He laughed again, and I found that I really enjoyed the sound. How was this the guy people were scared of at Minx?
“Ben Solo deserved better?” he asked, looking at my shirt. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, first, have you seen the sequel Star Wars trilogy? Because that’s going to change how I explain it.”
“Of course. Hasn’t everyone?”
“There are so many reasons Ben Solo should have lived—”
“Wait,” he interrupted. “He was the villain. The only way he could have paid for his sins was by dying.”
“Says you and every man on the internet,” I said. It was an argument I’d heard ad nauseam, and it was wrong. Not that I could make myself heard in the midst of online fandom fights, given that the Star Wars fandom （especially the menaces） were not kind to female fans. “No, he didn’t need to die. If you’d read the canon comics, you would know that he was abused and tortured his entire life by Snoke/Palpatine. The kid never even had a chance. And even then, he still felt continually pulled to the light. All the main characters from the original trilogy, Han, Luke, Leia, his loved ones, wanted him back. They wanted him to live. And they all sacrificed themselves so that he could survive. Not to mention that he was part of a dyad, that Rey was his literal soul mate, and as the heroine, the girl who wanted a family more than anything, she should have been given her Disney prince. The first one to die after love’s true kiss, by the way. People don’t have to die to atone for their sins. He was the last Skywalker. He came back to the light. He should have lived.”
Marco was grinning at me, like he was enjoying my rant. “I’m guessing you didn’t care for the last movie?”
“I did a lot of handwaving and loud groaning. I felt personally attacked. When it ended, I actually looked behind me to see if there was an issue with the camera, because surely the movie couldn’t have ended with him being dead.” I let out a big sigh. “Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.”
“It was very good. And all the things you brought up—I guess I never thought of it that way. You’ve won me over. He did deserve better. You are very passionate about this. That’s good. Craig will like that.”
Saying Craig’s name was like Marco had just poured a bucket of ice-cold water over my head. Why was it such a shock? Had I just been really caught up in what I’d been saying, and being reminded what we were here for caught me off guard? That made a certain kind of sense.
It wasn’t the reason, though.
Once again, I’d forgotten about Craig and had been enjoying my time with Marco. I looked out of the car window at Catalina’s house. Now we were about to go into this party and had to convince a room full of questioning, observant scientists that we were a real couple.
It suddenly seemed impossible and overwhelming.
He asked, “Is there anything else I should know about you before we go inside? Any big surprises?”
Did I have any secrets left? I felt like he knew almost everything about me. “I think we’ve cleared out all the skeletons in my closet.”
“In your case, it’s half-elves in your closet. Are you sure I’m not going to find a Ben Solo life-size cutout in there, too?”
“No! That’s a more recent obsession, and obviously I’m a grown woman so I can’t go out and buy that.”
“I could buy it for you.”
“That’s . . . interesting. I mean, no. I don’t need that. I’m an adult.”
“Enjoy the things you enjoy, Anna. Don’t let other people make you feel bad about it.”
That made a strange lump appear in my throat, and I shifted my gaze away from his. I glanced down and saw a tiny piece of glitter next to his stick shift. I pointed it out, and he nodded. He said, “I’m still finding glitter in weird places.”
“Same. Plus, I’m pretty sure they’ve started a colony in my car.” I reached out to touch it, and it stuck to my finger. Which was a little jittery at the moment.
“Are you nervous?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He leaned toward me, like he was going to do . . . something, but he didn’t. “Don’t worry. I’m here. You have my sword.”
A line from Lord of the Rings. “And your axe?”
Marco gave me a funny look, and I realized that he’d misheard me.
“Axe,” I repeated, emphasizing the X sound. “I said axe. Although your, you know, is nice, too. Not that I’ve been looking!” How did I keep making this worse? “It’s just . . . I have eyes and you—I’m going to shut up now.”
He gave me that smile, the kind men like him had, where they knew exactly the effect they had on women. I wanted to hate this about him but found that I couldn’t. It was almost . . . endearing? Which made no sense, because it was basically arrogance and I’d always hated arrogance.
“It will be okay,” he said.
“I don’t know. At the moment it feels a little like somewhere out there, a hobbit is carrying a ring to a volcano.”
“Things aren’t that bad. Tell me about the people at the party. What should I know?”
It was a good distraction, and I wondered if he had done it deliberately. “Okay, so Sanjit should be there. He’s really competitive and spends most of their D&D games yelling about the game being rigged and/or the dice being loaded. Catalina is . . . Catalina.” How could I describe my best friend in a couple of sentences? But he didn’t press me to explain. “There are some self-righteous trolls who you can just ignore. There’s Peter—he always comes. He’s really quiet, but he is scary smart. A lot of the guys there are just like him. Shy but brilliant. Dorks of a feather flocking together and all that.”
“How do you know so much if you don’t go to the parties?” he asked.
“I’ve gone to a couple.” I’d sat in the corner alone and just watched the whole night, but I’d shown up and supported my friend. “And Catalina is an ‘every detail’ kind of friend. She tells me everything about her merry band of nerds.”
“You’re making them sound a little stereotypical,” he said.
“Says the rich, charming CEO to the geeky, awkward scientist.”
“You’re so much more than a stereotype, Anna.” There was something about the way he said it—something special that pierced my heart. My pulse quickened.
Instead of responding to his declaration, I kept going as if he hadn’t spoken. “Zhen will definitely show up. Catalina’s had a crush on him for a long time. But don’t say anything about that!”
“Not a word,” he promised.
“Good. I’m pretty sure he likes Catalina, too. He has a half-ogre character that he rolled entirely to impress her. I guess you could say he’s head ogre heels.”
“Or that he’s an ogre achiever,” Marco added.
I couldn’t help but smile back and realized that I no longer felt quite so anxious. “Anyway, his half-ogre character is supposed to be part barbarian, part paladin even though everyone keeps telling him he can’t do that. He says he’s pushing boundaries, and Catalina lets him because she thinks he’s cute.”