Out of Character by Annabeth Albert

Chapter Fifteen

Jasper

“Your prince is here again.” Kellan laughed as the elevator dinged. He lounged on a sofa in the waiting area near the bank of elevators as we waited for the others on Wednesday.

“He’s not…” My voice trailed off because Milo was indeed striding toward us in his Prince Neptune costume, which I’d handed him in the downstairs lobby. His bus had been late, so he’d arrived after I’d changed, but he’d made fast work of getting ready. He looked fantastic, all the gold accessories glinting in the bright light, dark hair tamed under the crown, and muscles flexing under the toga as he moved. His limp was more noticeable than it had been on Saturday, and I had a feeling he’d raced too fast from the bus stop.

“Hey.” He nodded at the group of us, coming to stand near Kellan and me.

I wasn’t entirely sure how to greet him. Everything had changed on Saturday, and not simply because of the kiss. We’d been through something together, and that deep conversation had lingered in my head all week. Milo was gay. And maybe not as big a jerk as I’d assumed. But I also wasn’t sure that we were friends, and I sure as heck wasn’t asking him his thoughts, even though we’d been texting the past few days. I’d spammed him with various drawings I found of both fan art of Neptune and the Tom of Finland–style drawings that I’d teased him about. He still hadn’t shown me his stuff, but we’d had several funny conversations about what I’d found. I wouldn’t call our conversations flirty, but I also wouldn’t call them not. Thus, I stood there, uncharacteristically short on words.

Kellan didn’t share my internal dithering and stuck out a hand for Milo. “How’s it going?”

“Not bad.” A muscle worked in Milo’s jaw, and he glanced around the waiting area. He’d never been the best at small talk, but right when I was about to save him, he turned to Kellan. “So…uh…is there a spring show at the college?”

I half groaned and half laughed. “Now you’ve done it. We’ll be here all afternoon.”

“Funny you should ask.” Kellan grinned broadly and ignored my crack. “I’ve been busy all week on the costumes for our musical revue coming up.”

“Cool.” Milo’s mouth quirked like he wasn’t entirely sure what that was but didn’t want to ask.

“It’s a bunch of music numbers from various Broadway plays. Kind of like a mash-up or remix,” I explained for him, having already heard all the details from Kellan multiple times.

“It’s super fun,” Kellan added, stroking his beard. “You should come.”

My eyes went wide. Hold up. I wasn’t so sure about my worlds colliding like that. And sure, I’d been the one to tell Milo that Kellan wouldn’t make a bad friend, but that was a little different than my current bestie inviting my former friend to a non-cosplay event. It wasn’t a terrible idea, but my neck prickled regardless.

“Maybe.” Glancing at the elevators, Milo looked more ready to escape than to agree to see the show. “How bad are ticket prices?”

“Do you have a student ID?” Kellan asked.

Milo shook his head, face shuttering.

“No problem.” Oblivious to the minefield he’d wandered into, Kellan continued on, cheerful as ever. “I get a certain number of comps, and this is the rare performance that my folks aren’t coming up for.”

“Um. Thanks,” Milo said right as the elevator dinged again.

“I’m here.” April rushed ahead of my mom, voice muffled by her mask. “Sorry we’re late. Mom had a call.”

“You’re right on time.” Kellan gave her a smile.

“Good. And Neptune made it again. Nice job.” April nodded at Milo, who shrugged.

“I’m here. Still a little chilly though.”

“You’ll adapt.” She was nothing if not pragmatic. She’d make a good leader someday, and there wasn’t much I wouldn’t give to see that she got the chance.

“Okay, are we ready?” Kellan asked, and the group murmured agreement. We all headed to the same lounge as the week before. The same medical assistant was on duty, and there was a mix of new and old faces to greet us.

“That was nice of you,” I said to Milo in a low voice as we entered the room. “About Kellan, I mean.”

“You said to make friends. Was that okay?” Milo offered me a crooked smile, but his eyes were worried. Vulnerable even. “I mean, I don’t have to take the tickets.”

“Take them.” Strangely his uncertainty made me surer.

“Okay. Maybe.”

“I’ll be going to at least one show. Maybe we can sit together,” I offered before it hit me that I was being awfully chummy with a guy I was supposed to still have a grudge against. And being nice and making sure he didn’t have to sit alone was a far cry from an actual date, but that didn’t stop my pulse from revving.

“That might be cool.” Milo shifted his weight from foot to foot, almost like he was doing fast internal math about how likely any of his buddies would be to see him at a show consisting of musical numbers from hit Broadway plays. “I’ll check my work schedule.”

“You do that.” I put the odds of us actually going at subzero.

“Prince Neptune came!” Chase had a weak smile for Milo as his dad pushed him over.

“Hey, Chase! How’s it going, buddy?” Milo crouched next to the wheelchair, and some soft place inside me pinged.

“Okay.” Chase’s voice was lethargic, and I exchanged a worried look with my mom. “I had a new infusion today. Sleepy.”

“Are you up for a game?” Milo asked, voice as gentle as I’d ever heard it.

“I can try.”

“Good.” Milo’s smile was as tight as my chest felt. After rising from his crouch, he followed me as I set my deck bag on the rear table. He lowered his voice to a bare whisper. “Give me your two easiest decks. Don’t want to exhaust the little guy further.”

“I can do that.” I picked the decks from the box and handed them over. “Pretty cool how you remembered his name.”

“He’s a hard kid to forget.”

Maybe I’d accidentally skipped lunch. It had to be the only reason for why I was suddenly all fluttery. Milo getting into the whole reason behind our cosplay should not have been enough to have my heart going all soft and gushy.

“You’re…” I swallowed, trying to get it together. “Give him a good game.”

“I’ll try.” Milo took the decks and headed over to a table with Chase and his dad.

Before I could find a game of my own, my mom wandered over from talking to one of the other dads. “I’m going to go grab a coffee. Long day today for me. Do you want anything?”

“A soda?” I asked hopefully, knowing full well her opinion on junk food. She worked from home in the accounting department for the college, and on days with more activities for April or family stuff, she often got up way early. Maybe she’d be too bleary-eyed to protest the soda.

“How about a nice refreshing water?” Laughing, she shook her head at me before her expression turned more somber. “And what’s up with you and Milo?”

I scratched behind my ear. Crap. Now I was picking up on Milo’s nervous habits. Next thing I’d be having sympathetic stomach issues. “Not sure I know what you mean.”

As usual, Mom saw right through me. Her whole face sagged. “Oh, Jasper…”

“He’s changed.” The assertion came quickly but so did the second-guessing. “I think.”

Shoulders slumping further, she blew the bangs off her forehead. “I hope you’re right. He used to be such a nice boy. I don’t know what happened there.”

I did, at least some of it, but I couldn’t share any of it with her. I’d promised, and my word meant something to me.

“I—”

“Jasper, will you play with me?” A little girl I had seen once before came over, balancing on her crutches and saving me from more Mom questions I didn’t have answers for.

“Sure thing.”

“I’ll be back.” Mom sent me a warning look as I grabbed two decks. The conversation would be revisited, I was sure, but at least I had a reprieve while she headed for coffee. I didn’t like her being all overprotective like this, but given my history with Milo, I could understand her not believing that he’d changed. Hell, I was struggling with it too. As much as I was enjoying spending time with him, a part of me was still cautious, putting up barricades around my heart and warning me against trusting too much too soon.

Grabbing a seat next to Milo and Chase, I smiled at Chase who was patiently explaining how to block a two-headed creature to Milo. I turned my attention to my own game, but every so often I spared a glance for them, my insides doing that weird flutter again as Milo fetched some water for Chase. Eventually, Chase declared himself too tired for a rematch.

“Okay, buddy. Another time?”

“Yeah.” Chase’s smile made all the work of talking Milo into cosplaying worth it.

“Come and play with Alexandra and me,” I offered. “We can teach you some tricks for multiplayer style.”

“Thanks.” Milo pulled up a chair, and we were all deep into the game when my mom returned.

“Here you go.” She slipped me a bottle of some organic soda I’d never heard of along with a cryptic look as her eyes darted back and forth between Milo and me. She settled in to talk with Alexandra’s mom on one of the nearby couches. Backing up some of his bragging, Milo turned out to have some good instincts—he was brash, quick to attack, willing to take risks. However, he kept forgetting to plan multiple turns in advance.

“You can’t go all in every time,” I advised, and Alexandra nodded. “Try to visualize your optimal board state a few turns from now.”

“But attacking is fun. I don’t like being on the defensive.”

“I know.” And boy, did I. Less than one game and I could already see Milo hated being exposed and open to attack. In keeping with his personality and our long history, he preferred to make quick, ill-advised attacks to avoid being a sitting duck. “You’re going to lose to Alex three turns from now, though, if you don’t sit tight. Trust me.”

Milo made a pained face like I was asking him to wax his eyebrows. “Nah. I better attack this turn, or I won’t be around in three turns because you’ll take me out.”

“Actually, I won’t. That would leave me open to Alex, and I’d prefer to win this round. Like I said, think ahead. But suit yourself.”

“Fine,” he huffed, then smiled for Alexandra. “You winning wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”

“I win a lot.” Her eyes sparkled. “What happened to your leg? I’m here because I had surgery on mine. Again.”

Milo was silent for a long moment. “A mistake. A mistake happened. And I had surgery too. More than one. Swear the second was worse than the first.”

“Word.” She gave him an awkward high five. “Anesthesia makes me puke.”

“Me too.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised,” I added.

“Hey, I don’t always hurl.”

“But when you do, it’s generally spectacularly awful.” This sort of teasing felt good, almost too good, like no time at all had passed and we were back to joking about the amusement-park trip the summer before freshman year.

“You might have a point,” Milo agreed before ending his turn. Alex, who was surprisingly bloodthirsty, took me out on her next turn despite my best plans to avoid defeat. That left her and Milo, who drew a card and frowned. “Heck.”

“You can’t bluff worth s—”

“Alex,” her mother warned, looking up from her crocheting.

“Sorry.” Alex’s smile didn’t dim one bit. “Come at me.”

And Milo did, losing in short order. “Heck. Good game.”

“Warned you,” I reminded him a short time later as we cleaned up the cards.

“That you did.”

“Jasper, are you coming for dinner? I’ve got chili in the slow cooker.” My mom already had her purse and coat, and she barely spared a glance for Milo.

“Uh.” I had been planning to do more card searching with Milo, but I didn’t want to admit that to her and risk a lecture later. “I have plans. And a test to study for. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Stop by tomorrow any time. I’ll have some leftovers for you in the fridge.”

“Thanks.” I gave her a fast kiss before she and April headed out.

“So…” Milo shuffled his feet. “Guess I’ll get changed. Good luck with your test.”

“Dork,” I teased, the light mood from earlier carrying over. “The plans are with you. Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

“Nah. We’re on.” Milo’s smile in that moment was close to perfect, warm and open and dangerous. Dangerous because it made me want in a way I hadn’t wanted in a very long time. With each interaction, Milo was wearing down my defenses, making me forget all the reasons why we couldn’t be friends—or anything else.