Page 28 of All Superheroes Need PR
Three kids offer me theirs. I take the first, and since I don’t know any numbers but my parents’ and I’m definitely not calling them to pick me up out here in a pile of children feeling like a child myself, I call the generic number for the COE. After giving them my employee code with increasingly slurred speech—not because I have a concussion but because I most definitely bit my tongue—I’m eventually patched through to Tor, head of the Wyvern team’s operations, who promises to send me security and a car.
Feeling a little embarrassed they’re sending security, I don’t have another choice but to wait. As I do, most of the kids resume skating. Some still loiter around, though, including the boy and the girl who sit on the ground peppering me with questions about the Wyvern until help arrives.
And not from the direction it’s supposed to.
But from the sky.
A superbeing touches down in the center of the jogging path wearing navy sweatpants and a navy hoodie—that I gave him. I don’t know why, but my lower lip quivers a little bit when he looks at me, his gaze scanning my body from the top of my ponytail to the toes of my sneakers. His eyebrows are pulled together, his countenance intense.
I cover my mouth with my hand, the bright pain on the left side of my tongue making me feel silly because I sound like a cartoon character as I say, “Whab a-ou doing-ere?”
Roland arrives in front of me in a blur of movement, and as he drops to one knee between the two kids, surrounding me with the sheer mass of him, smoke curls from his nostrils.Smoke.“I don-think I’ll ebber get ova that,” I whisper.
He jerks back. “What?”
“De smoke,” I answer sheepishly.
He jerks back even more. “You dying?”
I burst out laughing so hard it sends pain splintering across my chest. “Ow. Don’t make me laugh.” The kids on his either side are laughing too.
“What happened?”
“Just some stupid reporters,” the little girl says. “But don’t worry, Mr. Wyvern. We scared them off!”
He looks at the kids on either side of him and then at the mob of children slowly forming around him before glaring back into my eyes. “Wanna hear you’re okay. Use your words, Nessa.”
Nessa. I don’t know when he decided I needed a nickname, but I like it. Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe he doesn’t want to ditch me as his fake girlfriend.
“Do you wanna getta coffee wibbme?”
“What? Now?”
I nod.
“Did you hit your head? How badly are you hurt? Did you see her hit her head?” He asks the kids, voice sounding a little strained.
I reach forward and grab his sleeve and smile and say, “No, no. I’m fine. Weally. I mean ... as giwlfwend an-boofren. Fake. Fo-work. We should ...”
“Jesus Christ. You’re trying to plan a work appearance for the two of us right now? Am I getting that right?” He’s right. I am. “Have you lost your damn mind?” I think he may be right about that too.
“It’s adrenaline!” the little boy shouts. “My daddy works as an EMT, and he says that people talk a lot after they’re in accidents. She’s been talking a lot so far.”
“That right?”
“Uh huh.” Both the little girl and boy nod in unison.
“Nessa, Nessa,” Roland says, shaking his head, and I hear the sound again, the same one I heard before, back in the COE building. A rumbling. And I’m oddly comforted by it.
“Y-y-yeah?” I stutter.
“Shush.”
I laugh choppily and feel my bottom jaw chatter against my upper teeth. I cover my mouth with my hands as soon as I register the blood taste. “Ow.” I wince.
Roland stands up and hands the little boy a phone. “I want you to write down your name and the name of every kid here who helped my girl today, okay? When you’re finished, come back to me. Don’t forget to write your own.”
“Okay. Do you, um ... is it okay if we get a picture after?” The little boy is about to burst excited goo out of his eyeballs.
