“Yes, exactly!” Emily’s entire body lit up, her hands coming in front of her to animate and punctuate every word. “That’s exactly who I write about! Steve and Bucky. They are so in love.”

“Wait, really? That’s what your fic is about?”

“Yeah! Steve is Captain America, obviously, and Bucky is his best-friend-slash-soldier-slash-eventual-assassin—it’s a long story. But it’s, like, the most epic love story ever put to film. The angst of this normal person who’s given all these powers and it makes him so different from the person who knows him best and then that person goes through the same thing but they’re torn apart … ugh, the pining of it all!” She laughed big again and then collapsed back into her chair, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you got that they were in love from one movie. That’s how strong their chemistry is.”

“And that’s me,” I joked. “I’m terrible at picking up signals.”

Her mouth quirked again.

“I wouldn’t say that,” she said softly. A shiver rushed up and down my spine and I could feel the blush that I’d had on my face more or less since the moment we sat down growing. That was flirting, right? Even now, recounting it, it feels too good to be true.

“So how’d you get into the Readit thing?” she asked after a moment, when the air between us had become so thick with tension we were both feeling light-headed.

“Oh, uh…” I tried to clear the bright, shiny light that was blocking everything else out from my head. I’d never experienced that before—being so overwhelmed by someone’s beauty, their … them-ness that concentrating on anything else felt impossible.

“I wouldn’t say I’m into it,” I answered finally, when my brain had come back online enough to register her question. “I’ve really only looked into the lucid dreams communities and even that because I wasn’t sure where else to look.”

“It would never have occurred to me to check Readit for something,” she said, shaking her head. “Somehow I don’t feel like I would be welcome there.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, taking a sip of my tea.

“I’m a pansexual Latina who spends her time writing slash fic and poetry.” She laughed. “I’m not exactly Readit’s main demo.”

“Okay, fair, fair.” I laughed, narrowly avoiding choking on my drink. “That’s exactly what I thought too, if I’m honest. But my brother has met some good friends on there and yeah, he’s a straight, cis guy, but I feel like the internet famously doesn’t love Jewish people either, so…”

“That’s a good point,” she said. “Does your brother lucid dream too?”