Felix gave her his most flirtatious smirk. He slid his sunglasses down his nose and winked. “When the mood strikes.”
Her jaw slackened, and her cheeks went bright pink. Felix pushed his sunglasses up as he turned back to the road. The pre-chorus kicked in, and he belted it out. Jo laughed again, that loud sound he loved so much, and joined him. They sang every word together. As soon as the song ended, the next one kicked in. A guitar riff solo started the track, then violins joined in, then drums and synth trilling up and down the scale.
“Wait, this is ABBA,” Jo said. “It’s from the seventies. Why is this on here?”
“What does it say in parentheses?” Felix asked.
Jo tapped the screen to wake it up. “‘A Man After Midnight’?”
“The other parentheses.”
“‘Original Motion Picture Soundtrack,’” she read.
“From Mamma Mia.”
“That’s not in the parentheses, but yeah.”
“Which came out in 2008,” he explained in a tone that would accept no argument. “It counts.”
“Fucking librarians,” she scoffed. “Got an answer for everything.”
“Be quiet and sing.”
She opened her mouth to argue with that logic, but Felix was already singing the chorus.
They passed the afternoon eating junk food and singing along to Lady Gaga, Jimmy Eat World, Flo Rida, and, of course, more Britney. Felix drove them through St. Louis, across Illinois, and over the state line into Indiana. Jo offered to take over for the last leg into Indianapolis, and he accepted. Twenty minutes past seven o’clock, she pulled up to the Hotel Paragon, a tall building across the street from a convention center boasting giant green and orange “Indi-Con” banners.
“Your nails match,” Felix said.
Jo grinned. “You noticed?”
“Of course.”
They parked in the underground garage, stretched their legs and backs, and loaded themselves up with their weekend luggage. Jo told him to leave the water bottles where they were. She’d grab some the next day to pass around so people didn’t have to pay five bucks a bottle from the convention center vendors. Felix didn’t quite have words for how much he admired that thoughtfulness of hers.
The lobby of the Hotel Paragon was packed with nerds. As he and Jo stood in line to check into their rooms, he cast his eyes around to take it all in. MnM T-shirts everywhere. Clusters of people in full costume as elves, wizards, red-skinned demonkin, and blue-finned merfolk. Folks of every race and gender and age and body type and hair color, united by their love of Monsters and Mythology. What was it Aida had said? Drinking from the firehose of MnM. That seemed pretty damn accurate. He only understood about a third of the conversations happening around him with all the abbreviations and jargon. He was in way over his head.
Jo is here, he told himself to calm the jitters in his stomach. She’ll help me. It’ll be fine.
“Next, please,” said the woman behind the front desk. Jo moved aside to wait for him, holding her room key booklet between her fingers.
“Checking in. Felix Navarro,” he said as he approached. He set down his duffel and pulled out his wallet for his credit card.
“JO!”
Two people were running in their direction. Felix recognized them from Jo’s descriptions in the car. Kim Capell, a plus-sized white woman with alabaster skin, blue eyes, and freckles, was wearing her signature style of fifties vintage. From the curled jet-black hair tied up with a red kerchief to the wide-necked white top and red cigarette pants, she was head-to-toe rockabilly. Alongside her was a short, slim white man with piercing emerald-green eyes. Max Kelly, most likely, judging by the baggy jeans, shaggy teal hair, and Super Mario Bros. T-shirt. According to Jo, Max had never been seen by a member of their group in anything other than a video game shirt.
Jo squealed and dropped her bags to hug them both at the same time. Kim and Jo started chattering a mile a minute while Max silently grinned.
“Sir?” said the woman at the desk. “I’m sorry, could you please spell your last name for me?”
Felix did so, and the woman clicked her tongue. “That’s what I have here. I’m not finding your reservation, I’m afraid. Could it be under a different name?”
“No, just me,” he said.
“Do you have your confirmation number? I’ll try that,” she said. “It should have been emailed to you.”
Felix searched for the hotel name in his email but didn’t find anything. Strange. He searched again in the trash in case he accidentally deleted it, but there was nothing. He moved aside and told the woman he needed a moment to find it, gesturing to the person behind him in line to come forward.
“Is everything okay?” Jo asked.
“They can’t find my reservation, and I don’t have a confirmation email,” he said, scrolling through his inbox carefully. He checked his work email and his credit card app to see if there was any evidence of his booking there. Nothing. He pushed a hand through his hair. “It must not have gone through when I booked it.”
He returned to the desk when the woman was free, explained the situation, and asked if he could book a room now. She gave him a pleasant, dead-eyed smile and a speech she’d probably delivered a hundred times today. “I’m terribly sorry, sir, but we’re booked up. I have vacancies starting Sunday night, but nothing for tonight or tomorrow.”
Felix puffed out a breath. “I understand. Completely my fault. Thank you for your help. I’ll try another hotel.”
“Good luck,” she singsonged as Felix returned to Jo and her friends.
“I need to try a different hotel. They’re booked,” he told them.
“Uh, everywhere’s booked, dude,” Max said. “It’s fucking INDI-CON!” A few people near them cheered and huzzahed.
“I gathered,” Felix said flatly.
“You could… stay with me?” Jo said, barely audible.
Felix went weak at the knees. He couldn’t. Could he? He shouldn’t. But what other choice did he have? He should try the other hotels first, at least. He should refuse. Definitely. Refusing was the gentlemanly thing to do.