Page 80 of Love, Morgan

Domino looked at the giant clock at the end of the convention hall. “Shoot. I have to go do a soundcheck, but I’ll see you later, yeah? Thanks again for being here.”

“Good luck,” I called after her as she raced away.

I was glad to be on the participant side rather than the organizer side. And I was really proud of myself for being here at all.

“Ah, only a couple of hours to go,” Shira called from the booth across from me. She was an artist and was going to be speed-drawing people who swung by her booth. We had a deal to see which one of us could work quicker—if she drew a person quicker than I could wrap their awkwardly shaped gift, I owed her a pizza. And if I wrapped quicker, she owed me a pizza.

Through all of the nerves, the fun of being around everyone was genuinely wonderful. I was going to be exhausted after the weekend, but it was going to be worth it.

I chatted with Shira as we both fussed and fidgeted with our booths—double, triple, and quadruple checking that we had everything we needed—and, before either of us knew it, Domino’s voice was coming over the loudspeaker telling us all it was time.

We shared a grin, Shira racing to set herself up by her easel as I braced myself on the edge of my wrapping table. It felt like I could hear the crowds outside already, even though it was pretty unlikely given the flurry of movement as people ran by, wishing each other good luck. I’d been in front of fans before but never like this, never so much as myself, and there was something both terrifying and thrilling about it.

The clock hit the hour and the doors opened.

I sucked in a breath and held it, definitely hearing the crowds now.

It was unsurprising that so many people were here given the good cause and the number of creators Domino had managed to sign up, but it was still overwhelming to witness.

As the first people started heading our way, I let my breath out slowly, sharing an awed look with Shira and spotting Thalia’s good luck message lighting up my phone.

I smiled and laughed as an absolute rainbow of a person ran my way, towing along a much more serious-looking person that could only be their partner.

“Iona! Oh my god, it’s actually you,” she said, stopping right in front of me.

“It is,” I said, feeling that the words were more true than they had ever been when I met fans.

My fingers found the mango around my neck, my heart aching for Morgan. She’d facilitated this. I hated that she wasn’t here for it, that I couldn’t tell her about it.

A heady cocktail of happiness, longing, and despair flooded through me. There was so much peace in not having to worry quite as much about seeming too human around my subscribers, and so much sadness in missing having Morgan along for the journey. The one fan who had ever truly seen me. The one fan who was so much more than just that.

The rainbow person turned out to be Kay, a person I definitely recognized from online, and, after her, the familiar names kept coming. New ones, too. And it was like dancing through a ballroom of wonderful people who’d all secretly been there all along. Only now, I got to put faces and personalities to them, and that was far more wonderful than anything. When I’d met people before, I’d been so worried about being perfect, I hadn’t realized how much of them I’d missed out on.

The hours passed, the gifts got wrapped, Shira and I owed each other multiple pizzas I doubted either of us would ever really cash in on, and the people kept coming. I could only imagine how much money we were raising, and how Domino wouldn’t have the slightest problem making this an annual event. Happiness felt like it was blooming in my chest, even as the exhaustion from working and meeting so many people jabbed at the edges of my consciousness.

I was in the middle of wrapping a teapot when the sensation of Morgan watching me took over. I glanced quickly over the crowd around my booth. It wasn’t real. She wasn’t there, of course. But a useless, hopeful part of me couldn’t stop wishing she might be. All day, whenever I’d caught sight of someone her height, with her hair color, my heart had thumped demandingly, only to break a little more when they turned and it wasn’t her.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling she was watching.

I concentrated on the teapot and the person needing it wrapped, adding a bow to finish it, and laughing gently at their baffled expression when I handed it back to them.

“Thank you so much,” they said, emphatically. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that for days.”

I smiled. “I’ll do a video of it on my channel, so, if you ever need to wrap a teapot again, you’ll know where to look for instructions.”

They smiled, nodded, and melted back into the crowd.

“Who’s next?” I asked, looking around.

“Oh, me,” said a woman with a bright, excited expression.

“Great. What can I wrap for yo—”

She watched me carefully as she placed a mango on the table in front of me. If this was Thalia’s idea of a joke, it really wasn’t funny.

My pulse raced, my throat suddenly thick. “A mango?”

“Yes, please.”

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