Page 64 of The Underachiever’s Guide to Love and Saving the World

COURTNEY

The wall of the building Bryce was pressing me against gave way, and I fell backward.

I toppled through what felt like heavy fabric before landing against a cold, hard floor.

It was dark, but overhead, stars glittered fuzzily.

I blinked, clearing my vision, and the things I thought were stars sharpened into new shapes. Light fixtures.

Gasping, I scrambled upright and turned in circles, taking in my surroundings. We were back in the home improvement store. There was my coatrack, tipped over now, Bryce lying askew in the middle.

“Bryce?” I rushed to him.

With a groan, he rolled over. “What—” He stopped midquestion as he realized where we were. “We’re back.” He leaped to his feet and crushed me against his chest, swinging us in a circle. “We’re back!”

“But how?” I asked when he put me down. “We ruined everything.”

He gave me a teasing grin. “Maybe true love saved the day.”

Feeling my face flush, I shook my head. “Maybe the good of giving everyone their free will back trumped the chaos that it caused.”

“Or true love saved the day.”

My heart softened. Maybe the reason didn’t matter. Maybe it was nicer just to believe. “Are you saying you love me?” I whispered, then quickly added, “Actually, wait. Don’t tell me.” I held out my hand. “Come here.”

When he slipped his hand into mine, I dragged him through the store.

The aisles were dim after closing, but I knew the path well enough that soon I broke into a run.

We laughed, and it reminded me of that time in the library—him and me, away from everything else.

Maybe every day with him would feel like this.

Quiet, happy, while the rest of the universe kept on spinning.

Not that the world revolved around us, but that we were a satellite, orbiting far from chaos in the peace of space.

I skidded to a stop. The glow of the freezer section cast blue light over Bryce’s face.

I slid open a door, the glass frigid against my fingers.

I swiped a box of ice cream bars off the shelf, planning to pay for it later.

Probably. “Come on.” I tilted my head, and we walked, slower now, back to the coatrack.

With a heave, I pushed it upright. Sliding apart the coats, I ducked inside. When Bryce hesitated, I stuck my hand out and crooked my finger in a follow me gesture.

He crawled inside and settled across from me. “What if it sends us back again?” he asked, voice pillow-talk hushed. Shadows danced across his face from where the light from the fixtures glowed through the opening at the top of the coatrack.

“Be brave, Bryce.” I smiled, popping the box of ice cream open with a thumb.

I unwrapped one of the chocolate-coated ice cream bars and handed it to him.

He didn’t take it. “I don’t like ice cream.”

“Everyone likes ice cream.”

Reluctantly, he took it.

“Now you’re going to eat it, and when you’re done eating it, nothing bad will happen.”

His throat lurched. “How do you know?”

“I’ll make sure of it.”

I opened my own ice cream and dove in, raising a brow as though to say, Your turn . Giving me that look he was so good at—the look that said, I can’t believe you’ve talked me into this —he took a stiff bite. As he chewed, his shoulders relaxed. He let out a little moan, his eyes rolling back.

“Told you,” I said.

Eyes twinkling, he wiped a stray bit of chocolate off my lip.

But his face darkened as we finished the ice cream. One last bite, then he just sat there, the Popsicle stick clenched in his white-knuckled grip. Bracing for the blow part of him still expected.

“Bryce?” Leaning forward, I touched his arm.

He didn’t look at me.

“I love you.”

His eyes snapped up. Slowly, a smile spread across his face. “Yeah?”

“Yep. And every time you eat ice cream, I’ll tell you that again.”

Grabbing the back of my neck, he tugged me forward, pulling me into his lap and wrapping his arms around me in a desperate embrace. I wound my hands into his hair and held him close. I pretended not to feel the wetness of his tears against my neck or the tremble in his shoulders.

When he lifted his face from my shoulder, he was himself again, but more . A little less broken. A little more whole. He rested his forehead against mine, and I gazed into his eyes, smiling softly.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder.

With a yelp, I fell out of Bryce’s lap, whirling awkwardly on the ground to find the bony silhouette of a skeleton peeling back the coats, peering in at us. Light bulbs glittered through Kelly’s teeth as she lifted her hand in a little wave.

My car had been towed, so we rode back to the duplex in the back of an Uber, disguising Kelly in a long floral dress, a cowboy hat, socks, Crocs, a scarf, sunglasses, and a puffy pink jacket.

We gazed numbly at the seat backs in front of us.

Deep bags had taken up permanent residence under Bryce’s eyes.

Luckily—or perhaps unluckily—Kelly still had her disturbing stylus from the other world and was able to explain on my phone that she’d hitched a ride when she saw us vanish through the portal.

Now, Kelly sat to my left, happily tapping away at Candy Crush on my phone with not her finger.

“You shouldn’t give her so much screen time,” Bryce said from my right. “She’ll get addicted to it.”

“She’s been good all day, so excuse me if I want five minutes of peace.”

We exchanged a look.

“This is such a weird epilogue,” I whispered.

“Epilogue?”

“You know, the culmination of everything that happened in our story that creates our Happily Ever After. They usually involve dream jobs, marriage, kids. Sometimes opening a small business and/or saving a town. Rarely adopting a member of the undead.”

The Uber driver gave me a weird look in the rearview mirror.

“What does an epilogue look like to you?” Bryce asked, and I knew what he was asking. Where do we go from here?

“I don’t want to epilogue,” I said, like epilogue was a verb. “I don’t want to do the picturesque Happily Ever After thing. I want to take it one day at a time.”

“Whatever epilogue you want, as long as it’s not like The Lord of the Rings , where we have to say goodbye six different ways,” he said.

We rounded the corner onto our street and caught a glimpse of the duplex, which was still half-lit with furiously blinking Christmas lights.

“We’re lucky the house didn’t burn down.” Bryce humphed as he opened his door. The blues and pinks flickered across his face, revealing the fact he was smiling.

The dome light spilled out onto the driveway, and the car dinged. Following Kelly, I clambered out and stretched. As the Uber drove away, Bryce joined me, holding my hand as we stared at the duplex. Bony fingers pressed around my shoulder as Kelly leaned between us, smiling her unnerving grin.

Bryce cleared his throat. “So.”

“Yup,” I said.

“Now what?” I asked.

“We’ll figure it out,” Bryce murmured as he dipped his head and brushed his lips to mine.

Being with him felt like messy private moments when no one’s watching, and you’re free to take off the mask, when you fill your house with off-pitch singing and dance around in your underwear.

It felt like freedom. It felt natural and right and easy.

Affection filled my heart, prompting magic to flare from Bryce’s skin.

My eyes flew open. My own magic curled off my fingertips. Magic didn’t exist here naturally, but we must have carried a bit home inside of us…

It was at that point that the last of the magic slipped from our bodies, conjoined, formed a portal—and the dragon burst through with a roar.

“It’s fine,” I squeaked. “The dragon isn’t inherently evil, right?”

“It’s also not inherently good,” Bryce said.

And the furiously flashing Christmas lights were clearly pissing it off. Without the mouse around to communicate with it, the dragon defaulted to doing dragon shit—namely, burning our house down.