“Holy shit,” Michael breathed.

He grunted, and Liam figured that meant he’d just got an elbow in his side, courtesy of Anna, for daring to comment on the group of hotties.

To say they were hot would be one hell of an understatement. It was like a group of sorority beauties and cheerleaders and prom queens and whatever other stereotype a person could think of that involved the prettiest and most popular girls making their way through life had stepped through the hotel doors.

And from the looks they were getting it was clear they weren’t entirely welcome. Liam was surprised at the number of people pulling a Rick and glaring at the girls like they didn’t belong.

Liam had always figured the geek movement was supposed to be inviting and inclusive. The exact opposite of the kind of people who’d presumably been mean to the outcasts and given them wedgies and swirlies back in high school, though he hadn’t actually seen any of that when he was in school.

He’d always wondered how much of that was society getting nicer over the decades, and how much of it was that the kind of person who got that kind of treatment was also the kind of person who’d move out to LA where they could grind that particular axe in the stuff they wrote for movies and TV.

Unfortunately he’d noticed the whole inclusiveness thing had gone to shit over the past decade or so as certain elements of geek culture got all misogynistic while doing their keyboard warrior schtick, and some of that hostility was clearly on display from the looks the Sparklefang fans were getting now.

“Damn,” Liam whispered again.

They were all dressed in skimpy clothing from the Sparklefang lore, and they’d all doused themselves in so much glitter that taking a shower would be enough to introduce dangerous levels of microplastics into the local water supply.

He still wouldn’t mind taking that shower with one of them and helping them rinse some of that glitter off.

“Eat your heart out Rick,” Liam said. “Because you’re not ever getting with any of those girls. Especially if you keep that chip on your shoulder acting like they don’t belong here.”

Rick scoffed. “As though I’d want to be with anyone who was here because they were interested in that stupid insipid movie.”

“I see the way you’re looking at those girls,” Anna said. “That’s the look of a man who’s thinking about airbrushing some abs onto his beer gut, raiding the glitter section down at the local craft store, and seeing how far it gets him.”

“Like that would work,” Rick said, though he sounded like he was considering it.

“You’d need to at least get a set of plastic fangs from a Halloween store,” Liam said. “I’m pretty sure that’d be enough to pull a lady who was into the whole vampire role-playing thing.”

“Oh it would totally work,” Michael said. “I saw a video on a certain website that might or might not start with the letter X with this guy who took an amateur video at a con of…”

He trailed off as he realized, just a touch too late, that he was admitting to Internet browsing habits that weren’t appropriate to discuss when his girlfriend was right there giving him the stink eye.

“What I meant to say is I was looking at a site that talked about amateur costuming and…”

“Can it,” Anna said. “You always forget to delete your Internet history anyway. Where do you think I keep getting all those ideas you like so much?”

“That’s where you’re figuring that out?” he asked, his eyes going wide.

“Of course, you big idiot!” she said.

“Wait,” he said. “So you’re willing to creep on my browsing history to figure out new things to try in the bedroom, but you’re not willing to go so far as getting a costume from…”

“Okay,” Liam said, holding a hand up to stop Michael. “I think that’s more than any of us want to know about your personal life.”

“Sorry,” Michael said.

“Not as sorry as I am,” Liam said. “I’m going to have to spend a few hours at the hotel bar to get that mental image out of my head!”

“I don’t know,” Rick said, staring at Anna with a look that said the torch he’d been carrying for her for years was still burning bright. For all that it should’ve guttered and died long ago. Especially when she started dating one of his friends. “I wouldn’t mind…”

“We all know what you wouldn’t mind imagining when it comes to my girlfriend,” Michael said, sounding good-natured but with the faintest hint of annoyance. “And none of us need to hear it. You don’t want to be exiled again, right?”

“I don’t,” Rick sniffed. “Come on. Let’s check in and get out of this lobby.”

There was a moment where Liam worried hostilities were about to break out regardless of Michael trying to smooth things over. Anna glared at Rick, and she didn’t look happy that he’d been creeping on her again. Usually he didn’t slip up like that, but perhaps the frustration of seeing a bunch of beautiful women he had no chance with had pushed him past the breaking point.

Rick moved to get into a line that was already pretty long. Liam also noted that Rick stepped in line behind the group of pretty girls, and he seemed to have no problem sneaking glances at them despite being so offended that they were at the convention.

Several others got in line behind Rick as they stayed back to do some grousing now that he wasn’t there to overhear them.

“I swear I’m going to kick him in the nuts if he keeps acting like this,” Michael said. “If he pulls this again I’m going to make him regret the day he ever…”

“I know he can be a pain in the ass,” Anna said, rolling her eyes as they moved into the line. “But we should be nice. It’s not like he has many friends.”

“With good reason,” Liam muttered, earning him a sharp look from Anna.

Eventually Rick reached the front desk where he launched into an animated conversation with the pretty woman working there. Liam could read the beats of the conversation as it happened even if he couldn’t overhear.

Rick leaned in and said something that was probably meant to be charming. The woman, a brown-haired beauty who looked to be just out of college, smiled a polite customer service smile that said she had to act interested even though she was dying a little inside every time someone hit on her at work.

He imagined she was probably dying a lot with a convention crowd who by and large didn’t know how to deal with a pretty lady who had to pretend to be nice to them.

Rick hit her with a smile and a few more remarks that were probably meant to sound charming, and she replied with something that clearly soured his mood. The exchange went frosty from there, until eventually he looked over his shoulder.

Rick motioned for them to come and join him, but Liam shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to violate one of the oldest laws of the convention and cut in line. Especially when the people in line were getting more and more annoyed every moment the line was held up with Rick’s antics.

It wasn’t the only line checking people in, but it’s not like there were a lot and every little delay created a large backlog of humanity waiting to get to their rooms and decompress after the drive to the convention.

Finally Rick sighed and shouted. “The room is in your name so she needs to talk to you, Liam. Get up here!”

Liam exchanged frustrated glances with Anna and Michael.

“I know,” Anna said with a sigh. “This is all my fault for inviting him.”

“It really is,” Liam said.

They endured glares as they moved up to join Rick, but Liam knew there wasn’t a chance Rick was giving up his place.

“How can I help you?” the woman, a glance at her name tag told him her name was Olivia, asked as they approached.

He also noticed she had a little pin in the shape of a Star Trek badge beside her name tag.

She was pretty, with short brown hair that was pulled up in a ponytail and just a little out of place. Like she’d been working at the desk for a while and either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t bothered to fix the stray hair. She also looked pretty nice in that suit. She was the kind of woman Liam wouldn’t mind getting to know better.

But he figured he’d keep it professional. She probably had enough guys hitting on her this weekend as it was. He didn’t need her to finish dealing with Rick trying to hit on her in his clumsy way only to have him moving in and making things more awkward.

“We’re here to check in, I guess,” Liam said, shooting an annoyed look at Rick who completely missed it.

“And you’re the one with the reservation?” she asked.

Liam thought about making a joke about how he wouldn’t be up here without reservations, but one look at Olivia, who seemed to be barely holding it together, was enough to tell him joking wasn’t a good idea right now. So he decided to go with simple and direct.

“That’s right,” he said, hitting her with an apologetic smile. “And I’m sorry for any trouble we might’ve caused.”

She grinned right back at him, and he thought he detected a slight blush as she looked him up and down. It was a quick look, but he totally caught it.

“You’re not as much trouble as some, believe it or not,” she said. “We’ve had a bunch of people who are new to the whole convention thing coming through the line without reservations.”

“No need to worry about any of that with us,” Liam said, pulling out a printed sheet that had all his information on it. “I made my reservations as soon as they opened when I heard about the Sparklefang stuff. I figured that would make this convention a hot ticket.”

“You figured right,” Olivia said, hitting him with another smile.

She took his paper reservation and inspected it. He always brought a paper copy to these conventions. He didn’t trust his cell phone to pull up that information considering how dodgy the cell service got when thousands of geeks tried to access the Internet via a few towers that couldn’t handle the traffic.

“Oh thank God,” she said, her customer service smile turning into a look that seemed a touch more inviting than professional courtesy called for.

“Has it been pretty bad today?” he asked, glancing at Rick.

“This again?” Rick muttered under his breath.

“Watch the master and see how it’s done,” Michael muttered, low enough for Rick to overhear but not loud enough for Olivia to overhear.

“You have no idea,” she said, sighing. “There are a lot more people at the convention than usual, and a lot of them are newbies who don’t have any idea how far in advance they needed to book their reservation to stay at this hotel rather than one of the places down the street. Not all of them are being polite about it.”

“I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with that,” Liam said. He felt for her. He’d done his time in the customer service trenches.

He still was, in a sense, even though the people who paid to watch him do his VR streaming gig weren’t exactly customers. Plus he could always block someone if they got too salty.

“Thanks for that,” she said with a frazzled sigh.

“Believe me, I have some idea of what it’s like dealing with someone like that,” Liam said.

He glanced over to Rick, and Olivia’s gaze followed. She took Rick in from head to toe with an appraising look. It wasn’t a good appraising look, either. Rick was the kind of guy who thought a dark T-shirt with his favorite Japanese animation on the front was the height of fashion, and he was completely oblivious to the looks he was getting.

It didn’t help that his favorite Japanese animation tended towards the kind of stuff that was usually given its own category on that website Michael had been talking about that started with a big old X.

Rick was the kind of dude who went through life convinced the reason people weren’t all that nice to him was because of his niche interests that were pretty fucking mainstream these days. He never stopped to think that maybe the reason nobody wanted anything to do with him was because he was an insufferable asshole most of the time, and not because of the pop culture he consumed.

“It’s okay, I’ll deal,” she said.

“I hope so,” he said. “At least at my job I can tell people to stuff it when they get out of hand.”

“What do you do?” she asked.

“Would you believe VR streamer?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t,” she said.

“Well that’s what I do,” he said. “People pay good money to watch me frag people in games with my trusty VR headset.”

“Wait, you’re serious? Like people actually pay for that?”

He puffed up a little. He was proud of what he’d built. “Sure do.”

“You’re not what I’d expect from a popular streamer,” she said, looking him up and down.

“It turns out doing the VR thing on a treadmill helps keep me in shape, and working for myself leaves plenty of time for the gym,” Liam said.

“Oh my God! That’s so amazing. I’ll have to watch sometime!”

“I’d love to have you watch!” he said, sketching a quick salute.

“That must be such an awesome job,” she said.

“It has its moments,” he said. “Though it’s not all gaming all the time like a lot of people think.”

“Of course not,” she said. “I’m sure there’s a lot more to it than that if you’ve made a business out of it. Are the people watching your stream dicks at all?”

“Most people are nice,” he said. “But you occasionally get some entitled people who seem to think a donation means they run the place.”

“It’s pretty much the same thing here,” she said. “Though honestly, as far as conventions go this isn’t the worst I’ve had to deal with by far.”

Liam’s eyebrows shot up so fast that it was a wonder they didn’t escape the pull of Earth’s gravity and go into orbit. “What possibly be worse?”

“We had a furry convention come through once,” she said, leaning in closer so no one behind them could overhear. Which was probably a good idea considering there was definitely going to be a furry contingent at the convention this weekend. “I’m a live and let live kind of person, but we caught a few of them doing their thing in special suits with flaps in all the right places, if you catch my drift. I’m taking a vacation the next time they come through.”

Liam snorted. Sure the thought of a bunch of people fucking in public was disgusting, but it was also kind of funny considering they were doing that while dressed in the kind of expensive plush outfits that were usually reserved for theme parks.

“I certainly hope you don’t run into anything like that this weekend,” Liam said, glancing around the hotel lobby. “Though something tells me the usual attendees at this con aren’t going to have much of a chance with the Sparklefang crowd.”

“Oh I’m going to be with the rest of the crowd as soon as I get off today,” she said, blushing. “I was a big fan of Sparklefang back in the day.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Liam said, grinning.

“This is nice that you’re having this chit chat and everything, but could you possibly hurry it up?” Rick asked, his voice dripping with annoyance. “I didn’t invite you to cut the line so you could hit on the pretty lady behind the counter.”

“I thought you invited me to cut the line because I was the one with the reservation,” Liam said, letting some of his annoyance show. He figured Rick was only pissed off because he was having better luck with the pretty girl behind the counter.

“Yeah!” another dude shouted from the line. “There are other people waiting behind you, asshole.”

Liam looked over his shoulder, back to Olivia, and rolled his eyes. She giggled as she handed over their cards.

“There you are,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you around this weekend?”

“I certainly hope so,” Liam said, hitting her with a wink. He figured that was safe enough. She’d seemed pretty interested, after all, but he wasn’t going to be a dick and hit on her at work. Especially at a job where she had to pretend to be friendly with everyone.

“Hold on,” she said, glaring at the guy behind him who’d yelled. She pulled out a card and scribbled something on the back.

“I pride myself on providing excellent customer service,” she said, glancing down to the card, back to Liam, and blushing. “So let me know if you need anything this weekend.”

She handed the card over, blushing an even deeper red which was damn cute on her, and turned her attention to the next person in line.

“What was that all about?” Rick asked.

Liam looked at the card. She’d written her phone number on the back. He grinned as he slipped it into his pocket.

“Nothing for you to worry about,” Liam said.

Rick opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but all thoughts of Rick and whatever stupid thing he was about to say left Liam’s mind as he saw her. The girl from before. His space pirate in the tight leather that showed off plenty of skin.

She was looking around with a hunted expression as a skinny dude in an Evil Dead T-shirt leaned in close and completely missed her body language that said she wasn’t into him.

The dude also didn’t look happy, for all that he was at a convention that was supposed to be a good time for all. Liam took a short detour to listen in on their conversation, because the lady looked like she could use some help.

“So of course I made it clear I don’t want any rooms near any of them, if you catch my meaning,” he said. “I’m sure a woman of taste who clearly appreciates Vampire Vixens can appreciate that, right?”

“I’m sorry. I thought there might’ve been something here, but clearly…”

“I mean who wants their kind here anyway?” he asked, still oblivious to how unwanted his advances were as he pointedly looked at some Sparklefang people walking past.

“What are you talking about?” the woman asked.

“I don’t want to be near any of them,” he said, still looking at the Sparklefang fans.

“I’m new to this world and I’m afraid I don’t…”

She was obviously trying to get away from the dude, and Liam’s heart went out to her. Maybe it was that he was annoyed on her behalf. Maybe it was because he was annoyed at the kind of gatekeeping asshole who was clearly making the Sparklefang fans uncomfortable. Maybe it was simply that the girl was cute and he wanted to come to her rescue.

Whatever the reason, he found himself heading straight into their one-sided conversation despite Rick hitting him with an annoyed growl.

“What he’s trying to insinuate is he really likes looking at all the Sparklefang fans, but he doesn’t want to look like he’s interested in them to preserve some stupid idea of geek cred. He’s also telling you he wanted to stay in a part of the hotel where none of them are staying to try and impress you somehow. Which is impossible, of course.”

Liam grinned. He deliberately left it up in the air whether or not the impossible thing was staying in a part of the hotel where there were no Sparklefang fans or the guy’s chances of impressing the pretty cosplayer.

The girl turned to face him and blinked. Her cheeks colored, and he jumped as he felt an electric jolt pass between them. Like a literal jolt of electricity that seemed to bathe him in an odd warmth.

Well then. That was the most interesting reaction he’d ever had to meeting a pretty girl. And as that warmth bathed him she took in a deep breath and looked him up and down with a new appreciation that had other parts of his body stirring and taking notice of her taking notice.

“You,” she said.

“Me,” he replied, unsure what to say to that.

Meanwhile the guy he’d interrupted looked at Liam like he was a genetically enhanced superman from the late twentieth century and Liam had just announced his intention to maroon him and his best buddies on Ceti Alpha V.

“Who invited you to this conversation?” the guy asked.

“You did when you decided to ignore the nice lady who clearly doesn’t want to talk to you,” Liam said.

Meanwhile the lady was looking at Liam with interest. Again he felt that warmth, and he wondered where it was coming from. It went way beyond anything he’d felt looking at a pretty girl before.

“Fascinating. Standing up for the helpless,” she said.

“What can I say? I aim to please,” he said with a shrug and a grin.

The guy glared at Liam, but it quickly became clear he was the kind of guy who was more used to picking fights via his keyboard than he was in getting into any sort of confrontation in the real world.

Then something really weird happened. As he looked at the guy he suddenly saw a bunch of statistics bloom all around him. Like he was a character in a videogame Liam could fight. It was the sort of thing he saw daily while doing his streaming thing, but not the kind of thing he was used to seeing IRL.

He saw a strength rating, a challenge rating, and a list of weak points he could hit to take the guy out quickly.

Liam shook his head, and the display was gone. Leaving him wondering if he was losing it. That wasn’t the kind of thing that was supposed to show up outside of his heads up display in his VR headset, and he wondered why it was suddenly appearing now. Maybe it was his mind’s way of coping with the possibility of getting into a fight.

The guy glared at Liam for a long moment, then finally turned and stormed off.

“Thank you,” the woman said, giving Liam an up and down that sent a thrill running through him.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, trying to ignore the break his mind had taken from reality just then. “You looked like you could use the help.”

“He didn’t give up,” she said. “And while normally being relentless like that is a quality I might seek, with him it was…”

“Slightly creepy?” Liam asked.

“Creepy,” she said, frowning. “I’m not familiar with this word.”

“It means…” Liam paused. If this girl wanted to play the alien come to earth who didn’t understand strange earth customs then he was more than happy to play the part of Jimkirk teaching her things like “what is love?” and “what is kiss?” “Well it means he doesn’t understand when you aren’t interested and keeps trying long after he should’ve realized you weren’t interested.”

“Interesting,” she said, tapping a finger against full lips he could imagine kissing, or maybe seeing wrapped around… Well, suffice it to say he could think of a few things he wouldn’t mind seeing those lips doing. “And how would someone in your world go about showing they are interested?”

Again with the up and down accompanied by a considering look. Again with the stirring down below that was about to make things awkward.

“Well we could start with you giving me your number and seeing if we can’t meet up this weekend,” he said.

She opened her mouth and looked like she was about to do just that, but was interrupted by a loud noise at the other end of the lobby. He turned to see yet another demonstration starting up, only this one looked to be Sparklefang themed if the glittery performers were anything to go on.

From the lights and music, not to mention that the people acting in this show looked a touch more attractive and in better shape than the Vampire Vixens people, it would seem the convention had put more money into this show than the other one.

“Anyway, like I was saying,” Liam said, turning back to the girl.

Only once more she wasn’t there. He blinked and looked around at the crowd, trying to see if she was anywhere in the press of bodies moving towards the new demonstration, but he came up with a whole lot of nothing.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled.

Though he figured he’d already run into her twice. That was a good sign he’d see her again before the convention was over.

When he got back to Rick, Michael, and Anna they stared at him with varying looks. Michael shook his head ruefully, like he was thinking of his single days when he could do something like that. Rick looked outright hostile as always when there was a pretty girl around who’d rather talk to Liam than him. Anna merely rolled her eyes.

“Does that happen everywhere you go?” Anna asked.

“Did any of you see where she disappeared to?” he asked.

Surely one of them had been looking, even if he’d been distracted.

“I was distracted by the loud noise,” Michael said.

“Same,” Anna said.

“I was… Looking somewhere else,” Rick said, glancing to yet another group of Sparklefang hotties moving through the hotel lobby.

“Damn,” Liam muttered.

“She was clearly interested in that guy she was talking with before you so rudely interrupted,” Rick said.

That earned him flat stares from everyone.

“Hey, let’s not harsh the vibe I have going here,” Liam said. “I met a pretty lady who couldn’t stop blurring the lines between cosplay and reality, and maybe I’ll meet her again later and we’ll have some fun role-playing in her room.”

“You’re incorrigible,” Anna said.

“Guilty as charged,” Liam said, grinning from ear to ear and really looking forward to what the three day weekend was going to bring now that he’d been so successful so early.

Though he did wonder where the hell that gorgeous rogue kept disappearing too.