I look down at my #SaveAmara pins. “Yeah, I’m trying to keep Amara from becoming a fridged love interest.”

“Fridged?” He grins. “But she went into the Black Nebula on her own. No one told her to go. Or forced her.”

“But the writers had her die to further Carmindor’s character arc and—”

“So every time a character dies it’s automatically fridging?”

“No, but there were plenty of other ways for the series to end. And with her plot arc and development it didn’t make sense for her to…”

He’s laughing. Really and truly laughing.

At me.

I swallow my words and sink into silence.

“I love your passion,” he says, and steps closer to me, the laughter still fresh on his lips like blood on a newly fed vampire. “I miss it.”

He misses it.

I stare at him, trying—hoping, really—that he’s just a figment of my sleep-deprived imagination. But the longer I stand here, the longer I realize that he is no figment. He’s real, and he’s doused in a very heady sandalwood cologne.

I clear my throat and look away. “Okay, so, you’ve been doing well. I mean, how many subscribers do you have now on your YouTube channel?”

His grin only widens. “Enough.”

My phone vibrates in my hand. I know it’s Milo. Has Bran Kamehameha’d the entire hotel in his hanger? I use the interruption as an excuse to exit this rotten situation. “Sorry, my brother’s waiting for me,” I say, holding up both the tray and the bag of tacos from the Magic Pumpkin food truck. “It was, um, nice seeing y—”

He takes me quickly by the arm, jostling the coffees, and says softly, “Wait, for a minute? We need to talk. I need to talk.”

“Now?”

“No, I got an interview with another YouTube channel in a few minutes. How about tomorrow?”

“I have to be at a booth all day.”

He frowns again. “All day?”

I nod. “Until the end of the con.”

He frowns again, and I don’t think he gets it. “Then what about after the con? Sunday, five o’clock? At the top of the escalators in the main hotel.”

“The con closes at five,” I say helplessly, as if that’ll get me out of this.

He grins. “Perfect ending to a perfect con then, don’t you think?”

Before I can say no, a guy in a backward Five Nights at Freddy’s cap calls his name. Jasper leaves with a wave, the scent of his cologne lingering on me like an extra layer of skin. How dare he! Thinking he can just walk in all suave-like and act as though nothing happened? Like he didn’t break my heart in the most cliché way?

And yet I know that on Sunday at five o’clock I’ll be at the top of the escalators. I know I will.