemed to be reserved exclusively for him.

She leaned toward him and answered his unspoken question. “Just looking after the star of the show,” she explained, tossing him a wink over her shoulder as she walked away to attend to other customers.

“The dying star of the show, maybe,” he grumbled to himself, feeling a bit guilty for staring at her backside in those extremely flattering jeans.  Shaking it off, he turned toward his brother again. “Not that it’s your business, but I take an anticonvulsant, not lithium.”

“Well that’s proof enough that you are not a proper Xer.”

“Oh we’re back on that now,” Loki said flatly. “I’m overjoyed.”

“You should be,” Thor said, pointing his bottle of microbrew (Loki knew that one tasted like absolute piss) at his brother. “And my real proof that I am an Xer-”

This should be good.

“-is that I had Doc Martens and a Pearl Jam CD.”

Loki gave him a look. “You mean the one you stole from Hela’s discman to impress one of her flannel-obsessed friends from uni?”

“Noooo, that can’t be right.” Thor shook his head. “CDs were barely a thing then.  Hela had a cassette Walkman.”

“CDs were barely a thing?”  Loki repeated, blinking several times at the man.

Okay, just how drunk is my dimwit brother?

He shook his head, eyes rolling yet again. “Hela graduated in ‘93, not ‘83.  Good god, Thor, your memory loss leads me to think you are more boomer than anything else.”

“You are such a goddamn brat,” Thor laughed out loud, slapping Loki’s shoulder just this side of too-painful. “It would feel so good to punch you, but our big sis would gut me for it.  She adores you for some reason.”

“No, she adores me for thousands of reasons,” Loki corrected him, “and she wouldn’t gut you.  She’d just give you a lobotomy and throw you in a padded cell infested with rats.”

“I think I’d rather be gutted.” Thor shivered. “Rats are terrifying.  I swear I can hear them squeaking my name.  Thor…Thooooor…”

How drunk is this dimwit, you ask?  Hmm… hundred bucks says this moron throws up in five minutes.  In the women’s restroom.  In a sink.  Then cries because he can’t figure out how to flush it.

“That’s because someone is yelling your name, genius.” Loki pointed to the girl trying to get his brother’s attention on the other side of the bar “Namely, your pint-sized girlfriend.” She was waving at him, probably while standing on a box so she could see over the counter. 

His brother turned to look. “Ohhhhh,” he drew out the word, then laughed hard enough to throw his balance off.  Still laughing, he grabbed the counter to catch himself.  “I’m relieved it’s not rats.”

“Yes, you dodged quite a bullet,” he droned, watching the man’s back for a moment as he walked away, swaying and unsteady on his feet, but not so unsteady as to fall.

Talk about a missed opportunity.  That would have been beyond entertaining, and he needed something to genuinely laugh about.  Still leaning on his elbow, he sighed and set his chin in his palm.  JB spoke suddenly, making Loki jump since he’d forgotten his friend was next to him.

“I got ‘a great image in my head now of that guy jumping up on a chair and screaming at his teeny tiny girl to kill the rat on the ground,” he said, eyes closing as he laughed and pulled a hand down his face.

“You joke, JB, but that has actually happened.  Not with little Janey over there, though,” Loki clarified, flicking his fingers in her general direction. “No, it was his ex who swatted at one with a broom while he did exactly that,” he said, stopping mid-sentence to taste-test his second drink of the night.

Oh that was a mistake.

Before he could swallow that stupidly huge gulp of FIRE, which was all parts whiskey and zero parts coke apparently, the absurd memory started playing like a comedy-gold film reel, causing him to choke on a laugh bubbling up in his chest.  Slapping a hand over his mouth, he pressed his lips together, trying to collect himself so he could tell the story without spewing a lovely cocktail of hard liquor and saliva in his friend’s face.  After a good twenty seconds, he successfully drained it, and exhaled long and slowly through his mouth.

Rubbing his watering eyes, he finally said, “That overgrown blond baby jumped on a chair when that rat scurried out from behind his refrigerator.”

“OH MY GOD.”

“Oh, it gets better,” Loki croaked, still rubbing his eyes. “He exploded up onto that chair and landed so heavily that the legs actually splintered and broke, and I kid you not, he landed on his ass like something straight out of a goddamn ‘hold my beer’ compilation.”

“That did not happen.” Bucky shook his head resolutely.

Loki held his hands up. “Saw it with my own eyes.  I swear.  You remember that time he came to our gym, coincidentally during one of our training sessions last year?”

“Yeah, he was filming that grass-fed whey protein promotional thing with Sam.  Why?”

“Do you remember Sam asking what the hell was wrong with Thor’s box jumps?  That he looked like he thought the box would, quote, drop him harder than a Travis Scott hook?”

“Holy fuck- the chair traumatized him.  Should we get some PTSD therapy going for him?”

“I would love to be a fly on the wall in his therapist’s office when that story comes up.  No doubt he would defend his absurd overreaction by explaining a truly horrifying event from earlier that day.  You see, his car had stalled out on him, and as we all know, it is impossible that he simply fucked up and stalled the engine with overzealous clutch work and heavy-handed shifting… no no no.  Therefore, the unfortunate rat chair debacle must have occurred only because he was extra… jumpy… now that his baby was at the car hospital, and don’t you understand that the rat was an omen representing the car doctor’s inability to properly lubricate her gearbox.”

“You are making this shit up.  He did not say ‘baby’ or ‘car hospital’ or ‘car doctor’ and he definitely did not say ‘properly lubricate her gearbox’ in any context ever.”

“Believe it or not, JB, my brother is even more stick-obsessed than you and me.”

“I’m havin’ major deja vu right now, Lo.”

Loki tilted his head, squinting at his friend. “Have we had this conversation before?”

JB took a long swig of his drink, then nodded and licked his lips. “Yup. June. M3. On the way to montauk.  Ended with you sayin’ you graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in ‘word wizardry or some shit’ …I think.”

Both men chuckled at the memory as Loki’s phone dinged at him.  Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed it and opened the phone with his thumbprint.  Focusing on the text that had popped up, he pursed his lips.

Hela: You just keep them on their boringly stable toes, love.

The words blurred in his vision, and he blinked several times, squinting at the screen.  Just as he started to think he might need to schedule an appointment with an optometrist, he realized the phone was moving… or vibrating, more like.  He frowned, confused by the damn thing, which he’d set to “never vibrate” for a reason.  He hated that buzzing sound.  It sounded like the inside of his skull, and he hardly needed some wireless electronic gadget to add to the noise.

“You ok, Lo man?”

Still frowning, Loki looked up at JB whose eyebrows were raised in concern.

“Phone’s acting up,” he mumbled, setting it down into his friend’s waiting hand. “Is it vibrating or something?”

JB shrugged, playing around with it. “I’m no iPhone expert because I am an Android man through and through, but…it’s definitely not vibrating.  The apps all work.  Sounds on. Is the software updated?”

Loki nodded. “Just did. This morning.  September 30th, 2019 at 2:07am.  I remember the time  because the bright screen lit up my bedroom and woke me up from a sex dream.”

“Two things.” JB held up one finger. “One: if that’s the first thing that the newest software did with its time in the simulation-“

“Don’t start with the simulation crap again-“

“-then you should burn it for being a minion of Satan who is obviously controlling the architect.”

I don’t want to hear the word “architect” ever again…

“And two-“ JB held up a second finger “-technically that was yesterday.  Today is October 1st.  Also-“ another swig “-I think your hand is shaking pretty bad.  That’s why it seems like it’s vibratin’ or whatever.”

Loki looked at his hand and scowled at his fingers.  Wrist too.  And arm.  And shoulder.  Neck.  Everything was shaking.  Hela’s text was a response to his last message- the one he’d sent after slamming the doors of Sig’s building on his way here tonight.

“Aren’t Harvard alums supposed to be smart?” JB snorted.

Loki couldn’t think of anything clever, so a gruff “fuck you” was all the comeback (not so much) JB heard. “Um, speaking of Harvard alums,” Loki said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but my sister is texting me, and I need to respond.”

“Sure, Lo man,” Bucky said, swallowing the last bit of the old-fashioned from his tumbler then squinted at the empty bottom. “I need a refill anyway.”

As his friend walked to the bar, Loki weaved through a sea of bodies to get to the exit.  He was shaking for a reason.  He wanted a smoke.  Scratch that- he needed one.  He hadn’t had one since Paris, and he hadn’t craved another until now.  The unbearable weight of his manuscript was finally no longer crushing him, and in the email that his editor sent this morning- Re: LO Novel 3 Satellite Tides-she’d been more than a little complimentary.

“Both Starboy and Looking for Sunlight focus heavily on unmoving lights in the sky that we can’t help but run circles around, and I assumed your third effort would be an even more focused progression- a maturation, if you will -of that theme, but instead, you crashed on Earth’s surface and focused on the lights in the sky that are running circles around YOU.  My jaw is on the floor, Loki.  Verdict?- Stunning.  Can’t wait to see Satellite Tides on the shelf.” 

Holding his phone in one hand and his lighter in the other, he pushed through the doors and walked to the other side of the street before removing the yellow pack of American Spirits from his jacket pocket.  He flipped the top open, pulled out the last one, and put it to his lips.  After lighting it, he leaned back against whatever building was behind him- restaurant or retailer or something…he didn’t know, nor did he care.  The brick was nice and warm though, so that was good.  He stared blankly ahead, watching people move in and out of the restaurant across the street where his friends were, presumably, enjoying themselves.  He should feel light as a feather after that raving review from his editor, but he didn’t.  Eyes closing, he leaned his head back against the brick and focused on the smell of smoke.

Oh Starboy- don’t you know those are bad for you?

Another drag.  Another exhale.

Yep. I know. Very bad.

Drag.  Exhale.  Drag.  Exhale.  He frowned then at the sound of his name, and lifted his head to look around.  It wasn’t a familiar voice, which meant it was someone who recognized him but he didn’t know them, and he refused to sign anything or take pictures when he felt like this.  Goddammit- why wasn’t this cigarette doing its job?  No one should be able to see him behind a cloud of smoke, and the smell was supposed to deter them!  

He looked down at his phone and texted his sister with one thumb.

Loki: Oh absolutely.  I’ve no doubt they LOVE the spontaneous whiplash I provide.  Also, “boringly stable” sounds magnificent.

Hela: That helluva drug girl didn’t fall for a “boringly stable” man, so, maybe stop wishing it away.

His eyes nearly popped out his skull. “What the fu…” he trailed off to growl under his breath instead as he tapped his response.

Loki: What even...I can’t...what kind of bullshit take is THAT?  I need head meds to not OFF myself after the delusional rush of tripping on my own goddamn chemicals for two straight months wears off- when all that’s left of me isn’t even ME, but just carbon moving through empty space in the shape of something resembling someone who answers to the name Loki Odinson.

Loki: But sure- I’ll stop wishing that this suffocating, stifling, Sartre-esque hell would stop knocking on my mental front door every few months for DECADES because MAYBE my girl wouldn’t have given me a second glance if I wasn’t a bit...moody.

Her response was immediate.  It was as though she’d written it prior to his text because she’d known what he would say.

Hela: Could you just, for once, not DEFINE yourself by that thing you ‘need head meds’ for, LO?  Is that ALL you are?  Do you think that is all SHE sees?

Head shaking, he scoffed. “Try looking at the bright side, huh?  Piss off, sis.”

Loki: Not interested in looking for silver linings right now, thanks.

He sent the text and started typing a new one.  Talking about Sig made him want to punch something.  Burn something.  Break something.  Yes, he wanted to break anything and everything because his girl was breaking HIM.

Hela: Loki-

Loki: Listen, I’ve had too much to drink, and it’s making me anything but excited to talk about Sig, so I think we should just talk later.

Hela: Okay, Loki love.  Please drink lots of water.

Eyes rolling, he typed his last text.

Loki: Thanks for the advice, Dr. Odinson.  Bye now.

After one final drag from the poison between his fingers, he tossed the cigarette butt on the ground, and squashed the cherry with the toe of his boot.  Looking both ways, he crossed the street again, downright ignoring the person (or group of persons…whatever) who had said his name.  And speaking of his name, as soon as he pushed through the doors again, he heard Val say it, and when he looked up, she was waving him over to the corner of the bar where his closest friends were gathered.  As he approached them, he forced a smile for Val’s sake.  She raised her glass and cleared her throat when he came to a stop at the outer edge of the group.

“A toast to this man right here,” she said, absolutely beaming as she pointed to him, “a man for whom I would take thousands of bullets.”

He felt his jaw tighten reflexively, the muscles behaving as though on auto-pilot, and he swallowed, trying to relax his face.  Dammit- Another dollar, boy.

“When most people see you, Loki, I think they see nothing but excessive privilege.  I mean, look at you, boy!” She gestured up and down the length of his body. “You check all those obvious ‘success’ boxes.  That said, those people don’t know you like I do.  I know the odds of survival weren’t in your favor, hon.  The mental deck was stacked against you in ways that none of these lovable morons will ever know, but I know because I have been with you by choice every step of the way for three decades.”

Oh god.  He might need to fake a sneeze to cover up the growing lake in his eyes, and for all he knew, Val might talk for another ten minutes.

“I’m showing my age here, but-” she waved a hand and chuckled “-whatever.  Listen, I don’t remember much from the 80s, but everything I do remember from then centers around Loki.  I was five years old in 1988 when I met a boy who would become my forever best friend.”

Maybe the floor would be thoughtful enough to open up right under his feet.

“Awwwww,” Thor patted his head, and Loki swatted him away as Val continued speaking of him as though he deserved the world just for being him.

If only Sig felt the same…

“I was too little to know ‘I’m going to hang out with this boy every chance I get for decades’, but I did know that you were so fun, and you were definitely on a different level.  I couldn’t put it into words obviously.  I still can’t.  I’m not a critically-acclaimed writer like some people.  I just knew I liked being around you so much.  For instance-”

“Ohhhhhh we gettin’ stories ‘bout Starboy now,” Sam said, wiggling one eyebrow at him.

Before he had the chance to say “I WILL CUT YOU” in his most venomous tone, Val spoke over him.

“For instance,” she repeated herself, shooting a glare at Sam, “when when my nan threw a little birthday shindig for me at her house, complete with presents and pudding and my mates from school and family that I actually liked, I cried during the entire hour long drive to the party and continued to mope when we got there because I just wanted to go to Loki’s house and play on the tire swing and climb trees and watch Princess Bride and have pretend sword fights with him.  He was Westley, and I was Inigo Montoya because he looked better with a little ponytail, and I wanted to be able to say ‘I want my father back, you son of a bitch’ in a well-executed Spanish accent.”

Loki dragged both hands down his face. “Oh my god, Val, please stop.”

“It’s true!  Five year old Val Keri Brunna only wanted to be around this new tricky Loki kid.  No matter the cost.  And that never changed.  I felt like I was dying when he moved to the states with his family.  He is the reason I moved to New York.  I wish it hadn’t taken thirteen years for me to make it happen-”

I wish Sig loved me as much as you do, Val.

“-but I did get here eventually.  And you know what, Lo?  If I wasn’t here now, if I was still in England, you better believe I’d still be doing everything in my power to get across the goddamn pond.  To get back to my best friend for life.  To get back to the guy who all those twats insisted that I was in love with but just didn’t know it.  Jesus, how many times does a girl have to say ‘I’m ONLY attracted to girls’ before it hits them that I’m not lying?”

Despite feeling like a pathetic, undeserving thing, he chuckled, then gestured to Carol with his chin. “They might believe you are into girls when you get married to one on December 8.”

Once again, his best friend beamed at him, radiating warmth and happiness, and he hated himself for wishing that smile was coming from someone else.  Someone who wouldn’t stick by his side for three decades like Val had.  Someone who couldn’t even give him three years.

“Jealous, are we?  Don’t worry, hon,” she said, smile still in place, “you’ll get married to one soon enough.  I’m sure of it.”

Oh shit. Oh no.

His eyes flicked toward Sigyn, and for a split-second, he thought he saw the corners of her mouth curve upward.  As soon as he saw it though, it disappeared.  As did she.  As in, turned her back on him, zig-zagged through the crowd, and bolted up the stairs leading to the Prince Street exit.  Mouth falling open, he stared after her.  He was vaguely aware of Val’s voice coming closer to him, but it was hard to hear over the sudden ringing in his ears. Oh god, he was going to be sick.

“Lo?  Hon?  You okay?  What happened?  Is Sigyn okay?  That was…that was supposed to be a joke, hon.  I’m so sorry.” A pause, a different voice- this one sounded tinny, like a voice over the phone – another pause, then Val spoke again, though not to him.  “No, I don’t know what happened to him.  He just…froze.”  Her hand was on his arm, shaking him a bit. “I’m trying to, Hela!  Lo, hon, please.  Did you take something?  Xans?”

For hell’s sake, NO, I didn’t take a Xan.  But I SHOULD HAVE.

“Smoke something?”

Yeah, a LEGAL cig, and it did NOTHING.

“Loki??  ANSWER ME.  Are you starting to OD on me?  Oh my god.  Shit.  Hey, Bucky?  Did you see him take anything?  Did he use your pen or something??”

“What?  Hell no, I didn’t let him use my pen, and he wouldn’t take it if I offered.  He won’t go near anythin’ with THC in it.  All I saw him have was two drinks… maybe?  Hey, come on, Lo man, talk to me.  Darcy, hey where’d Sigyn go?”

Away from ME, that’s where.

“She said she felt sick, then she left to go home.”

My girl is gone.  I’ve lost my girl.  Oh my god, this isn’t happening…

“You let her go alone??  Jesus, doll, it’s two in the goddamn mornin’!”

“Woah, calm the hell down, Buck-O.  She didn’t give me more than five seconds notice, alright?  And her building’s only three blocks from here.  Four-minute walk tops!”

“Yeah well, lot can go wrong in four minutes.”

“Come on, Bucky, it’s Soho, not a damn war zone.”

Prince Street IS my war zone.

“Complacency like that will turn any place into a war zone, doll.  Trust me.”

Does he mean American foreign policy? Or when falling in love with Sigyn Frey blows up in my face three months shy of three years later? – the latter being the more destructive of the two, of course.

“I can vouch for him on that.” Was that Sam?

This was… this was awful.  There were too many voices, each one muddling horribly with the next and worsening his own cacophonous internal screaming for Sig to PLEASE COME BACK! God, could everyone stop talking?!

“Ugh. Shut. Up. Sam.” Lewis? Chatty Kathy herself?  Annoyed with someone for not shutting it?

THANK YOU, LEWIS.

“Lady, I got shot over there too.  Scars to prove it.  My wingman was killed in a supposed ‘safe zone’, so sit your princess-ass down.”

Not all scars are visible, Sam.

“Oh my god, one soldier I can handle.  I’m not listening to this shit from two of you.” Heels clicked loudly on the stairs.  Probably Lewis.

“Wait… where’re you goin’?!”

“Anywhere but here!”

Don’t let her leave, JB.  Don’t watch her walk away.  You’ll regret it forever.

“Is that my sister on the phone?” It was Thor’s voice.

Loki’s skull was going to explode any moment now. Two versions of Loki Odinson stood in Mercer Kitchen.  The visible and invisible.  The façade and the truth.  Illusion and reality.  The former, surrounded by a group of humans who loved him for no bloody reason, was frozen in place, still as a statue, save for the barely-there rising and falling of his chest, wide gaze stuck on the red exit sign over the doors at the top of those stairs.  They couldn’t see the real Loki, and that was for the best.  Real Loki had a vice-like grip on his head, his fingers splaying as they dug into his scalp.  Leaky, red eyes were pinched shut, and his jaw was on the floor, allowing the wretched sound of a shattered heart screaming in agony to escape from the prison made of bones, not bars, surrounding his chest.

On October 1st, 2019, I was a 36-year-old loaded gun, a bottle of Oxy, a noose around the neck, a razor to the wrist…

And Sig won’t save me this time.

“Here, hand it to me.” Thor again.

Goddamn LOUDMOUTH.

“Hela?  Yeah, it’s Thor.  I know you know.  Yes… no… what do they look like?  Blue, oval-shaped… does he keep them in… okay… she said to check for a pack of spearmint gum… sorry… an empty pack.  Are they in his pocket?  Wait, front or back?  Oh… jacket… uh he’s not wearing a jacket.”

Loki felt someone shoving their hands in his trouser pockets.  They had to be Val’s hands, right?

“Phone.  Keys.  Wallet.” Val scoffed, then lowered her voice.  “Flip-knife.  Hate that thing.  Shouldn’t even have it in here.”

Yes, they were Val’s hands, and her pointy little fingers were digging into Loki’s skin under the fabric.

“Nope, no gum.  Loki, hon, do I need to take you to a hospital?  Answer me, or I swear I will.”

He finally found his voice. “I’m not fucking OD’ing.”

Still feels like dying though.

How fitting for a dying star boy.  Had Sig said “I swear I won’t let you die, Starboy” or was that just something he’d written in a stupid book?  Either way, he couldn’t breathe in this place that was technically a basement, where everyone was crowding him and touching him, and their concerned voices had his blood boiling under his skin.  Real Loki was trying to break free, and he couldn’t let them see the truth.  Shrugging out of Val’s hold, he pushed through the crowd, ran up the stairs, and out the door.

“Oh my god, Loki!” She was on his heels, grabbing his elbow as he burst out onto Prince Street a few blocks east of the building that he needed to get to now.  War zone or not, bloodied and bruised and beaten half to death or not, he wasn’t laying down his arms without one last fight.

Ignoring his best friend, he turned right and started walking… fast.

“Lo?  LO!  Tell me what the hell is wrong!” She tugged harder on his elbow.  If not for the adrenaline, he’d realize how tight her grip was, maybe even feel the finger-shaped bruises forming under his skin.

How poetic that Sig’s apartment was west of here.  Sunrise was five hours from now, but even if that star were showing its brilliant face over that horizon this second, he was walking away from it.  He was going in the wrong direction, trying to be kind and rewind the tape to the beginning of 2017, or at least to the halfway mark- back to 2018, when he’d written a 350-page novel for someone he couldn’t live without.  For his sunlight. He halted mid-step, eyes moving from their intense focus on the pavement up to the light-polluted October night sky over New York City instead.  So many clouds… only clouds.  No stars, no moon.  Just artificial lights from the concrete jungle below.

“Thank god,” Val breathed, loosening her grip as he stopped. “Where are you going, and will you let me help you get there?  I need to know you’re somewhere safe, Lo.”

His gaze lowered from the dull, thick layer of flat, lifeless, stagnant, grey clouds, and he turned to frown at her.

Safe?  What place is SAFE?  

“Maybe east is safe,” he said, barely loud enough for her to hear it.  He looked at the pavement again. “Safer, that is.”

Her eyebrows pulled together. “What?  I don’t understand.  You’re freaking me out, hon.  Did something happen with her?  Oh my god… did she hurt you?”

Lifting his eyes to hers once more, he shook his head.

Not the way you mean, Val.

Her shoulders relaxed, looking more than a little relieved, but after several silent seconds, she faltered. “Are you going to hurt her?”

Keeping his unblinking eyes on hers, he didn’t respond- verbally, that is.  Could one feel their eyes turn dark?  As in, was it possible for him to see a shadow where it shouldn’t be, appear right in front of his face?  He swallowed, his jaw hurting from clenching it too hard.

“Lo,” Val’s voice turned a shade darker than the shade he imagined his eyes to be, “are you planning to hurt Sigyn?”

His fingers twitched.

I think I will, yes.

“Of course not,” he said, pocketing his hands lest they give away his true answer by curling into fists.

Welcome to Prince Street.  Here we make love and make war on repeat until we collapse in on ourselves like the dying stars we romanticized in our “live fast, die right” love-turned-horror story.

“Are you lying to me?” she pressed.

Bending to her eye level, Loki pressed back. “Depends on your definition of ‘hurt’, Val.”

If not for the headlights of a taxi reflecting on the shop windows across the street as it turned the corner from Mercer onto Prince just then, he wouldn’t have seen the tears shining in her eyes.  The hazy beams glowed behind her back, creating a befitting and timely halo for this absolute angel, and swallowing the lump in his throat, he yanked his hands out of his pockets and threw his arms around her neck.  She hugged him back without hesitation, squeezing his ribs so tightly, he could barely breathe.

“I mean physically,” she croaked into his neck. “The man I know wouldn’t do that, right?”

“Absolutely not,” he said firmly against her temple, keeping his mouth there for another minute or so until she loosened her hold on him.  He started to step away, but she grabbed the back of his neck with both hands, and he instinctively dropped his forehead to hers.

“You’re worth drowning for, hon,” she said shakily, “anyone who doesn’t feel that deep in her bones doesn’t deserve you, okay?  Don’t ever forget that.”

Before he could protest, before he could say how he couldn’t agree to those terms because what if the one girl he wanted would not drown for him?- before he could say how fucking terrified he was of that all-too-real possibility, Val pressed her lips to his cheek, just outside the corner of his mouth.  Oh god… he knew it was a harmless kiss, certainly meant to be platonic, but she lingered just a touch too long, and his body was responding a touch too well to the combination of her soft lips and that genuine love in her voice.

This is my best friend.  Best FRIEND.

Mirroring Val’s stance, Loki put a hand on her neck, then turned his head slightly toward her face so he could kiss the opposite corner of her mouth.

Oh my god, this feels good.

Technically, they were kissing each other’s cheeks, but if either of them moved one centimeter to the left… god DAMN.  It would be everything he wanted.  Nothing but warmth and love.  No fighting.  No frustration.  No fear that he was just a really good fuck, and that was all he was good for anymore.

Oh my god, I need to step back.

No, if Val felt uncomfortable, then she could step back.  This wasn’t cheating.  Loki wasn’t cheating.  He was not cheating on his girlfriend with his best friend, and Val sure as hell wasn’t cheating on her soon-to-be wife with her best friend.  He was only returning a friend’s affection.

Step BACK, you vulnerable fool.

Loki stepped closer instead, allowing himself this one moment to pretend Val were his girl.  To imagine that Val didn’t just love him, but was in love with him.  To imagine that she wanted him- that she could want any man at all, and that she would have chosen him out of all the three-and-a-half billion other available options.  To imagine that he wanted her.  To imagine that this glorified peck on the cheek was about to turn into a toe-curling liplock, complete with open mouths, and tongues, and her hands in his hair, and down his trousers like they damn well should be.  To imagine that this was Sigyn Elena Frey, and that she thought Loki Odinson was worth drowning for.

If you are THIS desperate for Sig, then let Val go, turn WEST, and don’t stop until you unlock the door of that third floor apartment with the gold number eight on it.

Dropping his hand from her neck, Loki clenched his jaw and finally stepped back. “Sorry.  I crossed a line there,” he said, reaching up to rub his temples.

Val opened and closed her mouth several times, squinting at him, clearly confused. “What?  A kiss on the cheek?  I mean, people who don’t know us and saw that could interpret it as something else, I guess, but Carol wouldn’t be-”

“I crossed my line, Val,” he spoke over her, giving her a withering look.

Her mouth fell open. “Lo, I’m so sorry.  God, I didn’t mean it like that at all.”

“I know,” Loki said, taking another step back and turning around again.

Turning west.

He was walking the wrong way.  Pushing against the natural turning of this planet.  The turning of time itself. Trying to force that second hand to tick counterclockwise.  Giving the universe a middle finger, telling it to fuck right off with it’s forced linear timeline in this awful 3-dimensional cage.  If the “right” way was constantly spinning east to west, 24 hours, 7 days, 52 weeks, each subsequent “new” year forcing more silver in his hair and more lines around his eyes, but didn’t do so while allowing Sig to walk beside him in the process, then bloody hell, Loki refused to go the right way.

He didn’t need to go back to 2017 if the typical “backward” was his “forward”, yes?  One foot in front of the other could be all kinds of wrong for him.  He was so well-skilled at driving in reverse gear, after all.  Whipping back into a street spot was as natural to him as going 90 on the highway while whipping around all those speed-limit-sticklers.  Shifting up into 6th required pulling the stick back, did it not?  Perhaps he’d been born with a propensity toward chaos that wouldn’t allow him to live by the proper laws of physics.

Loki’s legs were taking him closer to Sig’s building, and he didn’t care if that was right or wrong, forward or backward.  What did that matter anyhow?  Who decided what any of these polar opposites meant in the first place?  Up was down.  Down was up.  Or maybe up and down didn’t exist at all.  Maybe they did, but he only existed in the space between.  Maybe Sig did too.  Maybe everything else other than that in between was a distraction for their combined consciousness to have a feeling of going places, to keep them from feeling lost in a fog leading nowhere.  Maybe those ups and downs- those highs and lows, the rapid shifting of gears, the rolls and the crashes -were invented by their own minds to help them cope with the fear of normalcy.

Maybe that was Sig’s problem with him.  Maybe January 1st 2017 hadn’t been the beginning for her.  Maybe it had simply been the start of her ending, and she’d only just now realized it, and was now running for her life.  He’d drawn her into him like a charismatic villain.  The good girl was charmed into a fast car with the archetypal bad boy.  

He’d been exciting as hell, and she hadn’t understood why, but now she knew.  Now she’d seen the mania sending him to the stars to live like a god- to live like a star boy -only to then blast him with a heavy dose of reality that kicked him right back to the pull of Earth’s relatively weak, but still lethal, gravity.

Oh my GOD, get out of your head, or you’ll turn east like a goddamn coward.

“Your body is right here next to me, but your mind is in outer space, Starboy,” Loki whispered to himself, repeating the words his girl had said to him in her doctor’s office in May.

Shit- the tears filling his eyes had to be saltier than the Dead Sea.

DEAD Sea?!

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he breathed, rubbing his burning, dead eyes as his legs continued moving of their own volition.  His head really was out there with those dying stars, wasn’t it?

All he had to do was keep walking west.  Just focus on the sound of his boots on the pavement rather than any of these angsty postmodern metaphors bouncing around inside his skull.  Just don’t get lost in the word tornadoes.

Step.  Step.  Step.  Step.  Step.  West.  West.  West.  West.  West.  He wouldn’t let the sun dip below that horizon.  He would chase it west until his legs gave out on him.

But…it’s been dark for hours, LO.  The sun already set… yesterday… in September.

Yeah well, it’s been October for two hours now, and MY sun is in that building ten feet away, and I’m not letting her go.

Not without a fight.

“Do not go gently into the night…” Loki said, pushing through Sigyn’s doors, completely unaware that he was making sounds with his mouth, that he was speaking words from the most heartbreaking poem of all time.  Hand on the railing, he climbed the stairs two at a time, saying each word on beat with his steps.

“Do.” Step. “Not.” Step. “Go.” Step. “Gent-” step “-ly.” Step. “In-” step “-to.” Step. “The.” Step. “Night.” Step. “Rage.” Step. “Rage.” Step. “A-” step “-gainst.” Step. “The.” Step. “Dy-” step “-ing.” Step. “Of.” Step. “The.” Step. “Light.”

Third floor.  Last step.  Round the corner. 

There’s the gold number eight on my girl’s door.

Oh, stars above, he’d loved that gold number since the first time he’d seen it in January 2017. If this turned out to be the last time he ever laid eyes on that door…

Dear god, BREATHE, boy.

Pulling his keys out of his pocket with one hand, Loki reached up to rub his eyes with the other.

Another dollar in the jar, boy.

He found the right one and shoved it in the lock. 

Twist. 

Breathe. 

Click. 

Breathe. 

Turn. 

Breathe. 

Open.

BREATHE!

Chest heaving, Loki bolted into Sigyn’s living room as though she might be waiting on the other side of the door and would slam it in his face if he didn’t move fast enough.  His eyes swept over the room, starting with her little kitchen on his left, table directly ahead, couch to the right of that, and finally her open bedroom doors.  Directly behind those doors, she stood there staring at him with wide eyes, her phone in her hands.  Just then his phone chirped at him from inside his pocket.

Gritting his teeth, Loki swallowed nervously. “That was from you, correct?”

Slowly, Sigyn nodded once.

Afraid to hear his own voice shaking like some pathetic little lovesick weakling, Loki said nothing, but rather held Sigyn’s gaze for at least twenty seconds, the silence sucking up what little available oxygen existed in the space between them. How could such a deep chasm separate him from her in this cramped, claustrophobic shoebox New York apartment?

Sig really had taken her career-obsession several thousand steps too far, becoming an architect of impossible distance, building another wall right here in front of his face. God help him, why did he have to be in love with this ghost of a woman who didn’t even have the courage to use her voice to tell him it was over? Was she actually ending this via a fucking text? The nearly three years of his life that he’d devoted to Sigyn Elena Frey were about to be erased with one swipe of a thumb across a phone screen.

Sig is treating me the way I treat my shittiest, most unsalvageable chapters.

Right click. Select all. Delete.

Lip trembling, Loki finally asked, “What does it say?”

He refused to read it.  He didn’t want to see digital representations of letters strung together into words and spaces that said anything other than “I love you to the stars and back, forever dream boy”…or something along those lines.  Hearing her break up with him would be painful enough.  He hardly needed to add a visual layer to this almost-certain last gasp before the dying of the light by having to read it.

The shadow under her jawline moved, evidence that she was swallowing what he hoped was a gigantic lump in her throat.  Oh hell, he hoped it was hurting her trachea.  He hoped her heart was burning worse than his.  She finally let him hear her voice.  It was shaky as hell.

Good.

“What’s the point of texting if the recipient won’t read it?”

His already clenched jaw tightened further.

Oh, so that’s how we’re going to play this.  FINE.

Nostrils flaring, Loki grabbed the edge of the front door, which he’d been too distracted to close behind him when he first walked in a few minutes ago, and with the force of a tennis player’s backhand at Wimbledon, he slammed it shut.  Sigyn visibly winced, reminding him of that time he’d thrown his Ray Bans through the neighbor’s patio table in Montauk.

Right before I told her she SHOULD BE SCARED of me.

He regretted having said that, though it was probably true.  God, he hated reality.  He saw her scoff before the sound reached his ears.  It was perhaps a strange thing to ponder in that moment, but he couldn’t help but marvel at the speed of light kicking its speed of sound rival in its noisy ass right before his eyes.

The speed of DYING light.

Don’t go gently…

He heard her say “that strong arm is SUCH a turn-on” then suddenly she was in his face, and her hands were on the back of his neck.  His eyes blew wide.  Christ. How had she moved that fast?  Her grip was tight, but not painful.  No, it was just right- such a convincing grip, one that suggested he was her lifesaver in open water after being tossed overboard.

“And you are such a good actress, Sig,” he snapped, shoving his hands in his pockets because they wanted to be all over her, and they deserved better than to touch someone who didn’t think he was worth drowning for.

“It’s not acting,” she snapped back, yanking her hands away, possibly leaving scorch marks behind, “it’s sarcasm.”

Eyes locked on his, she walked backwards, which if his earlier philosophizing had been accurate, might have technically been forward.  Not that it mattered, since she was moving in one direction or another away from him.

Don’t go gently, boy.

He followed her, and she took more backward steps until her back was against the wall.  Coming toe to toe with her, he sucked in his cheeks, annoyed that they were doing the same song and dance routine- the “back me into a wall, then pick me up, and do me against it” routine.  Naturally, this meant that she was turned on by his strong arms, which made her a goddamn liar.  Not that he didn’t also fall into that category, but he was allowed to be a hypocrite because she was a hypocrite too.

“I can’t do this anymore, Loki,” she mumbled, lowering her eyes when he leaned his weight into her.

“Can’t do what?” Seriously.  He needed clarification.  He wasn’t interested in continuing this demeaning and ,for all intents and purposes, masochistic game wherein he subjected himself to the figurative equivalent of getting slapped in the face for loving this woman to the stars and back.

Lips trembling, she put her hands over her eyes, then dropped them to hang uselessly at her sides. “I can’t keep letting you in.”

His heart- what was left of it -stuttered to a stop, and he took a step back.  This was it.  The last gasp.

NO.  Don’t go gently.

Head shaking angrily, he stepped forward again and set both hands on the wall behind her, caging her between them.  Trapping her in the space between.

“Letting me in… where?” he asked, his eyes roving over her wet cheeks. “In… your apartment?”

She didn’t respond, so he inched closer. “In…” his gaze moved to her lips “…your mouth?”

Her eyes snapped up to his, and perhaps it was unintentional, but her tongue poked out to wet her lips.  God, those long lashes looked so thick… so heavy.  He wanted to feel them fluttering against his navel.  She seemed to realize her mistake a second later- probably because his hips were flush with hers, and denim couldn’t hide his reaction beneath it -and her tongue disappeared behind her lips again.

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I don’t mean in my body.”

He closed his eyes, trying to will away the another-dollar-boy tears.  Shit.  Was that answer code for “I would allow you to fuck me, if only I could allow it without getting emotionally attached to you”…?  But… weren’t they nearly three years too late for that?

Blinking several times, he removed one hand from the wall and slid it into her hair.  Such an obvious and pathetic, last-ditch effort to keep her in his life. “Does ‘your body’ include your heart?”

He’d assumed she would slap his hand away, but she kissed him instead.  Holy f- the pounding in his chest shot straight down his torso and below his belt.  Heaven help him, he was such a lovesick fool of a man for this girl.  Her arms wound around his neck, and she moaned, doing exactly what she’d said she “couldn’t do” only seconds ago.  She was letting him in… or so he hoped.

“Am I worth drowning for?” he asked without thinking against her lips, only realizing he’d done it when she put a few inches between their mouths.

Sigyn gave him a narrow-eyed response. “Am I?”

Loki’s breath hitched in his chest.

Oh…

that…

was…

IT.

Letting go of her, Loki turned on his heel and walked to the door. “I’m done.”

“WHAT?” Sigyn ran after him, grabbing his shoulder.

Val’s earlier words echoed in the air around him-

“You’re worth drowning for, hon, and anyone who doesn’t feel that deep in her bones doesn’t deserve you…”

Gritting his teeth, Loki grabbed Sigyn’s wrist and yanked her hand off of him, then he reached for the doorknob.

“Please don’t leave!” Sigyn shrieked, crying into the back of her hand. “Oh my god, Loki, all I did was question if you feel that strongly about me!”

“It wasn’t your question to ask at all!” He shot back, twisting the doorknob. “It was my question, and you threw it back in my face, Sigyn.”

He’d “full-named” her, as Sig would say, and it made him sick to his stomach that he’d done so while walking away from her.  The creaking of the door as it opened was ominous, sounding exactly like a dying breath.

I swear I won’t let you die, Starboy.

He was halfway to the stairs when those words- words he’d handwritten in Troy’s book, and also added to the final chapter of Satellite Tides, which no one had read yet -slithered across his mind like a snake in the grass, tempting him to turn back around, to sail back to his forever dream girl siren, his little white rabbit that he would follow through a bad trip Wonderland even if it ended with him losing his head.  Honestly though, it wasn’t that silent sentence, but the silence itself- the lack of her footsteps behind him -that made him turn around.

Sigyn was standing in her open doorway, chewing her lip and staring at him with crying eyes.  Stomach in his throat, he walked straight back to her, but she held up a hand.

“Absolutely not,” she said, visibly shaking. “That right there-” she pointed to the stairs “-that was the last call.  I will not ever watch you do that again.”

She stepped back and started to close the door, but against his better judgment, Loki put his shoulder against the wood and pushed it open before she could shut it all the way.

“You’re not doing that to me,” he ground out, tossing his keys on her kitchen table. He wouldn’t let her slam the door on him. He was staying here goddammit, whether she liked it or not.

Sigyn gaped at him. “This is my apartment.”

Her hands were on his chest, pushing against him.  Pushing him backward.  Toward the door.  She wasn’t strong enough to do that. 

I must be LETTING her do it.

“Last I checked,” Sigyn said through her teeth while grabbing his keys and shoving them in his front pocket, “I’m the one who pays thirty-nine hundred goddamn dollars every thirty days to live here, not you.  Go back to your fifteen-THOUSAND-dollar per month, top-floor, PERFECT room-with-a-view that you made your king-size bed in, and get the hell out of my apartment!”

With one final growl, Sigyn pushed him into the hall and slammed the door in Loki’s face.  Feeling like he’d been kicked in the chest, punched in the gut, stabbed in the back, he stared at the gold number eight, fresh tears pooling in his eyes.  He almost knocked on it.

Almost.

Struggling to breathe, wondering momentarily if he would hyperventilate in this pathetic third floor hall with its flickering horror-film-worthy lights, Loki turned away from the door instead.  His legs were heavier than lead, but he walked to the stairs nonetheless, pausing to look back at that gold eight before setting the heel of his boot down on that first of many steps back to the concrete below.  Lost in his own head, he couldn’t hear Sigyn sobbing on the other side of her door.

NEW YEAR SAME HABIT CONTINUES IN CHAPTER TWELVE: HAPPY NEW YEAR, LOVE.

Visit the New Year Same Habit main page HERE.

Chapter links: ¹ We’re Just Strangers ² Hello, My Name is Loki ³ A Helluva Drug ⁴ Written in the Dying Stars ⁵ This Helen of Troy (Worth Drowning For) ⁶ STARBOY INTERLUDE ⁷ Live Fast, Die Right (Crashing Hard) ⁸ It’s Called “Being Present” (Hit the Gas) ⁹ Burn it to the Ground, Sig. (Just Don’t Burn Me) ¹⁰ Hotel Hell, Closing Bell ¹¹ Do Not Go Gently (Run West, Boy) ¹² Happy New Year, Love.

CHAPTER TEN FEATURED MUSIC:

“Take What You Want“ by Post Malone ft. Ozzie Osbourne and Travis Scott

CHAPTER TEN THEME SONGS:

“Bleeding Love“ by ASTR (for Sig)

“Good Things Fall Apart vs. Sad Songs“ by Illenium ft. Annika Wells (for Loki)

What Readers Have Said

About CH 11 “Do Not Go Gently (Run West, Boy)”

“I think they do need time apart to work on themselves but MAN that was rough! It’s a really good ending before a new beginning.”

-Mischief76, on CH 11 “Do Not Go Gently (Run West, Boy)” (AO3)

((AO3)

“We know they get back together, but they Have to find a way to move past fight and fuck. It’s not sustainable for either of them.”

-Ferbette, on CH 11 “Do Not Go Gently (Run West, Boy)” (AO3)

“Alright so I know nothing about this pairing (aside from the Marvel movie characters) and I don’t even remember how I got here because that was 6 hours ago and I read the whole thing. What the fuck I am in awe. I feel like I just had a fever dream. Who are you???? This is the first fanfic I’ve read that I believe is a legit work of art (and I’ve read a lot, trust me.) I can only assume you’re some bigshot writer doing this for shits and giggles. Fingers crossed that Sigyn and Loki get their shit together and Loki doesn’t end up like DFW. Mental illness sucks donkey balls.”

-BR, on CH 11 “Do Not Go Gently (Run West, Boy)” (AO3)

“BR, If you like this fic so much, then you should definitely check out Jen’s other stories as well. Her Fearless Immortals trilogy is amazingly beautiful and worth reading. Just saying…”

-Maïté (in response to the above reader’s comment about chapter 11 of New Year Same Habit) (AO3)

---

*Notes from the author, which contain chapter 11 spoilers, upon original posting in December 2020: Ouch. Ouch. OUCH. *hangs head* I know, I know. You want to kill me, and I can’t fault you for that. But you HAD to know this one was coming. Especially since I started with a Dylan Thomas poem and the “setting/scene date and time” said it was October 1, 2019 at 2:00 am. I assume that if you read this far, that is a memorable date because it is the date (well… the month, at least) that Sig mentioned in the first chapter as “their awful breakup in October” and again later on as “the earliest hours of October.” I swear, ugh, I don’t know why I do this to myself. October is my favorite month, yet I decided to go with that date as their break-up. *flings up hands* I don’t mean “horror movie” scary. I mean that feeling of dread within the context of a relationship that’s running on fumes. “The last gasp” if you will. I’ll leave it up to you all to imagine what that text might have said, not because I’m trying to make you freak out on Loki’s behalf by forcing his anxiety/fear on you, but because… doesn’t the angst of their October 2019 breakup make the relief of their New Year’s Eve 2019 make-up that much sweeter? You know, when we FINALLY get back to the original December 2019/January 2020 setting… 12 chapters later. You might disagree with my constant “tease” method, but I can’t help it. I prefer the slow build up to the GOOD stuff. Or maybe I had a subconscious intent to finish this story in my real world December. *shrugs* As I write these notes, it IS December, and the bittersweet cherry on top is that the final chapter will “go live” on December 31, 2020. Only 1 week from today. Oh my god… I can’t even. I will be a mess.

~On the road to Montauk, 11:33 pm, June 7, 2019~

Clenching his jaw, Loki glared at the line of traffic up ahead.  They’d managed to avoid the worst of the typical Friday night highway rubbernecking on 40 miles of I-495, and here they were, nearly to their exit, and suddenly it was bumper to bumper.

“Brilliant,” he sighed, rapidly downshifting as he checked his mirrors and zoomed across multiple lanes of cars to take whatever this closest random exit was.

In the passenger seat next to him, Bucky snorted. “The irony of your impatience to get there faster is that you just put us on a road that will take 20 minutes longer.”

Reaching up to open the moonroof, Loki shrugged. “Time is relative.  20 minutes of wasting gas on not moving will feel like an hour.”

“Hey, Lo man, I get it.  I hate driving sticks in stop and go,” Bucky said, gesturing to the shifter under Loki’s hand, “but we just missed a golden opportunity back there to have a real heart to heart about our mutual hatred of every other driver on the road.”

“We can still do that without subjecting ourselves to their idiocy,” Loki pointed out, grabbing his water bottle from the cup holder, and twisting off the lid.

Bucky set his arm on the open window, letting his hand dangle off the side. “Yeah but see now I’m not able to think of all the things I hate because I’m too busy enjoying the wind in my hair.”

“Does that summer breeze make you feel fine, JB?” 

Putting his face in his hands, Bucky bent forward and laughed into his palms. “So…fine,” he managed between heaving laughs.  After a moment, he gathered himself and sat up straight again. “You should pull over.  I wanna drive.”

“Okay, but just so you know, if you’re looking for a conversation, that won’t happen.  I will pass out in thirty seconds after you take over.”

“Nah, you’ll pass out as soon as your ass hits the seat.  And fine by me.  I only care about gettin’ the chance to take this fuckin’ gorgeous M4 on the ride of its life.”

“It’s been on the ride of its life every second that my hand has been on the stick,” Loki said coolly as he pulled up the parking brake and opened the door.  When he passed Bucky on his way to the other side of the car, he lightly hit the back of his shoulder, then settled into the passenger seat.

Bucky clicked the seat belt into place and released the brake.  There was a fairly lengthy moment of silence before he responded. “I’m havin’ a seriously homophobic mental response to that phrasin’, Lo.”

“How very progressive of you to check yourself before you wreck yourself,” Loki replied, forcing a glib tone despite wanting to laugh as his friend revved the engine and pulled back onto the road.  He reached up to rub his suddenly very tired eyes.

“I’ve known you for two years, and I still can’t tell if you’re bein’ serious or not half the time.  Is it the accent?  The ‘I slept through every lecture at Oxford but still graduated first in my class’ attitude is off-putting as hell, you snot-nosed Brit.”

Loki didn’t miss a beat. “I went to Harvard, you dull as fuck Yank.”

“Harvard, Oxford, tuh-may-tuh, tuh-mAH-tuh.” Bucky waved a hand. “I think they rank first and second on the ‘top schools for arrogant dicks’ list.”

For the love, if Loki weren’t rubbing his eyes, he would roll them hard enough to make his eye sockets hurt.  When it came to highly demanding and extremely exclusive academia, JB was one to talk.

“Says the 2006 First Captain of the corps of cadets from the United States Military Academy at West Point while knocking his shiny gold class ring and clinking glasses with five-star generals.”

Cue over dramatic eye roll in 3…2…1…

“I’ll give you the five-star general thing, but I don’t knock my goddamn ring.  Don’t remember the last time I even wore it.”

Yep.  His eyes were probably stuck up there now.  Tremendous.

“It must be wonderful to lack that much self-awareness,” Loki droned, idly dragging his nails back and forth over his denim-clad knees several times, buffing the already smooth edges.  

“My GOD, you need to rein in those smug mic drops before your high horse bucks you out of that saddle.”

“Alright, we’re done—” he pinched the bridge of his nose “—you clearly prepared these clapbacks prior to this conversation and are reading them from an invisible three-KNOCKING-ring-binder, and I refuse to banter with cheaters.” He couldn’t help the smile spreading across his face as his friend burst out laughing, which shocked Sigyn and Darcy awake in the backseat.

Darcy shrieked as Sigyn’s flailing arm whacked her face. “Son of a bitch, Siggy, OUCH.”

“Blame Chuckles McGee up there, not me!” Sigyn shot back, then groaned as Bucky spoke over them.

“Fuckin’ hell, Lo man,” he laughed, pulling the shifter into sixth gear and zipping down the entrance ramp back onto the highway, “I feel like I’m tryin’ to outtalk a master in word wizardry or some shit.”

Loki shrugged. “Well that’s on you, peasant, for not knowing that the president and fellows of Harvard College, with the consent of the honorable and reverend board of overseers and acting on the recommendation of the faculty of arts and sciences, conferred on Loki Odinson the degree of Master of Arts summa cum laude in word wizardry or some shit on the fifth day of June in the year of our lord two thousand and seven.”  His friend was legitimately wheezing now.  Good god, the man sounded like he was on the verge of passing out.

“Breathe, JB,” he said, laughing quietly as the wheezing continued. 

“Jesus, Bucky—” Darcy grabbed onto Loki’s headrest “—slow down!”

“Shut up, Darce—” Sigyn leaned forward and squeezed Bucky’s right shoulder “—don’t listen to her.  Fast is fun.”  She winked at Loki when he rolled his head sideways to look back at her.

“Feel like I gotta devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other,” he said, merging into the light traffic, “but I don’t know which is which.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “They don’t call it ‘speed demon’ for nothing.”

Loki turned completely around in his seat to eye her. “Surely, you are not suggesting that you are an angel.”

“Hell yes, I am an angel,” she said, drawing an invisible halo over her head.  Biting into a smile, she inched toward him, and he instinctively inched backward. “Everywhere but the bedroom.”

Narrowing his eyes, he pursed his lips. “Oh, that’s right.  JB mentioned that you kept your devil horns on last Halloween when you two fucked on my bathroom counter at the party I mistakenly invited you to.”

Her eyes blew wide, and she smacked Bucky’s arm. “What the hell?  Why would you tell him that?!”

“Street cred, doll.” He flashed a toothy smile. “Street cred.”

“Ha. Ha.” She flopped back into her seat. “You can forget getting any street cred tonight.”

“Hey, ease up on me, woman,” he said, eyeing her in the rearview mirror. “Coping with jokes is all I have.”

“I imagine that vape pen helps too,” Loki pointed out.

“Course it does.  I could use some MDMA therapy on the side, but nope…can’t legalize somethin’ that might cut into all those pill-pushin’ profits.  Jesus Christ, I took four bullets in one arm for those corrupt, lyin’ shits in Washington goin’ on and on about weapons of mass destruc—”

Loki was listening to him, but he also wasn’t.  He’d heard this before.  His friend was desperately in need of a vent session.  He ought to refer JB to his doctor because whoever was in charge of this man’s treatment was doing a piss poor job.

Focus on your pal’s words, LO.

Loki blinked several times to clear his head, centering his attention on his friend.

“—sick and tired of all these jokers actin’ like Bush and Cheney were better than these clowns we got now.  I mean come ON; can’t we all be equal opportunity haters of these power-hungry monsters?  Shit, Lo man.  I was a high school senior watchin’ from Prospect Park when those damn planes hit, ya know?  I couldn’t getta hold of my Ma ‘cause the cell networks were flooded.  Least you were actually with your mom, not that bein’ at her place like FIVE blocks from it was a good—”

Loki cleared his throat.

I should have stayed in La-La Land.

He was most certainly not anxious to relive that horrendous September day.

I fucking DESPISE September.

His mum had been helping him load up his car with his belongings to take to Harvard with him that day.  Nearly eighteen years later, and he could still smell the smoke if he didn’t shut the memory down immediately.

“—then I risk everything and nearly lose a goddamn arm, but they can’t risk losin’ a donor.  Fuckin’ cowards.  Swear to god, I still feel the lead in my left arm whenever I—”

“I thought the first rule of Delta Force was ‘you do not talk about Delta Force’,” Loki spoke over him, hoping to pull his friend back from the edge with some degree of humor.

…and to pull MYSELF away from the edge.

Bucky smirked, looking sideways at him. “Delta Force sounds like a buncha highly trained flight attendants.”

“Must be why they retired their infamous team name,” Loki laughed.

Coping with jokes, indeed.

“Hard core special forces men couldn’t possibly be associated with such a feminine occupation,” he added, further goading his former special ops friend. “What do they call those Delta boys now anyway?”

Bucky clucked his tongue. “If I tell ya, I have to kill ya.  So… your call.  Also, don’t go insultin’ two professions that require putting their lives on the line every day for you.  What those folks do up in the air all day, surrounded by bitchy passengers complainin’ about that cryin’ baby three rows back sounds like a worse hell than anything I ever did- gettin’ shot four goddamn times included.”

Loki pressed his lips together, watching his friend’s jaw clench angrily while shaking his head.  He opened his mouth to make another joke, but Bucky beat him to it.

“Sartre’s No Exit hell coulda been set on an airplane.  L’enfer c’est les autres.”

“Oh fuck,” Darcy piped up from the backseat.  She leaned toward Sigyn, speaking out of the corner of her mouth. “I get so hot when he speaks in French.  And I’m not just referring to full tongue kissing.”

Sigyn snorted, keeping her eyes on Loki’s face since he was turned toward Bucky.  God, if there was an almighty creator, that creator was the most talented artist of…ever.  Her boyfriend’s side profile was absolutely perfect.

Loki raised an eyebrow.  He didn’t need to be fluent in French to recognize those words that his friend had just quoted.  Hell is other people—the famous line from a play that he could barely get through because it was the ultimate claustrophobic nightmare.

“Hey JB—”

“—problem is,” Bucky continued his thought, speaking over Loki as though lost in a Memory Lane trance, “I’m your perfect disillusioned, shell shocked, postmodern candidate, but all that nihilistic shit gets under my skin.  If you’re gonna burn it to the ground because you see it for the smoke and mirrors bullshit that it was, then at least TRY to create something better from the ashes you leave behind you.”

Okay, now it’s getting too real.  Far too real.

Elbow on his knee, Loki set his forehead in his palm.

I need to end this conversation NOW.

Ever think he might have some goddamn perspective that you would benefit from hearing even if it hurts, LO?

“—flyin’ back from Kuwait, and I’m lookin’ out the window at this HUGE dust storm.  Sorta just hit me that this thing looks absurd and chaotic on the surface, but if you twist it just right, if you really LOOK at it, you start to see that all those muted, dull brown clouds that look like they’re just bleedin’ all over each other are really a full-spectrum, technicolor, kaleidoscope instead.”

Loki lifted his head, and for a few seconds he just stared, wide-eyed and silent as the grave, out the windshield.  James Buchanan Barnes, former US Army Ranger, Aviator, Special Forces Operator, Purple Heart and Medal of Honor Recipient, and…Neo-Romantic Philosopher?

What. Even.

See?  PERSPECTIVE.

JB had a better grasp of mid-century existentialist dread than his own goddamn editor at a literary publishing house, for fuck’s sake.  Blinking away the shock, Loki ran a hand through his hair.  That last sentence—something about bleeding colors and kaleidoscopes—was more beautiful than anything his brain had concocted in a month at least.  Maybe he should just have JB write the rest of book three in his stead.  He let out a sad little laugh.

“I’m guessin’ you’re so quiet ‘cause it seems weird to ponder shit like this when you’re in a warzone,” Bucky said, grinning slightly. “But there’s alotta time for thinkin’ over there.  So I got two sheaths on my belt.  One for a knife.  One for angsty, migraine-inducing books.”

Brow furrowing, Loki blew out a breath. “That’s wise.  One can use both knives and words to cut their enemies.”

“Only thing I know about knives is to stick ‘em with the pointy end,” Bucky said with a shrug.

Alright, Arya Stark.

“Um…” Loki raised an eyebrow, “speaking as one of your level 4 classmates who has been in an actual knife fight with you, you might be underestimating your skills.  I think traces of my blood are still on the mats.”  He shook his head as his friend (of course) laughed.

“I watched you bust twenty guys’ nuts in that session before you and I went one on one with each other.  If you thought I was gonna play nice, you’re outta your goddamn mind.”

Eyes rolling up to the ceiling, Loki clenched his jaw.  Stars above, JB had no idea.

“Consider yourself lucky that you haven’t seen me out of my mind,” he said flatly, suddenly aware that Sig’s eyes were boring into the back of his skull.

He looked at her over his shoulder.  Her iridescent silver star eyes didn’t waiver from his, and oh, what he wouldn’t give to be alone with her in this car—wishing he was driving and could pull this M4 off the main road and take her to cloud nine in the backseat and forget the dull, muted brown clouds hovering over them and turn it into a full-spectrum kaleidoscope of color.

---

~Next day, 3:04pm, Saturday, June 8, 2019~

“It’s you and me against the girls, right?” Bucky held the volleyball net pole steady, squinting at Loki as he bent down to anchor the last rope into the sand.

Tying off the final knot, Loki swiped his hands across his swim trunks to get the excess sand off.  He heard his knees say “THANK YOU”—not literally of course—as he rose from that deep squat.  Grabbing his water from the cooler, he popped the lid off.  He downed nearly half of it while pulling another bottle out of the ice, then shouted “think fast!” at JB and tossed it to him.

Bucky barely caught it in his left hand just in time before it whacked him in the face. “God damn, that woulda hurt.  We teammates or what?”

Loki shrugged, still drinking, and set his other hand on his hip. “Yes, we are.  Unless you’re tired of winning.”

“Oh I would still beat your ass,” Bucky said, waving a flippant hand. “Just thought we’d try somethin’ different for a change.”

“I don’t enjoy hurting your feelings, JB, but…” Loki sighed, returning his water to the cooler, “if we switch partners, you’ll eat sand throughout the game.  Sig and I would crush you and Lewis.”

“Oh so you’re just assumin’ Sigyn wants to be on your side of the net?”

“Of course I am.”

“Why?” Bucky adjusted his sunglasses. “Just ‘cause she’s your girlfriend?”

Loki shrugged one shoulder. “More so that she wants to win, and I am clearly superior to you.”

“Huh.  Alright.  We’ll see.  How about we ask her?  Hey Sigyn!” Bucky shouted through his hands at the two women throwing a frisbee back and forth down the shore.

“Hey Bucky!” Sigyn shouted back at him. “Tell your woman she has to actually run to catch the frisbee!”

“I’m not a goddamn retriever!” Darcy yelled, grabbing the neon orange frisbee out of the water.

Sigyn threw up her hands. “Neither am I, but it doesn’t stop me from actually moving my legs to chase it down!”

“Stupid fucking game of fetch!” Darcy tossed the disk at her angrily.

“That’s it!” Sigyn jumped and caught the damn thing…barely…before it shot into the sea. “I’m aiming it at your head from now on!”

“You know what,” Darcy growled, stomping across the sand, “I think I might actually prefer playing volleyball with these asshats who always win just by taking turns spiking the ball on us!”

“WRONG,” Sigyn yelled, pointing a finger at her best friend, “they spike it on YOUR side.  You just fucking stand there while I dive for it and eat sand every time!”

“Oh booooooo.” Darcy tapped her finger to her chin. “Here’s an idea.  Stop diving for it!”

Sigyn rolled her eyes, trailing slowly behind Darcy as they walked toward the net.  She glared at her so-called best friend reaching into the cooler to grab a Mike’s Hard Lemonade.  This wasn’t fun.  She wasn’t enjoying this trip.  The four of them had come to Montauk a good five times last year, and it was always a blast, but this time?   Well, this time she only wanted alcohol.  That was the only fun part- the wasted “I don’t care what’s about to happen on Tuesday” part.

When she got to the net, she growled quietly, pushing her sunglasses higher up her nose.  The sunscreen and sweat were making them slide down over and over.

“Sorry, got distracted,” she said, forcing a smile as she looked up at Bucky who was looking back at her like he could read her thoughts.

Such an empathetic guy—he probably IS reading them.

She wouldn’t say no if he offered her some of that good stuff ‘for PTSD’ in his vape pen. “What did you need me for?”

Twirling the ball on the tip of his forefinger, he approached her. “Wanna be on my team this time?”

Eyes popping, Darcy spewed the drink she’d been guzzling. “Excuse you WHAT? Now I’m playing against three people? Nope. I’m done.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “One would think it was obvious that JB is asking to switch partners, but once again you defy expectations, Lewis,” he droned, gathering his hair at the nape of his neck and winding an elastic around it.

“Ugh, the man bun is so god damn distracting,” she said, plopping down onto her beach chair and waving a flippant hand. “I can’t think of snarky comebacks.  You do this shit on purpose, Starboy.”

“He does what shit on purpose?” Sigyn raised an eyebrow behind her sunglasses, fighting the juvenile urge to go over there and yank Darcy’s girl bun hard enough to pull her to the ground and shove her face into the sand.

Cool it, hon. This is your best friend, and you love her, and she loves you, and she is JOKING.

Yeah well…I’m not okay with her calling him STARBOY. She never does that outside of the “damn he really is hot” context.

You BOTH joke about each other’s men like that—it’s non-threatening, non-competitive goofing around.

Today is different. Today it feels like she’s trying to take him away from me.

You could not be more wrong about that, and you know it.

Trapped in her hypersensitive, overprotective, insecure, completely irrational head, she heard an echo of her name.

“Siggy?”

And again.

“Sigyn?”

Once more, and this time, she knew the voice.  She really loved that voice.

“Sig?” Loki pulled his Ray Bans down his nose just enough to look at his girl over them. The look on her face was concerning, like she might get sick or pass out.

No no no, not again, sweetheart.

Ducking under the net, he took two exceptionally long strides to close the space between them—about ten feet—but she got to him first.  She threw her arms around his neck so hard, he nearly fell backwards.  He hugged her back, shooting an apologetic look at JB.  His friend nodded, clearly understanding, and pointed to the house, mouthing “go ahead, we’re fine.”

Loki kept one arm around her as he waved weakly at his friend, then walked back to the house with her still clinging to him.

---

~Dinner that night~

“Okay but seriously, I make the best chicken parm,” Darcy sighed, tossing her napkin on the dining room table, and stretching her arms over her head.

Bucky nodded, humming in agreement, his cheeks full of the entree she had prepared for them.

“I gotta admit it’s even better than my ma’s,” he said, his eyes popping and face reddening when he swallowed the too big bite. “Jesus.  Almost choked on that.”

“That’s what she said!” Darcy and Sigyn shouted in unison, both nearly falling out of their chairs from laughing so hard.

“Yeah slap those knees harder, girls,” he managed to say while coughing into his elbow. “It’s adorable.  Love how you guys are snorting like pigs at my expense.”

Sigyn spit her wine back into her glass to keep from spewing it across the table as Darcy continued giggling uncontrollably.  Not that it wouldn’t have been hilarious to see red wine splattered on her best friend’s face, but everything in this entire beach house was white. She had no idea why Mrs. Frigga Odinson had chosen to go with the one color that showed every piece of dirt and the slightest spills.

Hello?-SAND GALORE.

Loki’s fingers brushed her left cheek then, pushing a few strands of her hair that were basically drowning in her drink—ew—behind her ear.  She turned toward him, her chest tightening when that broad, knee-weakening smile spread across his face.  If she wasn’t sitting down already, she’d crumple to the floor and cry an ocean’s worth of tears.

An Atlantic-sized ocean of Sigyn Frey’s making…

FUCK, I miss him so goddamn much already…I can’t BREATHE.

“Oh noooooo,” Darcy made a face at them, pointing to Loki’s hand in her hair, “please don’t start this love me tender show again.  Like…I get it.  I’d be mooning over this one—” she thrust her thumb toward Bucky “—if he was leaving in a few days, and I wouldn’t be able to touch him at all for two months or whatever, but…”

Jaw clenching, Loki looked at her sharply, and she put a hand over her mouth.  Good.  He hardly needed to be reminded about the inevitable.  Maybe it was the anger in his eyes that shut Lewis up.  Or maybe she saw Sig’s bottom lip trembling.  Whatever it was, he would take it.

Bucky pushed his seat back and stood up, taking Darcy’s hand and his plate. “Come on, doll.  Help me with the dishes and leftovers.” She nodded, wiping her thumbs under her eyes and went with him to the kitchen.

Clearing her throat, Sigyn grabbed the wine bottle and lifted it to her mouth—who needs a stupid crystal stem anyway?—and gulped every bit of it in one go.

Face screwing up at the overly sweet taste, she twisted her entire body toward Loki as he took the empty bottle away and set it on the table again.  She slumped forward to lean her forehead on his shoulder, and his arms came around her.

Her eyebrows pulled together when the next song on her best friend’s aptly named “Ear Candy” playlist streamed through the built-in sound system.  Darce must have turned up the volume since leaving the table with that huge smile on her face.  Sigyn sighed, not thrilled with the lyrics.  Come ON, hearing some girl singing “I got champagne for the pain, black out all the memories, running through my veins, I don’t really wanna feel anything, I’m my only enemy” was a bit too on the nose right now.  Her best friend was probably dancing in the kitchen, happy and free as a bird.

Must be nice.

Twisting her head took up at him, she watched Loki lean toward her mouth, and she met him halfway, closing the barely-there distance between each other at the same time.  Within seconds, he was smoothing his hands up her sides, and one of her legs was between his.  Chest heaving, he unbuttoned her shorts and slid his hand into them.  He groaned, teeth scraping over his bottom lip as she put a hand over her mouth to stifle a moan.  They heard Darcy’s voice from the kitchen then.

“Soooo… after we do these dumbass dishes, you should put on those dog tags and take me to pound town.”

Loki ceased his movements, his eyes slamming shut.  From the other side of the wall, he and Sigyn heard JB set several dishes in the sink with more force than necessary.

“Stop making references to my dick in front of other people, or you’re not gonna see it tonight,” he shouted, and Sigyn pulled back from Loki’s mouth just enough to turn and see Darcy stick her head around the doorway to the kitchen.

“Emptiest threat ever, am I right?” her best friend said, biting into a smile, then she wiggled her eyebrows at her friend. “Oooooh, am I interrupting something?  Niiiiiice.  Get it, Siggy.  Don’t let your massive Manhattan man go to waste.  Only 3 days!”

She disappeared behind the door again, and they heard a muffled slap (presumably on her backside) followed by a squeal and a giggle then fast footsteps going up the stairs.

Sigyn mumbled “for fuck’s sake, Darce, really?” under her breath as Loki glared at the empty doorway.  Pedal to the metal, his ‘on edge but mostly fine’ mood accelerated to ‘destroy everything’ in 3.5 seconds.  Reminding himself to be gentle, he lifted Sigyn’s hands and leg off him, then pushed his chair back forcefully and stood up.

“Think I’ll walk down the shore,” he said tightly, heading out the back door and slamming it behind him.

Apparently, this was his breaking point.  He didn’t deserve this shit.  He was halfway down their long, private boardwalk that led to the water when he heard the door slam again.  He didn’t need to turn around to know it was Sig, since those beyond aggravating lovebirds that he should not have invited wouldn’t leave the guest bedroom for another hour at least.  

“Loki?” Her voice was muffled by the crashing waves and unusually strong offshore winds as his mind traveled to the memory of his girl’s pissed off voice screaming at him three nights ago…all over a job that she did not need but would not quit and come to Europe with him:

“Filing a complaint makes for the dullest plot ever, I KNOW, but he left me alone after I did that!”

“Sig, he left you alone because he saw ME kissing you in your office, and recognized me!  You left to talk to Carol about a draft, then he came in, asking if I was ‘Odinson’s boy’, and I nodded and told him to stay the hell away from you, or he might as well say goodbye to his precious TribecArchiteDeCo.  THAT is why that son of a bitch won’t show his face when I’M with you!”

“Oh my god, you threatened to DESTROY the company I WORK AT?!”

“I threatened to destroy HIM, and this time it won’t just be a measly verbal THREAT.”

“Are you…are you talking about ASSAULTING my boss?”

“If by ‘assaulting’ you mean SHATTERING Tangelier’s face—”

“How does that help me if you get your own ass arrested, Loki?!”

“So now you’re saying that you DO need MY help?  A minute ago I was a shining knight boyfriend who needed to rein in the overprotective testosterone!  Make up your fucking mind, woman!”

Loki shook his head, fighting to push away words of the past as his feet pounded across the wooden boardwalk.  Glowing orange and pink on the western horizon, the setting sun wasn’t bright enough to warrant wearing sunglasses, but he yanked the pair of classic black Wayfarers hanging from the collar of his thin, dark grey t-shirt and put them over his eyes nonetheless.  He continued forward, bounding down the steep stairs two at a time, ignoring the sound of her footsteps on the wooden planks as she ran after him.

The clean, white sand crunched softly under his bare feet as he approached the water.  He pushed his hair behind his ears, though the strong gusts continued to force the too long strands right back into his face.  He would have pulled it back if he hadn’t left his damn hair tie on the bathroom sink.  Eyes rolling, he slid his hands into the side pockets of his shorts.  He heard her voice right behind him then.

“Loki, come on, don’t pull away from me.”

Nostrils flaring, his eyes blew wide.

WHAT?

Ripping the sunglasses off his face, he whirled on her and lowered his head to her level to look directly in her eyes.

“You are the one pulling away from me, Sig.”

She reeled back as though he’d hit her.

“Excuse me?”

He knew she was about to cry, which meant he was about to feel like a dick.  God, he was so tired of this.  He was so tired of walking on eggshells around her, of letting her lead, of being so goddamn submissive when what he really wanted to do was tell her to either pack up her office and quit that completely unnecessary job or pack up her things from his apartment.

He saw her eyes narrow for a split second, then she turned sideways, squinting into the breeze and the setting sun.  Her hair seemed to levitate behind her, exposing the curve of her jaw and neck as her face took on the same warm, orange gold hue as the fading sun.  He stared at her, unable to tear his eyes away because the wind was pressing her loose, thread-bare white tank top into her front, molding it to her body like a second skin.  Oh hell, if she wasn’t wearing that bathing suit underneath it, he would have an absolutely mouth-watering eyeful right now.

She turned to look at him again, her gaze dropping to his mouth, then his neck, his chest, his stomach, and lower, staring at his black knee-length, drawstring jersey shorts like she could see through them.  

Head shaking, he scoffed under his breath, and she shot him a glare at the sound.

“I have not been pulling away at all, Loki.  I have been running back to you as fast as I possibly can!  Every step forward, no matter how seemingly insignificant, has been because I don’t want to keep letting you down!” she shouted, throwing her hands up.

His jaw dropped right to the sand at his feet.

“When have I ever suggested that you were letting me down?”

Putting her palms over her eyes, she blew out an uneven breath.  After a silent moment, she dropped her hands.

“Oh, you mean other than just right now?” she asked through her teeth, pointing to the ground angrily, as though the gesture more accurately emphasized ‘this second’.

He opened his mouth to respond, to defend himself, but she didn’t let him.

“Do you think that I can’t tell when you’re frustrated or angry or annoyed with me?  You don’t have to expressly say it, Loki.  All of April I was a mess, and I’m sorry, alright?”

Running both hands through his hair and leaving them at the back of his neck, he hung his head.  Did she really think he was holding some ridiculous grudge against her for feeling completely lost for that first month after her friend died?  After that cancer came flying out of left field like an EF5 tornado, leaving miles of overturned cars, shards of glass, and jagged steel frames that used to be gorgeous, glittering skyscrapers?

“Sig, I’m not angry at you for being a mess after your friend died.  If anyone can relate to being a mess, it’s me,” he pointed to his chest. “You know that.”

She shook her head. “Loki, you’re—”

“No no no, I’ve said jackshit about this for two months, so hear me out,” he spoke over her, “I didn’t tell you what to do, and I never complained about missing us.  You made that doctor’s appointment a month ago, not me.  No one forced you to do that.  You call all the shots, Sig.”

He paused to take a few deep breaths.  He also needed a second to make sense of his now racing thoughts.

“How can you possibly not see that?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “After a month of misery, you get two weeks of decent sleep, and then you do a 180.  From bone-chilling, winter storms to spring sunshine, all thanks to sleeping.  You only needed one goddamn pill for two weeks!  How wonderfully uncomplicated!”

“Are you saying you wish I had needed more meds, and for longer?” Her eyes started to water, and she held up a hand before he could respond.  “Because that’s what it sounds like.  Sounds like my quick turnaround is in opposition to your personal experience, and isn’t giving your tricky brain the emotional validation it n—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” he said tightly, counting his breaths to contain the anger trying to rise his chest and spill out of his mouth in the worst way.

She pressed her lips together, wishing she could turn back time.  Ten minutes ago, they’d been well on their way to sex, but here they were instead.  Fighting.  Maybe this would end in sex too.  Maybe this was what it meant to be a “fight and fuck” couple.  She was not a fan.  At all.

I only have three days left with him, and THIS shit is what we’re doing with our time.

“Loki, this isn’t how I want to say goodbye,” she said, voice shaking.

“You wouldn’t have to say goodbye to me if you could just say goodbye to that job—” he held up a hand “—and do NOT go off on me for ‘throwing my bank account in your face’ which I have heard some version of many times, and every time you say it, it’s infuriating because that is not what I’m doing!”

Calm. Down.  

He inhaled sharply through his nose, the brisk wind burning his sinuses and making his eyes water.  Hands flexing, he exhaled, and started again.  He had every intention of checking his tone at the door.  He really did.

“SO WHAT if I want to help or take care of you or just give you nice things that you don’t need because I want you to have everything you want whether it’s essential or not?!”

Off to a GREAT start—

“Dammit, Sig, I offer to take care of rent for a bit so you can quit working at that specific job with that boss who you should press charges against and find a new better job like you say you want to, and you fly off on me!  I am not trying to take away your independence!  I do not think of you as my property!  I’m not trying to buy your love or trick you into depending on me like some 1950s housewife!  And I sure as hell am not one of those ‘shut up and make me a sandwich’ twats, so stop acting like I am!  I swear to everything, you act like I have some evil plan to make you quit your job, then knock you up, then lock you up in some picket fence prison in suburbia!”

He couldn’t contain it.  This awful energy had been brewing under his skin for too long.  This was what he got for trying to control every single pathetically flawed, head in the clouds, worthless, traumatized cell in the clusterfuck inside his skull.  He was blowing up at his girl for no reason.  She did not deserve this.  At all.  He knew that.  But he was doing it anyway.

“You keep flipping switches, and I can’t keep up!” Gritting his teeth, he pointed to his head. “And I am the God of Flipping Switches!”

YEAH, CLEARLY.

He pushed his hair behind his ears over and over and over because the damn wind just would not let up, and as his hand made a pass in front of his eyes for the tenth time, he saw his hair tie  wrapped around his wrist.  So…it wasn’t on the bathroom counter.  It was with him this whole time.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Ripping the thing off his wrist, he gathered every last strand into a haphazard bun at the nape of his neck and wound the elastic around it as more words continued to fly out of his mouth.

“I’m glad you seem to be in the best mood of your life, Sig, because it sure as hell beats feeling like our world has gone up in flames, but bloody hell if I have to…” he stopped, growling as his train of thought derailed.

He wanted to hear a crash, an explosion, a boom of deafening thunder- anything loud enough to drown out the pack of wolves snarling at him.  God the sound was horrendous.  It was terrifying.  And it was his own voice.

Oh my god, I sound like my FATHER.

He ought to have his not-so-silver tongue cut out as punishment for it.  Without giving it a second thought, he yanked his sunglasses off the top of his head, reeled back on one leg and hurled them at the neighbor’s house because it was closer than his.  They shot through the air like a bullet and, EXTREMELY unexpectedly, crashed right through a glass table on their deck as though his iconic shades had the force of a World Series MVP arm behind them.  Sigyn’s shriek was as loud as the crash itself.

“Jesus, Loki!  You’re scaring the hell out of me right n—”

“Goddamn right, you SHOULD be scared of me!” 

THE FUCK ARE YOU SAYING, LO?!

Her responding flinch was violent as her hands flew up to cover her mouth, and he knew that was the exact moment he should drop to his knees and apologize until he was blue in the face.  Had he just told her that she should be SCARED of him?!  What was this, his own damn villain origin story?!  Eyes blowing wide, he held his hands up as if in surrender.

“I did not mean that…” he swallowed, shaking from the adrenaline, from the norepinephrine, from the testosterone, from a cocktail of hellish over-stimulating chemicals that seemed to think some hungry lion was ten feet from him instead of a picturesque beach and a gorgeous girl who loved him infinitely more than he deserved.

“Sig, oh my god, sweetheart, I am so unbelievably sorry.  That was an absolutely unforgivable thing to say to you.  I don’t even…” he trailed off, hanging his head so he wouldn’t have to see the damage.

He rubbed his temples for twenty seconds or so before looking up at her again.  Her lips were trembling, and the pained look in her eyes made him want to throw up.  It made him want to turn on his heel and run away like an absolute coward.  It also made him want to run straight to her, wrap his arms around her, pick her up, and carry her with him everywhere.  He opened his mouth to say more, but she spoke first.

“Thank you for apologizing,” she blew out a breath. “I would be out of here otherwise.”

“And you would be right to go,” he swallowed again, even more nervous now.

But, oh dear god, please DON’T.

She went up onto her toes, trying to see over the tall grass on the dunes. “For heaven’s sake, how hard does one have to throw a pair of glasses that weigh maybe a tenth of a pound for them to go through a table?  I’d be in critical condition if you’d thrown them at me.”

His jaw nearly unhinged at the suggestion. “I would never ever ever ever-”

“I wasn’t saying you would.  I know you wouldn’t do that,” she waved her hand then pulled it down her face. “If you managed to not knock out Amora’s lights, I have nothing to worry about.”

What do kids these days say?  FACTS.

“Can we not yell, and also please set aside the whole money thing because that is a side issue that I do not want to get into.”  She ran both hands through her hair.

He nodded several times and licked his lips. “Yes.  And just so you know, sweetheart, that’s not a sideissue.  It’s a NON-issue.”

Must be nice to not have any money worries, LO.

Shut. Up.

She sighed slowly. “You are being so unfair to me.  Telling me that I ought to go to this huge length, to uproot my career and fly to Europe to make those eight weeks easier to bear?  You didn’t have to sign that damn contract!  Why won’t you just fucking quit?  You don’t need HC if you would just self-publish!”

His instinct was to lunge ten steps forward, leaving no space between them, then grab her chin, and force her to look up at him while he explained why that was unfair to him actually.  But after that atrocious blow up, charging at her and grabbing her would be positively idiotic, so he approached her carefully instead, giving her every opportunity to move away if she so chose.  To his unfathomable relief, she didn’t move an inch.  She stayed right where she was, even allowing him to come toe to toe with her.  He took a deep breath, then released it slowly.

“Do you know the ends and outs of publishing?  Of how book deals work?  You do.  I know you do.  I agreed to three books in my contract, each of which requires promotional work.” He paused to take another deep breath lest he allow his unpleasant emotions erupt again. “I wish I hadn’t signed that dotted line, but I did.  You are correct that I don’t need HarperCollins to publish my work.  However, I also don’t need a lawsuit on my hands for breach of contract.”

She stared up at him silently, the crease between her eyebrows deepening a little.  He waited a few beats, surprised she had nothing to say in response, but she only continued looking at him.  Shaking his head, he dropped his arms, and slid his hands in his pockets. 

Waves crashed behind him, filling the silence between them.  The water rushed up the beach, soaking his feet and pulling the ground out from underneath him as the wind blew wisps of hair across her beautiful face.  He kept his eyes on hers as she inched toward him, and he couldn’t help but slide his hand up into her hair.  She just responded too well to the hair thing for him to not do it.  Her fingers curved over the crook of his elbow, moving up his forearm to graze his fingers as he threaded them through her hair.  She stroked the veins along the sensitive inside of his wrist with her thumb, her gaze moving down to his mouth.  Wrapping her other arm around his waist, she pressed into him.

Doubtless this wouldn’t lead to anything but another cold shower, but apparently his body needed a hit of whatever he could get his hands on.  Lower potency is better than nothing if it saves you from the hell of withdrawals.  She opened her mouth as he leaned down to her face, the tip of her tongue grazing the underside of his as his grip on the back of her neck tightened to keep her in place.  She hissed softly, perhaps because his grip was a bit too tight, but if he didn’t hold her still, she might take her lips away, and that was all he had.

Hello, my name is Loki…

They separated, just enough to get a proper breath.  He moved to kiss her again, but just as his lips touched hers, she released a shaky, all too vulnerable breath.  Eyebrows knitting together, he opened his eyes.  The absurd fear of not feeling her mouth on his was overtaken by what was indeed his need to be the smartest in the room.  He needed to know why she was pulling away over and over and over.  He needed to know.  Needed to know.  No option.  He leaned back just enough to see her face and blew out a breath.

“Would you please come with me?  I’m not asking you to quit your career.  Just that job.”

She frowned up at him, dropping her hands from his waist and wrist.  He let go of her neck, considering very carefully the next words out of his mouth.

“Ignoring the glasses through table debacle—” he cleared his throat “—I’m not juvenile, nor am I entitled.  I am just so confused right now, and that is pissing me off as much as having to leave.  Do you think you deserve to be overworked, underpaid, and sexually harassed?  Is that why you won’t resign?”

She gave him a look.  Was he serious?  Did he think that little of her?  That she was choosing to self-flagellate because she thought she didn’t deserve anything better?

My boyfriend is NOT this idiotic.

“Is that a real question?”

“Yes, actually!” He threw his hands up. “That’s how goddamn screwed up your decision is- so screwed up that I can’t find the method in your madness!  Of all people, I ought to understand and read emotions like an open book.  I’m not some mouth-breathing caveman incapable of relating to the woman in his life, yet here I am, feeling exactly like one.”

Shaking her head, she put a hand over her mouth, blinking back tears.  After a good ten seconds, she moved her hand up to her eyes, letting out several small gut-wrenching gasps that made him want to pick her up and just hold her, but he couldn’t because she was backing away from him again, and what if that meant she needed space?  What if his arms felt like a cage to her?

“Loki, I don’t even…shit…you are looking at this the wrong way.  Just flip it around.  Don’t look at me kissing you until I can’t breathe but not following you to the ends of the earth without a thought as me—” she held up her fingers to make air quotes “—pulling away from you. Look at it compared to where I was two months ago.”

Jaw tightening, he looked sideways.

You are not serious, Sig.

He already had ‘flipped it around’a thousand times!  Trying to view things from her angle was exactly what he had been doing incessantly for a month, and it did not make sense!  Was she honestly telling him ‘look at the glass as half full, not half empty’?  Thanks, but no.  Certainly neither Starboy nor Sunlight were written by a goddamn optimist.  Eyes closing, he sighed.

“Let me try that again,” she said, sniffing a little then rubbing her nose and under her eyes, “because that sounded like some bullshit ‘be content with what you have’ answer, and I would be so pissed if our situations were reversed, and you said that to me.”

He raised an eyebrow.  Alright then, Sigyn Frey, Architect Extraordinaire and Powerful Reader of Loki Odinson’s Mind.  His girl knew him almost too well.  That, or they were the same person in different bodies.

She took a deep breath. “I went to a doctor that I didn’t know, which was so scary for me, because I wanted to get better for you, Loki.  I took that medication for you.  I knew how brutal it was for you to see me like that, so I pushed myself to get it together as fast as possible…for you.  It wasn’t some misplaced sense of obligation to someone who’s taking care of me.  It’s not reciprocity.  It’s just because, even during this sleepless walking dead phase, I always was and still am so goddamn mad for you.”

Her words, that last sentence in particular, were a broken record—I am so goddamn mad for you. I am so goddamn mad for you. I am so goddamn mad for you—in his head.  A beautiful, broken record that he hoped never righted itself.  God, things were getting real now, weren’t they.  This wasn’t supposed to be a gut-wrenching conversation.  He wasn’t supposed to need another dollar for the jar.  

She rubbed her eyes again. “Maybe my version of ‘fast as possible’ looks like slow motion to you.  My best sprint is nothing compared to what your phenomenal never-miss-leg-day body can do when you lace up those Nikes, but I swear I’m giving everything I’ve got.  I’m running on fumes, but I am still running, and it’s for one reason.  I’m willing to push through the pain, to keep lifting my exhausted, heavy as lead legs, for one reason.”

Oh god, he was going to make his lip bleed from chewing it this hard.  Surely his ribs were shrinking and squeezing his lungs because he couldn’t seem to get a breath.  One reason, she’d said.  He would ask what it was if his voice wasn’t completely useless right now.

Don’t make me ask. Just tell me.

She answered his unspoken question. “It’s because I see you at the finish line,” she gave him a half-hearted smile, and shrugged her shoulders.

Fucking. Hell.

His gaze had been locked with hers for several minutes already, but now?  Now he actually could not see anything but her.  Tunnel vision in its most literal sense, everything in his periphery faded to black because nothing else in the universe mattered.  This thing beating in his chest was out of control, pumping blood faster than new Nikes pounding the cold pavement up Greene Street, hooking a left at Spring and again on West Broad and skidding to a halt when the only thing that mattered slammed right into him.

“Then don’t you dare stop running, fast girl,” he said, trudging through miles of wet sand to get back to her, and pulling her into him the second she was within reach.

“I wish I were you,” she whispered into his neck as she tugged him down by his shoulders.

“What?” he frowned, squeezing her waist just shy of boa constrictor levels. “Jesus Christ, no you don’t, Sig.”

“Don’t tell me what I do or don’t want, Loki!” she growled, struggling in his hold until he begrudgingly released her. 

This conversation was supposed to be over.  This was the hugging part.  The ‘go back to the house and sleep it off’ part.  Apparently not.  She was looking at him as though she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to throw something at him or throw her body on him.  Well, if there were options, he’d prefer the latter please.  Of course she didn’t give him that pleasure, only flinging her hands up in frustration, then she narrowed her eyes at him and tapped her temple.

“You’ve dealt with all this head crap over and over for almost three damn decades but you keep going!  Give me some pointers here!  You were hungover and freezing your ass off.  It was drizzling and dreadfully dreary, and the streets were disturbingly empty save for leftover confetti and discarded, dead christmas trees that had more life left in them than you did, but you kept running!”

She’s quoting my book—my girl is quoting my book VERBATIM to my face.

Annoyance?—GONE—Replaced with ridiculous meme hearts circling around his head.  Every infinitely insane cell in his body was going to explode into a million glittery gold pieces of new year confetti, and if he ever floated back to the ground, his Sig would be there to sweep him up and put all his parts back together.  What had he been upset about a few minutes ago?  He’d yelled at her and thrown his glasses, but he truly couldn’t even remember why now.  He breathed faster, his fingers digging into his palms at his sides.

“You turned that corner and slammed into me at the exact second I needed you,” she continued.

Stop reading my thoughts, perfect girl.  It’s a dangerous game.

The rising river in her eyes looked like it would break the dam any second as her words flowed over him like perfect Montauk summer waves.

“I hate admitting it because I have disappointed the feminist in me to no end by being such a needy girl, such a helpless princess, but…” she let out a shaky breath, “Loki…god…do you seriously think you’re the only one who needed someone to swoop in and take away the too heavy chain you think you linked together and hung around your own damn neck because you’re fucked up enough to think you deserve to be crushed by the weight of it?”

Lips trembling, she took several steps back and shook her head, then she grit her teeth and answered her own question.  Loudly.

“NO!  I needed that too!  I needed to collide with you!” She pointed to her chest. “I needed my heel to catch on the crack in that uneven pavement.  I needed to almost fall backwards onto those café steps so I would have an excuse to grab your stupid perfect arms and fall into you instead!  I know I don’t have a diagnosable debilitating mood disorder, but that didn’t mean I had my shit together!  I swear to god I was just a one woman act faking my way through a 9 to 5 with a smile plastered on my face because big girls aren’t allowed to cry either!!  Know why?  Because all these jokers in this rat race to that top corner office rigged everything in their favor!”

He watched her take in a ragged breath, putting both hands over her eyes and keeping them there as her chest heaved.  He needed to wrap his arms around her.  Now.  Please.  Please.  Why did she have to pull away again?  Did she think that he wanted to get his hands on her so she would stop yelling?  Stop venting?  Did she think he would shush her?  Not at all!  She said she’d needed to fall into him on New Years 2017.  Obviously that hadn’t changed.

So come back and fall into my STUPID PERFECT ARMS and KEEP YELLING, love!

He took a step toward her, but stopped abruptly when she started shouting again.

“They’ll spew all this motivational crap about how all it takes is staying in school and hard work and you too can achieve anything you put your mind to and oh sure you can have it all!  Yeah, but only if you’re a fucking psychopath who doesn’t care who they have to step on to get there!  And since I wasn’t one of those monsters, it didn’t matter how hard I worked!  I was still a nobody that nobody except my mum and dad gave two fucks about with nothing but memories of ex-boyfriends who tossed me aside the second something with bigger tits and fewer loud opinions came along and stacks of unpaid bills on dirty piles of laundry in my shoebox apartment!”

Bring on those LOUD opinions, smart girl.  I can take it.

“And it didn’t matter that I actually had so much more than that in reality- I had a best friend who would die for me, I was healthy and wasn’t drowning in medical debt over something I had no control over, I actually could pay all my bills despite my whining about not having more in my account at the end of the month, I loved my shoebox, and oh my god I loved this city that I wasn’t from but I changed that on my own and then it was my home and I never wanted to leave!  Like, this is it-” she looked up at the clouds, her arms wide as she spun in a somewhat clumsy circle- “I found my place!  I might as well tattoo ‘I heart NY’ on my forehead at this point because that’s how much I love this absurd place!”

She dropped her hands, but continued staring at the clouds. “But none of that good stuff mattered.  It just kept hiding behind all these angry dark clouds that wouldn’t stop building and building and building.”

Fuck, he knew exactly what she meant.  He took another step toward her, but she stepped back again, and he grit his teeth.  Was this magnetic girl repelled by him because they were too alike?  She wasn’t supposed to be moving away from him!

Christ, sweetheart, let me HOLD YOU.

He tried another step, and this time she walked several paces toward him, and everything was right for a few seconds because, thank god, he was going to get what he wanted—she was going to let him hold her.  But she stopped a few feet before she reached him, and that was not acceptable.

“Sig,” he huffed out a breath, jaw clenching, “come here.”

She didn’t. “Loki, don’t you get it?  I only looked sunny and bright and smiley that day because I was looking at YOU!”

She flung her hand out toward him, then leaned her head back and shouted at the clouds through cupped hands.

“Hello, Forever Dream Boy! I don’t know this guy from Adam, but I AM GONNA, OR I’LL DIE TRYING.  Grey skies, be gone!  Winter? What’s that? Never heard of it!  Just look at him, Sigyn!  Fit as hell and smart and clever and tall with amazing hair and—” her wild eyes left the clouds and found his “—for the love, maybe best of all, you looked at me like I was worth looking at!”

He gaped, looking her up and down. “Worth looking at?” he repeated, starting toward her again. “Good lord, woman, have you seen yourself?!”

“Don’t interrupt me!” she shot back, pointing in the general direction of the neighbors’ house. “You had your little blow up back there, now I’m getting mine!”

Loki swallowed, eyebrows pulling together from the ache in his chest.  He was just trying to tell her she was gorgeous for pity’s sake.

“I felt like shit that day!” she shouted, pointing to her chest and moving forward a bit, “I was just as hungover as you!  Maybe even worse!  Stars above, I drank myself practically into a coma the night before because 2016 felt like a disaster of epic proportions!”

He blinked mutely, watching her abruptly bend down to pick up shells and seaweed then shriek like an extremely pissed off Sharapova while flinging them at the waves.

Is she stamping her foot?  She is.  She is 31 and screaming and stamping her foot and kicking up sand.  OF COURSE this is the woman of my dreams.

“My disgusting boss wouldn’t stop harassing me at work all year—” more grunts, more flying seaweed “—and I didn’t know who to tell or if I was just overreacting, and what if he fired me for telling, or what if no one believed me, or or or…god it never stopped!  I hadn’t dated anyone for two years.  Two. Years. Two—” she held up two fingers high over her head “—years!  My god, the only sex I had in one 24-month period was a string of inconsistent, unsatisfying, better-make-em-wear-two-condoms hookups that would make Tinder itself grab a bell and ring it at me while droning SHAME SHAME SHAME!”

Game of Thrones reference for the win.

Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god, marry me, you insane unicorn of a girl.

“And why didn’t a decent chap want me?  The hell if I know!  I just know it made me feel like a dog.  And not a cute one!  But that doesn’t even work because all dogs are the cutest.  So no, I didn’t feel like a dog.  What’s an ugly animal…” She snapped several times, squinting at the sky, then threw her hands up when it came to her.

“Oh!  An armadillo!  Disgusting roadkill that even some cousin-kissing Appalachian hillbilly wouldn’t want!”

She screamed, dropping a clump of seaweed then jumped away as a crab skittered away from the clump.  Then she swiped her hair out of her face, growling at the creature as it disappeared into a hole in the sand, and kicked the same bunch of seaweed, checking for more creepy crawlers.  Finding none, she swiped them up again and resumed throwing the stuff as far offshore as possible.

“And ugh, oh my god, poor poor poor Carol had to listen to me bitch and moan about wishing that after dirty dancing and drinks and dinner I wouldn’t dig a divinely delectable deep dicking for dessert—”

Loki’s eyebrows shot to his hairline as his supposedly “grade A talented” brain attempted to process what the fuck those words were that had just dropped from his girl’s mouth harder than a Travis Scott hook.  Dig a divinely delectable…deep… dicking…for dessert?  That was…uh…seriously hardcore…

…alliteration.  

Teeth digging into his bottom lip, he groaned quietly, refocusing his attention on her as she continued shouting and throwing seaweed.  It was extremely hard to focus on listening to her rather than just stare at her mouth like some slack-jawed heathen now that a highly graphic image of dessert was spinning around in his head.  Difficult as it was though, he managed to get beyond Neanderthal mode quickly, and every new word from her mouth only confirmed what he already knew-

This girl is my endgame.  No option.

“—and I asked her why couldn’t I be bi like her, and was there such a thing as reverse conversion therapy, and she said ‘that’s not funny’ and I cried and cried and CRIED because every man on the planet was the worst, but for some god-awful reason I still wanted one of them to put me on some pedestal and tell me I was gorgeous—”

Oh my GOD, I have told her she is gorgeous THOUSANDS OF TIMES!  How many times do I have to say it before she’ll believe me?!  Does she think I’m lying through my teeth?!

“—and then one of my old school friends gets married over Christmas, and I was stuck being a bridesmaid for the third time just that year, and I had to do it in a hideous mauve dress that’s still in my stupid tiny closet because it cost a thousand pounds that I had to pay for, despite the fact that rent was coming up, and all that was coiling in my gut while knowing that I didn’t have someone to kiss at midnight!” She shrieked again, looking all around her feet for more things to throw, and stomping her foot when she realized she’d chucked the last available piece of seaweed in the immediate area.

“Where did it all go?!  Ahhh there’s some!” She stomped toward another clump of scraggly stuff about ten yards away.

He sighed.  He’d heard the dreaded New Years Eve 2016 story many times, and it hurt every time because it was just as shitty as his.  Maybe one day neither of them would give a fuck about it.  Maybe it wouldn’t keep popping up to kick them in their guts for years and years. 

Maybe.

Shaking his head, he looked up, keeping his eyes on the clouds while he followed the sounds of her soft footsteps and little annoyed grunts.  He was practically on her heels, but with his eyes up, he didn’t realize how close they were until she stopped to bend over, and his crotch collided with her backside at the worst angle possible.  She didn’t seem to give a damn, since she just mumbled “my bad” and moved out of his way while his eyes popped out of his skull, his jaw unhinging as he doubled over, setting his hands on his knees and trying to breathe through the pain.

She threw her next plant victim into the sea and looked back at him. “You know what this makes me think of?”

Exhaling slowly through his mouth, he carefully stood up to his full height again.  He managed to produce sounds with his mouth in response, though they were probably so raspy that she wouldn’t hear them.

“What does what make you think of?”

She pointed to his crotch. “That!”

Squinting at her, he tilted his head. “What?”

She flung her hands up. “Your balls, genius!”

GENIUS?? Oh, the DISRESPECT.

Jaw clenching, he looked down at himself, then back up at her. “What, that they just took a good walloping from your ass slamming into them?!”

“Um first, you knocked into me!  And second—” she snapped several times and pointed in all directions “—follow the connection!  Balls equal MEN!”

“Okay…” he looked sideways.  Balls.  Men.  Got it.  Point being?

“Every single problem I had was because of men!”

He shot her a look, stepping carefully toward her because the problematic things in his oh so offensive male body were not ready to just skip right up to her.  

“For god’s sake, Loki,” she rolled her eyes, leaning down to grab yet another huge chunk of seaweed, “I mean just ‘men’ generally speaking, not you, so don’t get your goddamn knickers which you clearly are not wearing in a twist.  No, all that year I was constantly thinking ‘holy shit, am I irrelevant because I’m only two years from thirty and no MEN want someone older than 25 and oh my god WHY DOES MY ENTIRE WORTH DEPEND ON WHETHER OR NOT SOME DISNEY PRINCE IS WILLING TO SLAY A DRAGON FOR ME?!’ and—”

“No no no no hold up,” he cut in, reaching out to yank the seaweed from her hand before she could throw it at him for interrupting, “I know this isn’t about me.  I know you need to get some things off your chest.  Fine.  Good.  You should be doing this—” he gestured to the scraggly stuff in his hand “—but I might forget this part about princes and dragons by the end of your rant, and this is important for me to say.  I have heard Prince Lo hundreds of times—”

“And you hate it!” She shouted over the increasingly loud wind roaring around them, trying to yank her stolen seaweed back from his hands. “I know that, and I don’t call you that!”

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT!” he yelled even louder, his chest heaving.  For the love—he couldn’t believe he was having a tug of war with her over this scratchy piece of ugly brown algae!

“Then what is the point?!”

She huffed loudly when he finally won, yanking his hands away with a snarl and throwing the seaweed as hard as his sunglasses, sending it so far across the waves they couldn’t see where it landed.  He whirled on her, bending down to get in her face, and answered her question, keeping his voice low and deep since they were nearly nose to nose now.

“I actually am your goddamn prince, that’s my point.”

Eyes blowing wide, she leaned back to see him better.  “Wha…?”

He caught her with one arm before she tripped backward from leaning back so far.  Maybe she was going to slap him there for a second, he wasn’t sure what that look in her eyes was.  It was a dark look for sure, though after another second he was fairly sure ‘dark’ wasn’t anger.  It had a bit more of a ‘take me to bed NOW’ energy about it.  He took a breath—fuck, that look is hot—trying to gather himself since apparently his balls were miraculously healed now.  Ridiculous.

“But—” he held up the forefinger of his free hand “—I am not a hero.  I am not here to slay any dragons for you.”

Her eyes lost that dark quality in an instant, switching to a shade he’d only seen on puppies, for hell’s sake.  Did she- did she look…hurt?  This fiery tough as nails fighter was sad that he wasn’t here to rescue her?  No no no no, that wasn’t right.  That look wasn’t sadness.  It was exhaustion.  She was tired.  Tired of slaying dragons on her own.

Good thing that is precisely why I AM here, sweetheart.

“Sig, I can’t do that for you.  What I can do—what I am trying to do—is give you a lift.  I bend down a bit, you stand on my shoulders, then you climb up on top of one of those dragons, and enjoy the ride of your life because you only get one.  Fly sky high, burn through every enemy, every jagoff who wants to use you and abuse you, every demon in your head lying to you, telling you that you aren’t good enough, that you don’t deserve good things, that you are hopelessly flawed, that you aren’t the most gorgeous creature in the universe, that you are weak and done.  Burn all of it, Sig.”

Her mouth fell open, and her chest stopped moving.  Her eyes seemed stuck in their wide open, watery position.  The only sign of life was the pulse in her neck, and her fingers gripping his arms with more force.

“And when the liars send their friends in to hunt you down, you burn them too.  You asked for pointers, sweetheart.  Well, there you go.  Burn them.  That’s what I do.”

Words slithered through his mind then, pushing through the chaos, through the disaster movie that was his own life…the life of an over-privileged Starboy and his gorgeous, forever Sunlight Girl…

We down four cocktails, then trash Bloomingdales.

Dancing across the easily shattered lead glass chain-mail, we mock the blaring siren’s wailー

“Sinners! Sinners! They stole our holy grail! Find those conniving thieves and give ’em hell!”

Fixing your halo in the back of a cop car, you scream at me, beyond the pale.

“You promised me a fun trip, not a trip WIRE, you devil!”

“Told you I would take you on the ride of your life, angel.”

“You KNEW that shit was too upscale!”

“They’re just shiny things to distract you from the philanthropic oppressors behind the veil!”

“Says the loaded dying star as he drags me with him into a precinct jail cell.”

“I’d say it was worth it, save for the airー not a fan of the smell.”

God, I must get us out of this No Exit hell before closing bell.

Snapping my fingers, the lights flicker and bid farewell, a hundred LED stars collapsing under a devil’s spell.

I grab you by your soft, iridescent feather wings, keeping you with me. “ Come on, angel!”

Break bail, hightail, inhale, exhaleー legs burning, we jump the guardrail and leave no trail.

Sharp black nails hooking into my shirttails, you choke on a confession. “I’m not an angel. I’m a criminal.”

“Oh my god, love, it was just overpriced RETAIL! Unlike that overpriced shit we broke, you and I aren’t for sale.”

That halo is slipping from your black cherry waves, the feathers on your back floating away on a breeze, replaced by something less frail.

Wind in our sails, we’ll laugh through endless fails, saying “fuck your fairytales!”

And even if it all derails, we’ll survive the fiery crash because this mad love is hard as dragon scales.

Gritting his teeth behind closed lips, he groaned quietly in frustration.  Once again, he inconveniently did not have anything with him to write that down on.

Christ…PLEASE don’t forget those words!

Sigyn blinked lazily, as though she’d just destroyed a bottle of wine.

You did destroy a bottle of wine, hon.

She swallowed, damn near ready to slide her hand down the front of his jersey shorts and make him pant and moan until the moment he realized he was about to come and instead would shove her to the ground and fuck her blind.  Damn right, he was her prince.  He was her everything, and he was ready to help her destroy everything that tried to hurt her.

Oh GOD, I need him inside me NOW.

She chose to finish her previous strand of thoughts instead.

“Then a few hours after stupid 12:00 am 2017, this man nearly runs me over.  He’s cooler and hotter than James Dean himself, and turns out he is that author that everyone kept going on and on about but I’d never bothered to look at a picture of him, and oh my god I get to touch this guy, and he lets me do it for longer than is socially acceptable, and he talks to me, and actually listens to me, and I have this intense moment of ‘bloody hell I think this STUNNER might be into me!’ and ‘WHEN CAN I SEE HIM AGAIN?!’ and all that other shit…” her voice broke, and she wheezed quietly, dropping to the ground and pulling her knees to her chest.

“It all just…” she tried again, sniffing as she dragged the back of her hand over her eyes, “all that other shit just faded to black.  I swear you have no idea how bright your own goddamn smile is.  Best. Teeth. Ever.”

His stomach hurt, aching from taking a thousand emotional punches from her pained voice, and he sat down in front of her.

“You know,” he started, reaching up to lift her chin with the tip of his finger, “I wrote Sunlight for you, but honestly, sweetheart…” he paused, lips pursing as he nodded to himself, “I think Starboy is about you.”

Her cheeks flushed such a pretty dark red, and she lowered her eyes.

“That is…that is an epic compliment…my god I can’t even,” she dropped her forehead to her knees, then released a heavy breath and lifted her head again. “He’s flawed as hell.”

Loki nodded.  “That he is.  Perhaps tragically so.”

“Yet everyone is absolutely mad for him.”

He tilted his head, giving her a pointed look. “Imagine that.”

“I don’t know how to answer the original ‘then what is your problem’ question that you asked before I burdened you with my crappy 2016 story for the thousandth time—”

“Which I will listen to a thousand more times if you need me to,” he cut in, flashing her a crooked smile.

Head shaking, she let out a small laugh. “You are unreal.  Sometimes I question if you are the same species as all these other idiot men.”

Smartest in the room again, thank god.

He shrugged one shoulder. “Well, there are no men like me, so I understand the confusion.”

She beamed, showing off those perfect pearly whites.

Look at this sunlight girl.

How the hell am I supposed to get through two months without her?

Her smile faded, and his eyes followed the downward curve of her lips.  Maybe she was wondering the same thing.  She looked sideways for a moment then returned her somewhat hazy gaze to him.

“I think…I think I just feel so guilty when we…make…love…” she cringed “…ugh I hate that flowery term, but in this case it’s kind of accurate, isn’t it.”

Very much so.

“Thing is, you feel so good and…dammit…I sound insane,” she said, covering her face.

Eyes widening, his mouth fell open.  The last two months were piecing themselves together now.  Feeling like dying.  Wanting to die, but wanting to live because you can’t come back if you pull that trigger, and what if it was going to get better?  What if you pulled the plug too soon?  You must live.  You have this one shot at it.   But what is living?  Does just breathing count?  Just breathing isn’t good enough, is it.  Feeling good—feeling amazing—even if only for a little while, that’s what keeps those lungs going.  Right?  Lungs want to breathe good, healthy, clean air, not smoke.  Otherwise those lungs stop working.  

Oh…oh no.

Thoughts, words, emotions, stories, experiences, good, bad, ugly—all broken glass shards that picked themselves up and went back into the forge, reminding the glassblower to not drop them after they came out of the fire and cooled off this time around.  They could only handle getting burned so many times before they just gave up and stayed broken.  He leaned forward and slid his arms under hers, and she let him pull her against him.

Dying stars, this hurts.

“Because when we do that,” he said, “you’re really moving on.  You’re alive and in love and your fully functioning, young, healthy body is physically experiencing that love.  You’re too happy with me.  You’re not devastated for Tony, and you feel like he deserves more than a couple months of mourning.  Is that what you mean?”

Looking at him through her fingers as though she knew the jump scare in the movie was coming, she nodded, then hesitantly set her hands on his arms.

“He’s still dead,” she croaked, unconsciously twisting the cotton fabric covering his shoulders as he leaned his forehead against hers

“And I’ll still be here when you’re not sad to be happy again, sweetheart.”  He meant it.  He wasn’t going anywhere.

Her eyes popped suddenly.  It was as though she had only just realized it.

“Except you won’t be.  You’ll be in Europe.  For two months.  I only have three days with you,” she said, choking on the words. “Three days.  Three.  Days.  Oh my god.”

He chewed his lip quietly for a moment as she gaped at him.

“I know,” he mumbled, nodding resolutely, “but Sig, we’ll—”

He stopped short of saying ‘be okay’ because it was one of those phrases that he despised.  People only said it to try to short circuit fear or pain or any other number of deeply unpleasant emotions.  Rarely did they mean it, or believe it, and he was a stickler when it came to words.  If he lied, it was calculated and convincing, and he wasn’t prepared to lie right now.

“FaceTime,” he said finally, clearing his throat, “we’ll Facetime.”

“A lot,” she agreed, pushing his hair behind his ears, “and text and call.”

They silently stared at each other for a minute, maybe two.  He couldn’t precisely say how long, since time tended to move at strange intervals with her.  She threaded her fingers into his tied back hair as one of those tears in her eyes fell.  He wiped it away with his thumb, and she just…sort of…fell into him…as though she was collapsing under her own weight.

He dragged her closer, pulling her into his lap and whispering “I’ve got you” into her hair as she wrapped her legs around his waist and cried into his neck.  She could collapse into him all she needed, but he wouldn’t let this star girl collapse into herself.

~12:29am, January 1, 2020~

Present day.

“I’ll rephrase,” Loki said, coming to the edge of the bed and leaning down to Sigyn’s eye level, “I do not want to keep living if I have to do so without you.”

Her watery eyes, only visible from the fireworks flashing, blew wide open, and her hold on the underside of her shaking legs that she’d pulled to her chest a few moments earlier loosened.  She placed her hands flat on the bed behind her instead, her painted dark red nails digging into the blanket.  The movement pulled his attention away from her eyes and mouth down to her inner thighs.  Jaw clenching, he breathed harder.  If only she would turn directly toward the window, then that short skirt wouldn’t be casting a shadow over the place he ached to be.  His eyes traveled up and down her legs again.

            Wait…Sig hadn’t removed those Louis V’s?  Oh, he could see it perfectly.  Getting on his knees, yanking her backside to the edge of the bed, pushing her thighs apart, those fucking gorgeous stilettos digging into the mattress as he leaned forward and slowly slid his tongue up and down…

           God almighty—truly, there was no blood left in his head.  

            She said something impossibly quiet then. He thought he heard “oh fuck me, Loki.”

            Think you imagined that, LO.

            No, I was watching her lips.  She definitely said that.

            How very convenient for you, eh?

            He set his hands on her knees, and she looked down at them momentarily, watching his thumbs make circles on her skin.  Stars above, she needed to feel those hands slide down between her legs.  Lifting her eyes to his again, she let him push her knees further apart, and he did exactly what she wanted, smoothing his hands up her inner thighs.  He stopped about an inch short of the place that should have been his final destination, and she bit her lip, fighting the urge to scream “oh my god, Loki, KEEP GOING” right in his perfect face.  

            He leaned in to kiss her, sparing her from having to fight any longer, and she sat up a bit to get closer to him as he pressed his lips too lightly against hers.  She angled her head to the right, opening her mouth, hoping he would do the same and add some damn heat to this kiss, but he only barely parted his lips, and his tongue was completely MIA.  This was…this was not enough.  For the love, she wanted him to kiss her harder than he had in front of her door.  He was being far too careful with her, which to be fair, made perfect sense considering her hesitant behavior five minutes ago.  Still—could he not see that she was absolute putty in his hands now?  Not literal putty, but close enough.  Come now, she took gymnastics for a decade, and muscle memory was no joke. Her flexibility was a point of pride, and she was more than a little desperate for him to twist her like a damn pretzel.  Maybe he just needed to hear her say it.

            “Loki, I’m okay,” she whispered against his (unfortunately) closed mouth, running her thumbs along his cheekbones.

            Bend me however you want.

           His lips stayed so…static…when she moved to kiss him again, and if she didn’t know better, she might think his entire purpose in showing up here tonight was to dangle himself in front of her like a goddamn carrot.

            “I swear I won’t break,” she whined softly, grasping at his shoulders, then his neck, his arms, his belt…all of which felt more like grasping at straws.

            Please, please, please, please, please…

           She wasn’t above saying it—above begging him to drive his hips into hers like a fucking god (pun intended!) just like he used to.  Arching up into him, she whined his name, and as though this “god” was answering her silent prayer, he groaned and finally kissed her back properly.  There was nothing static about him now.  Potential energy turned kinetic.

            Way to remember SOMETHING from science class, girlie.

            Twenty blissful seconds later, he downright stole his mouth away from her and gave her a dark look that could be considered somewhat…scary…in another context.  

            “I’m not afraid of breaking you, sweetheart,” Loki said, his fingers digging into her hip and curling into her hair.

            God, if the thrilled knots in her stomach tightened any further, she might throw up, which would make her vastly more appealing to him.  His hands felt like heaven, and he was hardly doing anything.  The simple fact that these were his hands, and they were on her was all the effort required to make her thighs shake.  The heat in his eyes probably had something to do with that.  That, and his voice was filled with more smoke than the ongoing fireworks show in midtown.

            A firework show that will be over any moment now…right, hon?

            Everything other than her heart froze in time as the thought flitted across her mind.  Suddenly she was spinning, and it wasn’t a giddy, fun, excited spin.  It was like being stuck in a giant tornado with the words from Loki’s soon to be published third book, which she’d read at her office the day his editor handed the manuscript off to Val to return to him last September.

            Rather than give it to him in person, Val had given it to Carol so that she could just drop it off with Sigyn at work.  That would save Val a trip to Loki’s place or some other meeting point during already overpacked schedules.  He hadn’t explicitly said “do not read this yet” to her, so she’d delved right into the pages during lunch that day.

            She hadn’t known what to expect, other than knowing it would be a hard-hitting bestseller no matter what.  After all, his editor had already given it a five star review in an email the day before, and she’d caught snippets of it on his laptop screen over his shoulder periodically throughout the year, which though out of context, were pretty as hell from the looks of it.

            Thinking back on it now, something in her gut had already been gnawing at her when she turned that first page, telling her to pull her hopes for some swoon worthy Sunlight repeat back down to the ground.  He’d been so secretive about his third novel, and that should have been an indicator.  2019 hadn’t exactly been kind to them.  Stress levels had been climbing consistently from the start of it.  Nonstop work, endless grind, Tony dying, sleepless nights, depressed moods, car crashes, fighting and fucking and fighting again, excessive alcohol, Atlantic-sized barriers between them, sexual harassment and assault…

            For BOTH of us.

            From the first paragraph, even if the author’s name had been removed from the title page, she would have known it was his writing.  Just like his first two books, the third had that same moody stream of consciousness, overly-self-aware-and-knows-it energy about it.  It was Loki-typical dreamy, and the lit crits would eat it up…again.  One of them once called him a “raw, unaffected writer” in a review, and they wouldn’t take it back after reading his new work.  If only he’d been a little less raw, maybe she would have read it through to the end.  She’d shut it down at page 27 because…

            That’s when the firework show ended.

            Oh god, she didn’t want to think about it—the words on that page or the day itself.  She wanted to snap her fingers and watch September 30th, 2019 disappear in a puff of smoke from her memories.  She slammed her eyes shut, wishing that day into oblivion.  If only the back of her eyelids weren’t absolutely covered with Loki’s page 27-word graffiti:

One pill, two weeks.  That’s all it takes to save her life, not that she knows this consciously.  The lack of deadened circles under her eyes are proof enough as they lift to look at mine, staring at me over the lucky paper coffee cup kissing her mouth.

“You’re staring,” she says, hiding a smile behind that cup.  Happiness radiates from her sun kissed cheeks.

“And YOU’RE assuming,” I counter, pointing to the aviators hiding my eyes.

My mouth is a thin line, an unwavering mask of stoicism, unaffected by the fireworks in my chest.  The glass windows reflect the sun onto the concrete beneath us, heating the city air around us.  I squint behind those obscenely expensive plastic mirrors.

She leans over the cafe table, pulling my glasses down. “I’m right.”

I feel the skin around my eyes crinkle, the mask fading. “I said you were assuming.  I didn’t say the assumption was wrong.”

Her face splits, white teeth baring themselves easily, bold and unafraid.  I wish the skin hiding behind her shirt and beneath her skirt would be so daring.  My face falls, the crinkles disappearing, my chest deflating as she sets her cup down and rises from her chair.  She walks away, and I am lost in that short green skirt.  Daylight drowns under the shadows between the pleats as she moves.  I hear her speaking over the clinking of sidewalk silverware and broken English and footsteps and car horns and squealing brakes.  Her rasping voice is louder than the lower west side during lunch hour.

“You coming with me?”

The inside of my skull screams “oh don’t I wish” as I approach her and take her hand.  We live in the dog days of summer, yet her fingers are ice as she drags me down the pavement, suggesting we change our clothes and go for a run.  She’s out of her goddamn mind, and she knows it.  Running at high noon?  In 90-degree heat?  I agree to it anyway because the suffering will be over as soon as it starts.  She’s not a runner.  Not by a long shot.  She won’t last more than five minutes.

Five minutes turns into a week’s worth of completely unintentional sweat-soaked 5Ks.  I fear this will become routine.  I prefer running alone.  I am in love, but the firework show ended two days ago, leaving nothing but smoke and ringing ears in its wake.  Without the space between us, she becomes me, and I become her.  I’ve never been particularly fond of the person in this body, but I think I’m the best man for the job.  I am behind bones, not bars.  Millions at my disposal, yet I’ll never make bail.  She has no place here with me.  Angels don’t belong in hell.

            Still underneath him, tears burned Sigyn’s eyes.  Of all the complicated insane metaphors spinning around in his head, why had he chosen fireworks?  In doing so, he’d put into words for the entire bloody world to read, something personal—something private and deeply significant to her.  Fireworks were supposed to belong to them.  To Loki Odinson and Sigyn Frey…to Starboy and Sunlight.  No one knew that January 1st was their day.  Not Darcy, not her mum, not his mum, or Hela, or Val, or Bucky, or Thor or anyone else.  To everyone else, “early 2017” was close enough.  The idea of him obsessing over the perfect, most poetic (and tragic!) imagery to describe the loss of “that loving feeling” and deciding to go with “firework show’s over kids- go home” had left her feeling gutted.

            “Sig?”

           Even though he was right there, inches from her face, Loki’s voice was a distant echo.

            “Sweetheart?”

           The affectionate, loving pet name pulled her out of September 2019 (technically the earliest hours of October) and brought her back to the earliest hours of January 2020.  She met his eyes, blinking away tears.

            He sighed, dropping his forehead to hers. “Should I be scared of breaking you?”

            You swore you wouldn’t break, sweetheart…tell me that wasn’t a lie.

           God damn, he was hard as hell and between her perfect legs on New Year’s Day, and he needed her to be okay.  No, being “okay” wasn’t good enough.  He needed her to shamelessly beg him for it, because she hesitated after he took that chair into her living room as well as just now, both of which were setting off warning sirens in his head.

           Eyebrows pulling together, he inhaled and exhaled slowly as though taking a relaxing drag of the air itself.  Three months alone, doing stupid shit to numb the pain of having to do life without her, wishing he could take back whatever the hell he did wrong, or whatever he didn’t do that he should have done, then finally losing what was left of his bruised ego and coming to her (with hopes of coming in her), and now he was actually considering keeping it in his trousers for her sake.

            My god, I love this girl to the stars and back.

            Sigyn looked all over his face. “Loki, I—” her mouth snapped shut abruptly as the anxiety turned her stomach almost violently.  Along with the aftereffects of maybe too much alcohol, it was enough to send the few contents of her stomach up into her throat.

            Loki frowned. “Sig, what—”

Slapping a hand to her mouth, Sigyn shoved his shoulders, and he sat up and back instantly.  She scrambled off her bed and dashed for her bathroom, slamming the door behind her to spare him from the sight, though she wouldn’t be able to do anything about the wretched sound.

            Happy Fucking New Year.

---

~9:30pm, June 7, 2019~

Seven months prior

(Two hours after the car crash before leaving for Montauk)

            Elbow on the driver’s side window, Loki leaned his head into his palm, stopping to give plenty of room to the car pulling out of a street parking spot a few blocks from JB’s building on 150 Joralemon Street in Brooklyn.   Flipping on his right turn signal, he tapped the steering wheel repeatedly, his patience wearing thin as he waited for this wannabe-DMV-sloth driver to hurry along.  He would just drive on if this hadn’t been the first damn parking space that he’d seen within a five-block radius.  This was always a busy area, what with being only one block from five trains, most of which were a one stop shop straight to Manhattan, but the traffic tonight was absurd.  

            Sigyn groaned in the passenger seat, banging her head softly on the dash above the glove box.  “This is madness.  It’s supposed to be Brooklyn Heights, not bloody Times Square!”

            “There’s a reason we avoid that place like the plague,” he muttered, checking his mirrors.  No one was immediately behind him, gratefully.

            “Why won’t Darce bloody respond to me?” she growled, gritting her teeth so hard it hurt. “She has left me on read all damn day!”

            Truly, it hurt so much that her forever best friend (the person she would need most to get through the next two months!) hadn’t called her back after she left that panicky voicemail while Loki was helping Ana next to her crashed car earlier—“Hey Darce, I really need to talk to you. Just, you know, I need to hear your voice. You’re my best friend on the planet. Please call me. I’m in a bad place right now. Okay, love you. Bye.” Thoroughly lost in the image of crunched cars and broken bleeding people, she jumped at the sound of Loki’s voice.

            “Sweetheart, my ears need you to take it down a notch.” Yes, he was pissed off too, but his girl was yelling right next to him, and in a small, enclosed car, no less.

            “Sorry,” she lowered her voice, and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Does Bucky leave you hanging like this?  Of course, he doesn’t.  He loves you.  Everyone loves you.”

            Everyone wants you to STAY.

            “That is a patently false statement,” he objected, kissing the top of her head as he opened his last texts with JB. “You know Lewis loves you to death, but she’s as flaky as clinical strength dandruff.  You’re just too used to my rapid response time.”

            Curling her hand around his elbow, she swallowed the lump in her throat.  He was right.  He’d raised the bar, made everyone else look sloppy and inconsiderate, and now she had to adjust back to normal humdrum life without him.  Now was probably a good time to practice counting calming breaths just like he’d taught her to (and taught again and again) every time work stress started getting out of hand.  She would need it at the airport on Tuesday.  Otherwise she would hyperventilate in the checked baggage line while giving him that one final hug before two months of nothing.

            That, or I’ll get arrested for breaking through the JFK security lines to chase down my boyfriend in the Virgin Atlantic international terminal.

            She sniffled a bit and reached up to rub her suddenly wet eyes, forcing a these-aren’t-tears-they’re-just-dry-tired-eyes yawn, then sat upright to get away from the unpleasant twitchy sensation of his right forearm as he texted back and forth.  Clearly, his friend loved him, and why wouldn’t he?  Loki was so…he was…so…oh…what was the best adjective?  Chewing her bottom lip, she frowned, trying to pull some fancy, fifty-cent word out of her brain.  Okay, writing was clearly not her strong suit, nor was she a walking thesaurus.

            Simply (and accurately) put, Loki is the most amazing man in the universe.

            Correction: most amazing human being.

            Goodness knew she was mad for him.  Though in her current heartbreaking situation, she wished she’d never fallen for him.  Tuesday would be a nightmare.  She wouldn’t be able to let go of him.  Maybe she should quit her job.  He’d told her that he could cover the costs of her bills and rent for however long she needed him to.  All she needed was an internet connection to search for a new job, which meant that she could do it from anywhere.  Namely, every city on Loki’s book tour.  His sudden voice made her jump a little in her seat.

            “Oh, what marvelous timing,” he said, rolling his eyes. “JB said that the prep school across from his building had a graduation event tonight, and oh apparently the entire tri-state area attended it.”

            Releasing a heavy breath, he leaned his head back so he wouldn’t bang it against the steering wheel.  Normally the extra traffic wouldn’t bother him to this extent, but that crash earlier had shaken his nerves, and he felt like a sitting duck on this street.  He pinched the bridge of his nose, then turned up the music to drown out the rumbling engines of car after car driving by right next to him.  A century later, he was still waiting for this goddamn parking spot, and he finally broke his calm exterior.

            Hitting the steering wheel with his palm- whack! -he shouted at the unmoving car, each word punctuated with another hit.

            “OH—” whack “—MY—” whack “—GOD!!”

            WHACK.

            He dragged his hand down his face. “What did I ever do to this person??”

            His mini outburst probably should have unnerved Sigyn.  However, the deep, gritty tone of his voice was making her shaky for an entirely different reason.  If she had it her way, she would climb over the middle console and straddle him right now.  Rolling her head to the side to look at him, her eyebrows pulled together as she bit her lip.

            Good god, his profile…that tight, angry jaw… why do I like his nose THIS much…I have problems.

            CLEARLY.

            “Seriously, come on,” he growled, white knuckling the wheel with his left hand while moving the gear shift side to side with his right hand as was his habit any time the car was in neutral.  He was on the verge of giving up on this spot, but then JB texted him, and he looked down at the final text on the screen—

            Eyes blowing wide, his head snapped up to see the driver pulling away.

            “FINALLY,” Loki growled, jamming the clutch to the floor with his left foot while yanking the gearshift hard left and straight back into first.  He released the clutch while giving it some gas, and so the tricky dance of rapid gear switching began.

            Eyes dancing fluidly between mirrors, parked cars, moving ones, pedestrians, and the car’s parking cam dash display, he sped forward one car’s length beyond the space, then braked hard and fast.  Clutch to the floor again, he shoved the stick all the way forward, shifting into reverse.

            “Head down, sweetheart,” Loki said, setting his right hand on the back of the passenger side headrest and twisting his entire torso to watch behind him.

            “Oh right, sorry!”

            Sigyn ducked forward but kept her eyes on Loki because—oh hell—seeing him dominate…or ehm…drive stick shifts like a damn pro turned her body to jelly every time.  It was second only to her hair kink. 

           Heart kicking into high gear (oh the unintentional puns), she watched Loki’s tongue poke out to wet his lips as he turned the wheel with his left hand.  Right hand still on the headrest, he stepped on the gas and whipped the car back into the parking space with perfect aim.  Lord, the man made it look effortless.  Sigyn sighed, sitting upright again as Loki shifted back into neutral and yanked up the parking brake.

            “Loki Odinson, you sold your soul to be able to drive like that,” she said, shaking her head. “It is the only explanation.”

            Killing the engine, he grinned crookedly as he unbuckled his seat belt. “Yet another reason to think I’m the villain in this story.”

            He then carefully leaned over the parking brake, slid one hand up her inner thigh and the other behind her neck.  Just as his lips touched hers, the cars that had been stuck behind the red light a block behind them drove by, several of which honked, then they heard several shouts and whistles.

            “Look at this slick motherf—” 

            He then carefully leaned over the parking brake, slid one hand up her inner thigh and the other behind her neck.  Just as his lips touched hers, the cars that had been stuck behind the red light a block behind them drove by, several of which honked, then they heard several shouts and whistles.

            “Boy. What. Even.”

            “He said SWERVE.”

            “God. DAMN. That job was clean as HELL.”

            “Boy told Vin Diesel HOLD MY BEER.”

            “YOU HAVE LEVELED UP, SON.”

            Other words and phrases were spoken, but he had no clue how the hell to translate what he assumed was Gen Z slang.  Her shoulders started shaking, and he laughed out loud when she snorted against his mouth.  The rapid fire back and forth conversation on the sidewalk outside was absolutely bonkers.

            She eyed the group from behind the safety of tinted windows. “Please explain what ‘swerve’ means in this context,” she asked, trying to gain control of her snickering.

            “Sure, I can answer that, no problem,” he replied, grabbing his phone to text JB that he was right across the street from his building. “I just need to search through the ‘shit kids will say in 2019’ section of Encarta first.”

            She opened her door at the same time he did, and as he walked around to her side, she arched one eyebrow at him.

            “What’s Encarta?” she asked, head tilted in confusion.

            Just before he reached her, he halted mid-step, eyeing her from under his brow. “Oh my god, please be joking.”

            Eyes rolling hard enough to get stuck behind their sockets, she reached forward, curled her fingers into the fabric of his perfectly fitted, plain black V-neck tee and dragged him to her.

            “Um…of course I’m joking,” she said, wrapping one arm around his neck and pulling him with her as she leaned back against the car window.  For pity’s sake, she was born in ‘88, not ‘98.

            Going up onto her toes to reach his ear, she whispered, “I even used card catalogues back in the day.”

            “I love it when you talk dirty to me,” he deadpanned, looking at the text that just popped up on his phone as she laughed against the hollow of his throat.

            JB: be out in 5 or so. Darce is still packing 

            Jaw clenching, Loki tapped the convenient “thumbs down” icon over the text.  It occurred to him then, as he slid his phone into his back pocket, that Sig was no longer laughing into his neck, but gliding her lips and tongue over it.  His eyes rolled back, and he suppressed a loud groan.

            “Easy, woman,” he hissed, pressing the heel of his hand against the top edge of the door frame, his short-trimmed nails digging into his palm as she closed her mouth over the skin below the hinge of his jaw.  Sure, since it was dark out here, their excessively close contact wasn’t entirely visible, but still. “There are children present.”

            “Then we should get back in the car,” she suggested quietly.

            Stars above, she wanted him to control her just like he’d controlled this mint condition, freshly waxed, gunmetal grey 6-speed.  She wanted to hear him say “head down, sweetheart” for reasons other than being able to see out the window.  She was also breaking apart inside over what would happen on Tuesday, and the combined emotions made it damn near impossible for her to keep her hands off him.  All signs pointed toward getting back in the car and driving somewhere without prying eyes.

            Since he was approximately three seconds from saying “screw it” and grinding against her in a decidedly not family friendly fashion on a crowded street, he gritted his teeth and forced a few inches between their hips.  As she blinked wide-eyed up at him, tugging on his neck a little, he watched her perfect teeth scrape over her bottom lip, and for just a moment, he forgot they were surrounded by people.  During those seven seconds of heat-induced blind delirium, he shoved his knee between her thighs to push them apart, but he snapped out of it quickly and stepped back, his eyes blowing when he heard his name spoken by several unfamiliar voices over the sound of the loud traffic.

            “Is that Loki Odinson?”

            “Oh my god, it is him.”

            As though it might offer him some reprieve from the gravity holding him down on this street where he was too goddamn visible to the world around him, he looked up at the night sky with pleading eyes.  He might just push Sig back into this car and take off toward his place.  He could text JB to take the R train to Canal once Lewis finished packing up her entire house for a two-day trip. 

            A different voice asked, “Who’s L—…uh…what was the name?”

            “How do you NOT know who Loki Odinson is?”

            He exhaled slowly, resisting the temptation to pull a dick move and walk right up to them and say “he doesn’t know who I am the same way that YOU don’t know that I’m not a fucking A-list, household name” to that person’s face.  To be fair though, he was about to jet-set around Europe for eight weeks as though he was an A-lister.  How had he allowed HC to sucker him into this nightmare?  Was the tour sold out?  Yes.  Would he meet thousands of people who adored him?  Yes.  Would all those happy, excited faces and possible squealing and heart-warming personal stories of how his books helped them get through something in their own lives make up for a forced existence outside of New York and everything he loved for two months straight?

            I’m not counting on it.

              “Why would he know who Lo is?  You know Jayden can’t read.”

            I don’t know these people, but I’m inclined to be offended on “Jayden’s” behalf.

            “Can’t read? Woman, did I ask you to spell something?”

            “Books!  Books!  Books!”

            Eyebrows pulling together, Loki pursed his lips.  Uh…what was that person even saying?  Well, he wasn’t exactly surprised by that impossible to follow response, because given the decibel of their slightly slurred voices, unsteady steps, raucous laughing and wildly flinging gestures, he was 99.9% certain that this group was utterly wasted.  He didn’t judge people for such things, of course, but the extra alcohol had taken what would otherwise be “talking” and turned it into accidental shouting.

            If only they weren’t shouting about ME, it would be like watching decent stand-up.

            The one who had asked the question- poor “illiterate” Jayden -looked rightly confused.

           “Now you’re just yellin’ random shit like you got Tourette’s.  Or a toddler who learned a new word.  Or had one too many edibles.”

            Okay, I like this Jayden kid.

            “No, you gotta actually read books to know who Lo is ‘cause he’s an author.”

            Actually, darling, I’ve no doubt that most people who read books have no idea who I am.

            “Did you say ‘Hulu is’ or ‘who Lo is’?  Nah, you know what?  I don’t care.”

            Neither should I, yet here I am questioning my writing capabilities simply because not everyone “cares” to open my books.

            “She’s talkin’ about the guy who wrote Starboy and Sunlight.  He’s standing right over there.”

           Oh for—why does everyone drop “Looking for” from the title? Is it some catchy “S” theme to them?

            The title of his third novel, which he was planning to announce in September, was Satellite Tides, and he should probably prepare for that to turn into just Satellite instead.  He rolled his eyes, annoyed that he was speculating over inconsequential nonsense.  Scratching the back of his neck, he scowled at the ground, still listening to their conversation.

            Someone else said, “Starboy was hot as hell, but ugh… Sunlight?  Um, MARRY ME.”

            Pressing his lips together, his chest deflated.  They’d likely beg him for a divorce after the new one.  He glanced at Sig in his periphery then, his mouth falling open a bit as his heart rate started to climb a little too quickly.  This was the first time he’d realized that his new novel would feel like a breakup, like a relationship falling apart…until the last two chapters.  What a horribly timed revelation, here on a packed street in Brooklyn.  Maybe he should put a disclaimer on the first page.

TO AVOID BURNING EVERYTHING TO THE GROUND, READ ALL 311 PAGES OF THIS BOOK!

            No, that would violate his “no spoilers” policy.  The only thing he could say was “finish the book, and then we’ll talk about it” and hope that no one served him papers for breaking their hearts in the first bloody chapter.  Swallowing nervously, he dropped his forehead to his girl’s shoulder.

            Sliding one hand up to the back of his head, she leaned her cheek against his temple, unsure what was making him this upset.  No doubt he was aware of the conversation between those most likely university-aged students, and overhearing people discuss him often made him a little uncomfortable, which might be a contributing factor.  However, his current demeanor seemed legitimately pained.  They were still talking about him, and it was probably best to get the hell away from them before something uncouth was said.

            “Want to go to the other sidewalk?” she asked, lacing her fingers with his.  

            Without hesitation, he said, “Yes please.”

           Once the traffic cleared, he hurried across the street, dragging her with him.  Maybe it was the car crash or the inevitable book tour or the fear of taking a nose dive off of that pedestal the critics had put him on after the last one, but he did not want to hear people talk about his books.  Unhealthy as it was, he needed to prove that everything he created was worthy, and compared to the others, his new novel would probably be a letdown.  Fantastic- now he was so keyed up about it that, for the first time, he would prefer to hear vapid, overly sexual commentary about his body right now.  Trying to shake off the negativity in his head, he blew out a breath and tightened his grip on her hand as they stepped up onto the curb.  Whatever- looks or books -at least they hadn’t said a word about Sig.

           Hearing people talk about his girl tended to send him flying over the edge with more gravitas than Thelma and Louise.  Most people were nice and respectful, but even so, a small population of obsessive, predacious “fans” just would not stop fixating on her.  They came up with the most lunatic reasons to justify hating her, and they weren’t afraid to voice it through their goddamn internet megaphones.  The most recent instance had happened during Sig’s unintentional weight loss while grieving for her dead friend.  Those absolute monsters came after her for perpetuating “ultra-thin beauty standards” and thereby promoting eating disorders.  Talk about making one’s blood boil-he’d punched an actual hole in his drywall.  That was the first time he’d responded with an overtly candid (and long) Instagram post about the hate directed at her—

***To my KIND fans:  THANK YOU for always being lovely, supportive, and respectful, especially during this emotionally trying month. I hope to be able to thank you in person one day, and if that happens, I’ll dole out massive hugs for it.  Now please feel free to ignore the rest of this post, because my next words are exceedingly harsh, and spattered with explicit angry language, and I assure you that they are not meant for you darlings. -LO x 

(Also, won’t it be hilarious if one of the people from the group below actually flags this post as “abusive”?—Oh my god, the IRONY)

To the self-entitled brats claiming to “care” for me while simultaneously harassing my girlfriend:

I wish I could brush this off as gag-inducing drama driven by fickle “fans” who will likely move on to obsessing over the private life of some other unfortunate “celebrity” (I don’t believe I fit into that category but whatever) in a month or two.  However, you twats have been tagging my girl in hateful posts and/or leaving abusive comments, be it on her page or mine, for two and a half goddamn years, and the frequency with which you do so has not declined but rather INCREASED, therefore, I have (unsurprisingly) reached my breaking point.  The gloves are off.

According to my social media team’s estimates, out of my nearly 300K followers, you lot make up less than 1%.  That sounds like nothing, but it isn’t nothing if one accounts for how fucking LOUD you are.  This is the first and last time I’ll address your absurd, grossly inappropriate, openly obsessive behavior in one of my posts.  I get it.  Your hormones have run amuck.  You have NEEDS.  I’m not stopping you from being as loud as you want amongst yourselves, but for the love of god, you continually tag me (and my girlfriend!) in your beyond vulgar posts and in MY comments on MY posts.  What the hell is WRONG with you?

Until now, I’ve been “gracious” with you wretched creatures, because apparently, most of you are at least fifteen years my junior, and I’d rather not waste my time arguing with people who can’t even rent a fucking car.  HOWEVER, we are nearly halfway through 2019, and I have now been tagged in 3,521 rude, harassing, or downright abusive posts and/or comments.  I’ve seen “EDUCATE URSELF LO” (or some equally insipid version thereof) in response to bullshit articles, disgusting rumors, and deliberate misinterpretations of goings on in my personal life, which supposedly “prove” that the person I love is “problematic.”  If you all genuinely thought you could continue to “OMG DRAG HER!” without losing “access” to ME, you should consider having your heads checked. (For obvious reasons, I know several psychiatrists who might be able to help you all combat your seemingly insurmountable Misery-esque neurosis.  Oh dear, did I just say ANOTHER problematic thing?  THE HORROR.)

Barely legal “adults” telling a 36-year old ACTUAL adult to “educate” himself is not only peak Karen, but peak c**t.  If you had even a shred of class, you wouldn’t throw mind-numbingly pathetic toddler-style tantrums on public social media platforms due to, for instance, some random picture of me kissing my girlfriend.  Newsflash: I’m in love with her, and I don’t want anyone BUT her, so…tough shit.  I swear to everything, you are not only an embarrassment to me, but to my respectful, caring, intelligent, thoughtful, big-hearted, NOT creepy readers/fans for whom I have great affection.  They deserve the world, and it is only for their sakes that I remain active at ALL on this account.

I’ve instructed my social media team to “take out the trash” starting tomorrow, but before they drop Les Enfant Terribles into internet nothingness on my behalf, since I think #Starboy said it best, I’ll give him the last words: “[...] here you are, hell-bent on tying me down, both figuratively and literally.  I know these velvet ropes really do it for you, but I’m not your fucking submissive.  I’m not your mountain to climb.  I’m not your challenge.  I’ll never be your greatest conquest. [...] you’ll never actually drive this car.  You don’t know how to drive a stick anyway, and I sure as hell won’t be your training vehicle.  Go practice stalling out on some old cash-for-clunkers reject.” ***

            His team still sifted through his mentions once a week to get rid of the haters, but even so, some of the nastiness still made its way to him, and ever since the first bitchy comment showed up in his notifications two years ago, he’d been extremely wary any time people said a word about her.  So… again…even though he was currently amid a mini freak out about Satellite Tides and didn’t want to hear his books discussed, at least this group on JB’s street wasn’t going on about Sig.

            Of course, just as that tiny silver lining crossed his mind, one of them ruined it by mentioning her.  

            “Who’s that girl with him?”

            Loki turned his head sharply in their direction, staring daggers even though there was no way that they could possibly see it.  Dammit—he’d crossed the street so he wouldn’t have to hear them anymore!  So much for that.

           One of the others replied, “That is definitely his girlfriend. I follow her on Insta.”

            You mean you STALK my girlfriend on Insta.

            Calm. Down.

            “The one from Sunlight, right?”

            “She’s not in it. He just dedicated it to her.”

            “How dare she steal my husband from me.”

            No one STOLE me.  I chased Sigyn Frey like a madman from day ONE.

            “Zane, he’s like twenty years older than you!”

            Oh no no no.  I’m going to be sick. That kid is only 16.

            “Uh no. He’s 36, not 46.”

            Oh, thank god—26 is an ACCEPTABLE age.

            Wait…did that mean these people thought he looked 46?  As though he wasn’t already paranoid about his slowly (sadly) receding hairline…

            “Sig…N… Frey… weird name.”

            Weird? Alright, BECKY. 

            “Don’t leave comments like that.  Sometimes Lo goes OFF on people for talkin’ about her.  And sometimes even for benign shit.”

            “Like…he’ll reply directly to them?”

            Absolutely I will, and my publicist despises me for it.

            “Yup.  He even wrote a whole post warning people to leave her alone back in May.  Granted, his reason for that post was legit.  But still.  He’s kinda volatile.”

            I prefer the term “certifiably moody” but whatever.

            “I want him to be volatile on top of me. HAHAHAHAHAHA.”

            Jesus. Christ.

            “How old is this Sigyn girl?”

            Old enough to remember card catalogues at least.

            “Probably like 22 cuz Lo can literally get it.”

            Raising an eyebrow, he pursed his lips.  22?  Uh…no thank you.  No hate, but that age couldn’t remember a time before the internet, which would make him feel positively geriatric. It would be just sex, and that no longer interested him, though he doubted anyone would believe him if he said as much.  He’d had his fill of purely physical encounters.  The only thing that interested him—would ever interest him—was currently holding his hand, which come to think of it, wasn’t close enough for his liking.  Running his free hand through his hair, he let go of Sigyn’s hand and wrapped his arm around her waist, tucking her into his side.  Those people weren’t saying anything cruel or rude, but—shit—he really was too protective for his own good.

            Too “volatile” for my own good… and that’s WITH treatment.

            Gratefully, JB and Lewis rounded the corner then, sparing him from giving further attention to a group of strangers who weren’t saying anything harmful but had nonetheless set him on an excessively self-conscious mental path.  Right now, he ought to simply be with his friends, since it would be his last chance to do so for a while.

            Arms wide open, Darcy hurried to Sigyn. “Dude-” she glared at Loki’s arm around Sigyn’s waist “-I want to hug my bestie, so move your clingy ass over.  I’m so sorry for not getting back to you, Siggy.  Shitty insane day at work, and all that…”

            Sigyn hugged her like her life depended on it. “It’s fine.”

            It’s NOT AT ALL fine, Darce, but whatever. I LOVE YOU.

            Darcy kissed her cheek and threw her arms around her neck. “Seriously, Loki.  Come on, useless boy.  Help Bucky with my bags,” she said, hugging her friend even closer.

            She pointed to the bag she’d dropped on the ground when she’d first come waltzing out of the building, and Loki blinked mutely at her for a moment before eyeing the yellow polka dot bag next to him on the ground.  He made a face. Dear god—were his eyes bleeding?  The thing was hideous.  No no no no no, surely even weak-armed Lewis could handle that measly little bag.  It couldn’t be more than half full.  Admittedly, the woman already had one bag slung over her shoulder, and it looked like it was the heavier of the two, but that was on her for packing a thousand bags.  He was feeling less than generous in a myriad of ways, and that was before anyone ordered him to go anywhere near that yellow atrocity.

            He touched it with the toe of his sneaker. “Tell me you don’t mean this one.”

            “Uh, yeah, genius,” she called out to him over her shoulder as she dragged his girl away from him toward the car, “Do you see any others?”

            Did Lewis just, at an offensive decibel, sarcastically call him a genius right here on a packed street in Brooklyn?  

            Cool it, LO.

           I don’t have to COOL a goddamn thing!

            Sig’s friend let go of her just as they reached the edge of the pavement and turned around to face him, looking back and forth from him to the thing on the ground.  Why couldn’t he think of any clever retort?  His quick wit was bailing on him, and oh it was pissing him off.  Dammit—his suddenly useless brain was giving him a highly annoying eye twitch.

            Bucky walked up behind him then. “Doll, it’s not even heavy,” he said loud enough for her to hear him from twenty feet away on a crowded sidewalk.

            Darcy smiled brightly at him. “Therefore, Starboy over there has no reason to not grab it so we can get on the road.”

            “Oh, I have my reasons,” Loki said, giving her a pointed look, which was apparently hilarious because she snorted loudly and slapped a hand over her mouth.

            Eyes rolling, he glanced sideways at his friend who was adjusting his grip on one of the two bags he’d slung over one shoulder.  Looking in all directions, Bucky exhaled heavily through his mouth.

            “Dammit,” he mumbled through his teeth, “this crowd is turning me ten espresso shots level jittery.”

            “I’ll get the damn bag,” Loki said, noting the man’s twitching fingers and clenched jaw.

            As much as he felt like being a dick to Lewis for putting him in a situation where people would see him with that should-be-burned rockabilly Betsy Johnson throwaway on his shoulder, clearly his friend was in no shape to deal with the back and forth arguing in the middle of this street.  God, he hated it for JB.  The aftereffects of Iraq would haunt the man for life.

            Mmhm, and if your friend can go overseas and fight in an ACTUAL WARZONE, you can pick up that crime against GOOD fashion.

            Pressing his lips together, he bent down into a low squat to grab the yellow polka dot (ugh) shoulder strap, which was inconveniently stuck underneath the bag.  He cringed when his hand grazed it.

            Oh my god, I am two seconds from blessing this Brooklyn pavement with my vomit.

            “Thanks.” Bucky ran a hand through his hair as Loki blew out a breath, still trying to work up the courage to pick the stupid thing up. “I feel like a pack mule.  I told her, word for word, ‘if you’re lookin’ for chivalry, doll, this ain’t it’  That would be me choosin’ to do this shit, not bein’ ordered to’ and all she did make a sad face and walk away.” He frowned down at Loki. “You okay, man?”

            “I think I’m allergic to this fabric pattern,” Loki made a gagging sound, and Bucky doubled over, grabbing his stomach while trying not to laugh too loudly.

            “Oh my god, Lo…man…I shoulda known that would kill you,” he croaked, rubbing tears from his eyes. “It’s not as bad as having to go on an emergency tampon run for her.”

            “Nope, this is far worse,” Loki grumbled, dragging a hand down his face, still unable to bring himself to sling it over his shoulder. “One can easily conceal those in a shopping basket.  Plus, that particular errand pleasantly reminds me that I successfully avoided knocking up my girl that month.”

            “Way to look at the bright side, my man.”

            Both men turned at the sound of Darcy’s too cheery voice, which was much closer now since she had apparently walked back to them during their short conversation.

            “We’d already be in the car if His Royal Highness ‘do they make this in black’ Prince Lo here would get over his aversion to fun vintage style,” she said, then started laughing as Sigyn hurried up behind her and slapped her shoulder, mouthing “STOP” to her.

            Loki knew he was high-key overreacting to a NON-thing.  He knew it was more important to get his friend out from the middle of all these people.  He knew that helping a woman with her bags was the mature thing to do.  He knew those things, but when combined with everything else- the crash and the book and the tour and leaving his girl and haters and stupid bags in stupid Brooklyn—hearing Lewis call him “Prince Lo” was the last straw.  Glaring up at her from under his brow, he set his forearm on his knee, his hand dangling in front of his chest.

            “I’m not your goddamn bellboy, Lewis.”

            Eyes blowing wide, Sigyn looked between her boyfriend and her best friend, then she stepped around Darcy to grab the yellow source of this completely unnecessary argument. “Here, I’ll get it.  I don’t mi—”

            “NOPE,” Darcy grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “Don’t you dare give in.  I know he’s your dream boy and all that, but he’s being an asshole.  We need to stick together.  Chicks before dicks.”

            Bucky rolled his eyes as she dragged Sigyn back toward the curb twenty or so feet away, then he sighed heavily.

            “Here, you take my nice plain black bag,” he said, then imitated Darcy’s voice inflection, “and I’ll get the fun vintage one.”

            As they switched bags, Loki rolled his eyes. “She’s baiting me, and I’m taking that bait like an angry simpleton.”

            Even though they were weighed down by unnecessary luggage, Bucky shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose we could flip it and bait her instead.  I mean, she did just call us dicks, so maybe we should live up to the name and retaliate in a highly classy ‘bros before hoes’ manner.”

            Just as Loki opened his mouth to ask what exactly that would entail, the niche audiophile vinyl store next door cranked the volume of their absolutely phenomenal sound system through the wide open doors and windows, and he heard JB laugh awkwardly.  He looked at his friend, one eyebrow to his hairline.

            “Oh my god, Lo—” he gestured vaguely all around them “—tell me you’re seein’ all these people dancin’, otherwise I’m hallucinatin’ and-”

            “You’re not hallucinating, JB,” Loki spoke over him as he looked up and down the pavement and across the street.

            His mouth formed an ‘o’ when he noticed several large ‘CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 2019!’ banners and tables with cakes and plates and what not.  Had those been here the entire time, or did people only just set them up?  Come to think of it, he’d heard the record store playing music all along, but he’d paid no attention because…well…most retail shops play music in the background, but this one had been providing music for a graduation party.  It was a legitimate street party, with a few hundred (at least) attendees. 

            “Oh, you know what—” Bucky pursed his lips, squinting as he turned in a circle “—this is actually a school-sanctioned graduation reception.  They do this every year.  Completely forgot.”

            Eyes moving from stranger to stranger, a crooked grin spread slowly across Loki’s face. “Looks fun actually.”

            His friend responded with a noncommittal hum. “Maybe…possibly, but I still gotta get off this damn street, man.”

            Loki was only half aware that his friend was still speaking.  He was frozen to this spot on the pavement while staring at Sig far away at the other end by the crosswalk, and he wanted nothing more than to dance with her just like all these other perfectly carefree people.

            “What’re you doin’ just standin’ there, man?” Bucky asked tightly, his fingers twitching. “Montauk is callin’ our names, and you’re stallin’ on me.”

            Finally tearing his eyes away from his girl, Loki let his head loll to the side and looked at his friend instead. “I’m tense as hell, and clearly you are too.” He gestured to the crowd. “I feel like dancing with them.”

            Blinking several times, Bucky pushed a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Love ya, man, but you are on your own there.  I don’t dance.”

            Still separated by the crowd, Darcy frowned and leaned toward Sigyn. “Admittedly, this is totally petty, but this has turned into an official game of chicken, and I refuse to be the one to swerve out of the way.”

            “Oh please, you know you’re just offended that he thinks you have terrible fashion sense.”

            “Damn right I’m offended,” Darcy snapped, giving her best friend a look. “I’m offended by that tone you’re taking with me.”

            “Well excuse me for getting a bit defensive of him when you didn’t say ‘hi’ or anything!  You just told him—”

            “Woah woah woah,” Darcy spoke over her, giving her a look, “you have to be on my side here, sister.  I know Loki hung the moon and all—” she waved a flippant hand “—but this is what feminism is all about, my friend.  The patriarchy is right over there, using their really great hair and lean athletic bodies and sharp jawlines and blah blah, to distract us from the fact that they are trying to make me carry my own bag, and I’m sorry, but that is not what our suffragette foremothers fought for.  We’re already stuck carrying the babies, so the least these pretty boys can do is carry the goddamn bags.”

            “Yes, we are truly showing the sexy patriarchy who’s the boss right n—” Sigyn’s eyes blew wide then, and she turned to face her friend directly, gesturing to the guys with her chin. “The damn bag is on your boyfriend’s shoulder!  You don’t have to carry it- problem solved!  Now let’s just-”

            “Which means my man caved to your boy, and that is total bullshit.  Bucky has to carry three just so Loki doesn’t have to put his perfectly manicured hands on some peasant’s belongings?”

            Sigyn squinted, trying to see the guys better in the dark, then groaned and rubbed her temples.  Good lord, she hadn’t had a conversation this level of petty since her first year at NYU when some wasted girl yanked her by her hair and dragged her off a couch in the freshmen dorm because she’d supposedly snogged her boyfriend.  To be fair, that was more of a fight than an argument, complete with scratching and slapping and hair pulling.  It remained one of the most embarrassing moments of her life.  Squinting further, she set her jaw, then put a hand on her hip.

            “Oh my god, Darce, use your eyeballs,” she groaned, pointing at them. “Your boy is only carrying TWO, not three.  They just switched duffels is all.  You’re the one who started this juvenile madness by calling Loki names such as, and I quote—” she counted off on her fingers “—useless boy, and genius, and Starboy, and his royal highness, and prince Lo.  And you know he despises that last one.  That was so un—”

            “Um, Siggy…” Darcy spoke over her friend, swallowing audibly and leaning toward her.  Speaking out of the side of her mouth, she said, “They are dancing.  Those boys dropped the bags altogether and are now dancing in the middle of the sidewalk.” 

            Sigyn stopped picking at the black nail polish on her thumb to look up at the guys just as Darcy threw her hands up and rolled her eyes.

            “I don’t get why they’re doing this,” Darcy groaned. “My flyboy was all LETS GOOOOO, and your Starboy was all FUUUUUCK YOU, and now they’re gonna flip a switch and start dancing at some rando’s high school graduation party?” Her eyes nearly popped out of her head then. “Wow those ladies are getting close to my man.  Oh no no no no.  You are on your own, Siggy.  I have some territory-marking to do.”

            Surrounded by dancing bodies (singing too), Loki focused intently on his girl as she jumped awkwardly out of her friend’s way.  Lewis was coming straight toward JB, and he assumed it had something to do with these newly legal girls moving a bit too close to her boyfriend.  He was surprisingly jealous of his friend when Lewis openly grabbed him by his belt (Jesus- not what he wanted to see) and started inappropriately grinding against him as though this was some sort of trap house beat when in reality it was the classic old school favorite Suspicious Minds by the infamous king of rock and roll himself.  Frowning deeply, he returned his gaze to his girl, who was still standing a thousand years away in front of that crosswalk.  

           Why won’t she come to me like Lewis went up to JB?  Does she not give a damn that I’m LEAVING on Tuesday?

            Mentally brushing that gut-wrenching thought aside, he refocused on the singing and dancing going on all around him—on the fun things going on all around him.

            Frozen to the pavement next to a street sign, Sigyn kept her eyes on Loki as she exhaled through her mouth.  She wasn’t particularly good at the “anxiety-breathing” technique (who knew it was a “skill”?) but she could at least try.  He looked so happy, so carefree, so…A-ok, and maybe it was because he liked the distance between them right now.  Maybe he would like an ocean between them.  At some point he’d put his sunglasses on, probably because people were taking pictures of (and with) certified blue check @lokiswriting.  He was so “on brand” right now, smiling for them and putting his arms around them and ducking into selfies with them, and she’d never felt so insignificant in her life.

            Wearing those cool as hell shades with his hair up and messed up while singing and dancing like he didn’t care who saw him, he was the incarnation of a hot summer night.  She vaguely heard Darcy, who was still a good twenty feet away, shouting at JB—“How is Loki able to hit the high notes? Baritones should not be able to switch into tenors at will like that!” —over the music.  As though her best friend had posed the question to her, Sigyn shrugged one shoulder in response.

            “He can do everything,” she said under her breath, staring at her too-perfect boyfriend.

            Except turn back time and UNSIGN his tour contract.

            Great.  Now she was falling down that miserable rabbit hole too.  She’d already been upset that he was surrounded by strangers, most of whom were really pretty and probably ten years younger than her, therefore more exciting and sprier.  Some were dancing so close to him, and he looked as though he was actually enjoying this situation, when instead he ought to be getting the hell out of there before someone legitimately groped him.  He carried a knife on him for that exact reason, for god’s sake!  Oh well, maybe it was all fine and dandy so long as it was some hot 22-year-old rubbing her ass against the front of his trousers.

            Swallowing nervously, she chewed her lower lip.  Was this how it would be when he was overseas?  Would she see pictures and videos of him loving that classic Starboy “live fast, die right” life without her?  Ugh, she could actually feel the jealousy rising in her chest like excessive cheap liquor at a bad idea party slowly making its way back up into her throat.

            Okay…I need to get the hell away from all these shiny happy people RIGHT NOW.

            Spinning on her heel, she started toward the car, but she only made it halfway across the street before a familiar hand grabbed hers.  When she turned around, Loki was pushing his sunglasses up onto the top of his head and blinking silently at her.  His eyes twinkled like the streetlamps, like brightly lit city windows.

            She caught herself before she scoffed “how DARE you have the gall to look so HAPPY.  How DARE your eyes be brighter than I’ve seen them since JANUARY while I’m over here breaking into pieces?  How DARE you let your stunning irises turn twenty shades of gorgeous green and blue under these streetlights!” right into his face.  The words he wrote on the spot at her doctor’s office and posted on his Insta came screaming back to her, though her mind automatically switched them to fit her point of view instead of his: “He blinks at me with iridescent eyes.  Are they silver?  I think they are stars.  I think infinite light years will soon permanently fill the space between Loki and me.  I think I’ll die before I get the chance to be anywhere near him again.”

            “Where do you think you’re going, gorgeous girl,” he asked, lacing his fingers with hers as he tugged her toward him and pulled her back to the sidewalk.  He let go of her hand to wrap his arms around her waist instead.

            “I was just going to grab my water from the car,” she said without missing a beat, faking a smile.  

            No way in hell would she let him see how damn miserable she was right here in this moment.  If he looked happy, then she could too.  Even if it was the lie of the century.  She waved a hand, attempting to look breezy and carefree about it.

            “It’s so hot out here, and with all the dancing and… you know…”

            He couldn’t look less convinced, and it irked her to no end that she couldn’t fool him at all.  She stopped the instinctive roll of her eyes, trying to keep eye contact with him, though her excessive blinking was ruining her “just fine, thanks” mask.  Alright, lying might not be her strongest suit.

            Looking all over her face, Loki shook his head. “This is the second time today that you have tried to run away from me.”

            Her mouth fell open. “No, that’s not what I’m—”

            “Do you have any idea how painful it is to watch you, literally and figuratively, turn your back on me, Sig?  Especially now, of all times?”

            Feeling like a piece of absolute human garbage, she lowered her eyes.  She shouldn’t be surprised that he would process her actions much like a reader recognizes an overt abandonment metaphor.  And why wouldn’t he?  She’d be lying to herselfif she said that she wasn’tchecking out of this relationship.  If she said that she wasn’t too scared to roll up her sleeves and put in the hard work after the fireworks show of the first two years was over because it might just fall apart anyway, that would be a lie too.

            What a wretched little coward- if you love this man as much as you claim to, Sigyn, then fucking PROVE IT.

            “I need you more than ever,” he said, reaching up to push her hair behind her ears. “Please just be here with me.  Don’t let the past drag you under the surface, and don’t focus on a future that neither of us is guaranteed.  The former is depressing, and the latter produces overwhelming anxiety.  Trust me on that, sweetheart.”

            Knowing he was one thousand percent correct, and wishing to the stars and back that she could follow those easier-said-than-done directions (for both their sakes), she wound her arms around his waist and buried her face into his chest.  However, just as soon as she did that, she felt his fingertip on the underside of her chin, slowly lifting her head to look up at him.

            “Focus right here—” he pointed at his eyes “—nowhere else.”

            She swallowed, wondering how upset he might be if she told him that she didn’t want to look at his eyes unless they were wetter than Niagara Falls.  Unless they were sad.  Unless they screamed “I AM FALLING APART TOO, I SWEAR” at her.

            “It’s called being present,” he said, his fingertips slipping just under the back of her shorts as he started rocking her back and forth, “and presently, I want to dance with the love of my life.”

            Blinking away the instant rush of tears, she slid her arms around his neck as he bent lower and danced like the present was the only thing they had.

            Maybe it is the only thing we have.  Maybe his next New Year won’t be mine after all.