Page 7 of Popular (Private: The Extended Edition #5)

J.T.

I stop pressing the Enterprise shaped cookie cutter firmly into the plate-sized pancake to find Bryn’s crystal gaze. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

“You better be talking about my choice of activities today and not about the amount of syrup I’m putting on my ship,” sasses the woman on the resort couch across from me.

“It looks like when it was submerged in the ocean on Nibiru.”

“ Star Trek Into Darkness is still the greatest Star Trek movie in the Kelvin timeline.”

“Eh…” interjects Nevin Singh, my personal security guard, summoning our glares over to the chaise lounge he’s relaxing on. “ Beyond was better.”

“Come on, dude,” leaves me at the same time I abandon the tool to reach for my vibrating phone. “ You can’t be serious right now.”

“You three are seriously giving me a headache,” Jeffrey Hurst, or Lurch as Bryn prefers to call her security member, sighs. “This is too much nerd for those of us not invested in this nerd shit.”

“How is your lack of good taste our fault?” Bryn sneers on a giant bite of her syrup-soaked ship.

He doesn’t bother arguing.

Just grunts.

Resumes his silent, lurking demeanor.

That’s the thing about the guy.

He’s nailed the whole seen but not heard in a room thing.

Singh hasn’t.

However, he’s also more open to standing down in a crowded vicinity than Hurst is.

Like yesterday.

Which is how I ended up getting the world’s best blow job in a mini golf supply closet.

The fist bump Bryn delivered over cold beers and Pike pepperoni pizza was epic.

“How can you taste anything besides syrup?” I playfully poke while swiping open the work text on my phone.

“How come you can barely do anything besides work?” Peering up has me watching her suck the sticky mixture off her thumb. “It’s very Wes of you.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“Still very Wes.”

“We’re on a launch deadline.”

“Extra Wes.”

“No one else can handle this but me.”

“ Greatwhitehavemercy , dude,” she open mouth snickers prior to having another bite. “It’s like there’s two of him.”

Whatever retort I prepare to throw out is cut short by my vibrating device.

Again.

This time the words on the screen not only have me sighing heavily but flinging myself back against the cushiony seat. “They wanna move up the demo showcase start date.”

“To when?”

Reluctance to reply is strong. “Saturday.”

“Saturday?!”

Her squeak causes me to cringe.

Momentarily shut my eyes to avoid her hateful glare.

“Fucking Saturday?!” The clanking of her dish signals me to meet Bryn’s glare. “We’re on vacation!”

“I know.”

“We’re not even supposed to fly home until Monday night. ”

“I know.”

“They’re even having a private, bonus ‘Beam Us Goodbye, Scotty’ brunch on Sunday where Simon Pegg is expected to make an appearance!”

A second, sadder sigh escapes. “ I know. ”

“Then tell them to get fucked!”

There’s no stopping my head from cocking to the side. “I can’t just tell my team to ‘get fucked’, Bryn.”

“And why not?” She angrily swipes up her Enterprise cookie cutter. “This is one of the few times where you’re not Puppet Boy but Puppet Master. ”

I hate that I don’t hate that fucking nickname.

I mean…how can I?

It was the first she gave me.

It was the first time someone other than Wes really wanted to be friends versus just an acquaintance who could eventually use me for their own benefit.

It bonded us during an almost unfathomable set of circumstances and reminds me that the most incredible things often come during the most unprecedented times.

Still.

Something slightly less embarrassing to hear in mixed company wouldn’t suck.

Like Imzadi .

Dude, I love that title.

Hearing it – during conversations, discussions, at lunch.

Reading it – especially in the good morning text form I received today.

Being it – regardless of if Wheeler is watching in the background.

I know we’re supposed to be pretending, but I’m not so sure that I am.

That I ever have been.

Maybe pre first kiss?

Definitely not post.

However, what does it say about me if the best kiss of my life was based on a lie?

“Ugh, play with your pancakes,” pouts my best friend when I don’t immediately fold to her demands. “You’ll feel less guilty about spending time apart today.”

“Wait,” is attached to me abandoning my device after I’ve finished another text, “you weren’t joking about going bodyboarding instead of joining me for a water gun fight?”

“First off, it’s called ‘Surfing the Galaxy’,” Bryn corrects while I pick up my own tool, “and second of all, of course I wasn’t joking. You’re going on your phaser date with Nae alone. ”

“But…” The metal object is placed in the corner of my pancake during my struggled argument. “But…um…” Pushing it down is much simpler than finding the rest of the sentence. “No?”

“Wow, if this is what you’re like in the boardroom, maybe Wes should attend more meetings.”

I instinctually flash her my middle finger in between pulling out the cut piece of food.

“Why are you afraid to go out with Nae on your own?”

“I’m not afraid ,” I poorly dispute during a dip into my syrup bowl. “It’s just…with our trip now having to be cut short-”

“I’m not agreeing to that.”

“-and you partnering with Boucher for the midnight Adorian Ale fest-”

“Partnering is a strong word. Dude ditched me ten minutes in to bang this hot little Japanese piece with a great rack and even greater Andorian makeup.”

The pause to swallow the new information as well as the bite in my mouth is longer than I anticipate.

Feeling a small piece seemingly stuck sparks my heart to race…

to pound… to will my stomach up my throat in order to aid in the digestion process, yet the second I work the muscles a bit harder, it gets moving.

Glides down to where it belongs.

Allows me to breathe easier.

The hairs on the back of my neck to settle down.

Post collecting my composure, I resume my campaigning, “And then there was me pushing you to go to the pre-dinner panel about how the show’s communications and technological advances can be found in modern society instead of the one about pricing collectors’ items-”

“I honestly would’ve napped peacefully through either.”

“Not to mention disappearing during mini-golf-”

“Which I will always approve of when it involves a backroom blowie.”

“I just,” the nibbled pancake ship is discarded on the side of my plate, “I feel like we haven’t really spent much time together.”

“Puppet Boy, we spend so much regular time together that a vacation from each other while on vacation with each other seems Spock level of logical.”

My forehead furrows in unified objection. “ But this whole convention was supposed to be about us reconnecting our nerdiness. ”

“That’s never been unconnected , Number One,” she warmly reassures.

“And I know…since Wy’s been born that there’s been less pizza, beer, and movie nights and more fall asleep while waiting for pizza and wake up to him screaming ones but that doesn’t mean our friendship is falling apart or needs a bit of mouth to mouth to keep going.

” Abandoning the cutter precedes her simply tossing an untouched pancake into her syrup lake.

“And you definitely shouldn’t try using it as a safety shield to avoid having to completely pilot solo, which I know is what’s actually fucking bothering you. ”

Guilt gets poorly hidden behind me wiping my mouth with a nearby cloth napkin.

“You haven’t been this into a chick in what…like…years?”

“ Ever. ”

The corner of her lips kicks upward. “And that scares you.”

“More than anything else, including my app – which you know I basically had to beg the company to take a chance on – failing.”

“ And that fear is exactly why you need to boldly go where you’ve never gone before all alone, Justus Reese. ”