Day 8 Evening 2/2

STARLITE MALT SHOP curved across the front of the old-fashioned diner in pale blue neon, the letters reflected in chrome trim and the dark lake beyond the boardwalk. Red vinyl booths filled the windows. A silver starburst clock hung over the counter, and an old jukebox glowed in one corner with rows of songs none of them recognized.

“I’m telling you, chocolate is the safe answer,” Lizzy said as they reached the door. “Chocolate is good even when people get creative with it.”

“That is cowardice disguised as dessert strategy,” Cassie said.

Claire opened the door before Lizzy could defend herself. “Strawberry.”

Cassie stopped behind her. “That is somehow worse.”

The bell above the door rang, admitting them into warm vanilla, coffee, and frying sugar. The shop was busier than it had been on Claire’s date with Van. Couples occupied several booths along the windows, and a family had taken over two tables near the jukebox. Two women in matching resort robes were dividing a banana split with the concentration of engineers dismantling machinery.

Dottie turned from the counter. Her pale-blue uniform and wide white collar were exactly as Claire remembered them. “Sit wherever you like, girls. I’ll be right there.”

They chose a booth under the front window. Cassie slid in first and immediately stole one of the menus from Lizzy.

“You said you didn’t need one,” Lizzy protested.

“I don’t. I’m checking whether they’ve invented a flavor worth respecting.”

Claire folded her arms on the table. “They can invent a hundred. I’m getting strawberry.”

Lizzy looked between them and opened her own menu. “I refuse to referee this.”

Cassie and Claire called her a coward at almost the same time. That broke Lizzy first; by the time Dottie returned, she was still laughing.

Cassie handed the menu back. “You work here. What’s the best milkshake?”

Dottie turned and pointed toward the service window. “Cherry. New today, and apparently everybody wants one.”

A glossy poster occupied the wall between the service window and the chalkboard specials.

Claire occupied most of the poster.

Poster-Claire sat on the counter in a fitted red-and-white diner uniform, hips planted on the chrome edge. The short skirt rode high over widely spread thighs, with a frosted milkshake glass positioned between them to keep the image just this side of indecent. Her other hand offered a shining cherry to the viewer.

MEANT FOR SHARING swept across the top in looping script.

Beneath the cherry, poster-Claire smiled and offered: YOU CAN HAVE MINE.

Claire forgot how to breathe.

Cassie made a strangled sound beside her. Lizzy looked at the poster, then at Claire, then very deliberately at the tabletop.

“How long has that been there?” Claire asked.

“Since this afternoon.” Dottie put one hand on her hip. “It’s been popular.”

Cassie slid out of the booth and approached the poster with appalling seriousness. “The composition is tasteful.”

Claire found enough air to glare at her. “You don’t know what composition means.”

“I know what a cherry means,” she said with a cruel grin.

Lizzy covered her mouth.

Claire’s hair lifted behind her in immediate betrayal. She caught several strands in both hands before they could make the situation worse. “That is not—” She looked at the poster again. “I mean, obviously that is supposed to be me.”

On a second look, the image was good. The woman on the wall looked playful instead of camera-ready, confident instead of dutiful. The poster girl was sexy in a way Claire had never imagined for herself.

She hated that the Hotel had made the thing and hung it in public. She also hated how good she looked and the way it made her feel.

Her imagination supplied Van standing in front of the poster. His eyes would widen, then he would realize she had noticed him looking and spend the next minute trying not to look anywhere at all.

Heat traveled down Claire’s neck and spread across her chest.

Cassie was still watching her.

“We are here for dessert,” Claire said with sudden certainty. She turned her back on the poster in an act of defiance.

Cassie straightened into a parody of military attention. “Ma’am, yes ma’am.”

Lizzy risked another look at the poster. “It could be worse.”

Claire turned toward her.

Lizzy tugged self-consciously at the edge of her shirt. “My clothes fall through me every time I get embarrassed, and Cassie’s keep getting smaller. I don’t think modesty has a strong institutional presence here.”

Cassie pointed at her. “That is the most polite possible way to say this place is at war with pants.”

Dottie returned with three waters. “Shakes, sundaes, or poor decisions?”

“Can we combine those?” Cassie asked.

“That’s most of the menu.”

Lizzy ordered chocolate. Cassie ordered the cherry shake with exaggerated ceremony, smiling directly at Claire through every word. Claire held out for strawberry.

When Dottie left, Cassie leaned back and tugged at the hem of her shirt. The fabric had tightened again during the walk, not enough to expose anything new, but enough to remind her that Cover Girl was never finished making decisions about her wardrobe.

Lizzy watched her tug at the hem. “Are you looking forward to having the room to yourself tonight?”

“Oh, absolutely. I’m taking the world’s longest shower and then sleeping naked, spread-eagle, in the middle of the bed.”

Lizzy nearly dropped her straw wrapper.

Claire gave Cassie a slow look. “That seems like a lot of information.”

“It’s logistics. I’ve spent a week wearing clothes that keep getting tighter, shorter, or both. I want one night where nothing is digging into me or crawling up my ass.”

Claire’s mouth twitched. “I’m sure Van would let you sleep naked in the Suite if you asked nicely.”

Cassie inhaled at exactly the wrong moment and choked on water.

Lizzy dissolved into helpless laughter while Claire pushed a napkin toward her.

“No,” Cassie managed. “Absolutely not. I am not negotiating nudity privileges with Van because my shirts are all traitors.”

“Van would probably put a towel over his own head and spend the night suffocating if you asked,” Claire said.

Lizzy twisted the straw wrapper between her fingers. “Fiona might understand, though. Have you asked her?”

Cassie stopped coughing.

“I mean the clothes,” Lizzy added quickly. “She knows how much they bother you. If you explained why you wanted the break, she wouldn’t make it weird.”

Cassie’s face had already gone red. “Right. Obviously.”

Claire’s smile widened in revenge.

Cassie kicked her gently under the table.

Their shakes arrived before Claire could retaliate. For several minutes, conversation surrendered to sugar.

—--------------------

At Mother Ducker’s, Van waited until Fiona pushed her plate away. “You done?”

“Unless they have a second dinner hidden under the first one.”

He raised a hand to their server. “Can we get the check?”

The server planted both palms on the edge of a nearby table and shouted toward the dining room, “HOW DO DUCKS PAY FOR DINNER?”

Half the staff answered at once. “THEY PUT IT ON THEIR BILL!”

Van froze as the server walked away. He watched her go, then looked at Fiona. “Was that the check?”

Fiona stared at him for half a second before standing. “You haven’t paid for one of these dinners yet, have you? There has to be some Master perk buried in the system somewhere, and I refuse to stay long enough for them to explain it with another bird pun. Move.”

She headed for the door with enough certainty that Van followed.

The hostess looked up as Fiona passed. “Call before you come next time. Gives us time to close early.”

Van blanched.

Fiona barely broke stride. “It’s a race, then. You or the health inspector.”

The hostess barked a laugh behind them.

Outside, Fiona drew a long breath of false-night air and kept walking. The restaurant had left her visibly brighter than when she entered it, some of the tension in her shoulders burned away by an hour of trading insults with people who expected her to hit back.

Van let them make it halfway down the path before saying anything. “You seem less burdened.”

Fiona glanced sideways at him. “That a medical diagnosis?”

“No. Just an observation.” He hesitated, then committed. “You’re quick. I knew you could argue, but that’s different. You’re funny when you’re not trying to use it as a weapon.”

“That was absolutely a weapon.”

“Fine. You’re funny with weapons.”

She tried to dismiss it with a snort. “There’s nothing special about butting heads with random dumbasses.”

“I didn’t say there was.” Van smiled faintly. “I said I liked it.”

Fiona looked ahead for several steps. “Thanks.”

The word came out grudgingly, but it came out.

Van had the sense not to celebrate.

They reached the recreation lawn with enough time left before curfew that neither had to turn toward the dorms yet. Tennis courts occupied one side. Beyond them, a pair of basketball hoops stood under bright white lamps.

Fiona stopped.

Van followed her gaze. “Want to play?”

She was already turning toward the court. “I used to play all the time in school. It was good for burning off energy without somebody turning it into a whole training discipline.”

A ball waited in the rack beside the fence. Fiona took it, bounced it once, and looked at him. “You?”

“Never on a team. The loading dock had a hoop outside. We played on breaks.”

“That’ll do.” She spun the ball once and caught it. “One-on-one would be stupid. I’m Empowered and you’re not.”

Van looked at the hoop. “Yet another claim I’m happy not to test.”

Fiona smiled. “HORSE. Winner chooses a forfeit. No crimes, no nudity, no Hotel bullshit.”

Van eyed her suspiciously. “That is a better contract than I expected.”

She tossed him the ball. “Try not to embarrass yourself.”

He made the first shot. Fiona’s eyebrows rose.

“Those were productive lunch breaks,” Van said.

She took the rebound, matched him, and moved the game along.

They were both better than the other had expected. Fiona had the advantage, and Winner’s Eye made Van’s inconsistent form easy to read, but he knew the game, corrected mistakes quickly, and occasionally forced her to work for an answer. Within a few turns he had collected the first letter.

Fiona sank her next shot and caught the ball on the return. “Physical stuff was always easier.”

Van waited.

She rolled the ball between her palms. “You learn the rule; you do the thing. I can handle that. It’s the emotional entanglements people build around everything that make me tired.”

He took the ball from the bounce rather than her hands. “The entanglements, or the assumptions?”

Fiona grunted. “Fair question.”

She watched him shoot, then set up her next turn.

“When you look at Empowered women, what do you think?”

Van’s attention shifted from the hoop to her. “That’s broad.”

“I’m not asking for a cover-letter answer. Respect, resentment, fetish—pick whatever applies. I want the ugly version if there is one.”

He held the ball for a while.

“That’s not an especially fair question from somebody who guards her own history like classified material.”

“I know.”

He nodded once. “All right.”

Van looked toward the hoop instead of at her. “I admired Empowered people. I envied them too. When I was a kid, power looked like the opposite of being helpless, and I wanted that badly enough to be angry about it sometimes.”

Fiona let him keep going.

“When I get scared enough, some of that is still there. I know better and still wish I had been faster, stronger, harder to hurt—anything that might have changed what happened.” He rubbed one thumb across the opposite palm. “After my parents died, I had nightmares about losing them for years. So yes, I have complicated feelings about power.”

He finally looked at her.

“But no, I don’t blame Empowered women for what an Alter did to my family. I don’t think being born with power tells me whether somebody is good or bad. And I’m not interested in turning women with powers into a category I can either hate or worship.”

He took his shot. It missed.

Fiona caught the rebound and let the answer sit.

“Letter,” Fiona said eventually, tossing him the ball. “I’m not giving you sympathy points.”

Van gave her a tired look. “I know the rules.”

The game resumed.

—--------------------

Katherine found Evelyn in a quiet lounge near the dorm corridor, reading with a cup of tea cooling beside her chair.

Evelyn looked up when she approached. “Katherine.” Then she returned one finger to the line she had been reading.

Katherine stopped at the edge of the seating area. “I owe you an apology.”

Evelyn marked her page with one finger and waited.

“I have been teasing you about Van because I was unbalanced myself and your reactions were easier to deal with than mine. Loose Lips made it easier to say things I should have kept to myself, but it did not make me choose you as a target. That part was me.”

Evelyn studied her for a moment, then closed the book. “Accepted. I was more defensive than the situation required, but that did not obligate you to keep pressing.”

Katherine accepted that with a small nod and sat opposite her. “Do you want to tell me what had you so defensive?”

Evelyn considered the question long enough that Katherine seemed prepared to let it die.

“It's silly,” Evelyn said at last. “Whenever Van held me, my body responded to him as an attractive man, instead of as a young man I should be protecting. I found the intensity embarrassing, but I do not think dissecting it until it becomes a pathology would improve anything.”

Katherine’s mouth curved slightly. “That may be the healthiest thing anyone has said in this whole place.”

Evelyn reached for her tea. “Don’t ruin it then.”

“I am trying very hard.”

Katherine’s amusement faded. “Then one serious question. We are alone, and we are old enough to stop pretending every difficult subject will cause a stampede. What is your real assessment of Van as a mate? If this place means to tie our lives to his, what kind of man do you think he is?”

Evelyn lowered the cup without drinking.

“There are things I know about Van that are not mine to give you. If I told you, you could judge some parts of him more easily, but I would be buying your certainty with his privacy.”

Katherine nodded.

Evelyn continued. “So I will tell you only what I believe I can defend from his behavior. He will give the people he cares about everything he has. Sometimes more than he has. He will make mistakes doing it, and he is not nearly as good at accepting help as he is at offering it. But if we are forced to build a life around this arrangement, I do not think indifference from him will be the thing that destroys it.”

Evelyn set the cup down. “What we do with what he gives us will matter at least as much as what he gives.”

Katherine leaned back. “There are worse fates than having the attention of a handsome young man.”

Evelyn’s eyes narrowed. “You sound like Lizzy.”

“That was cruel.”

“It was intended to discourage you.”

Katherine laughed softly. “I mean it. This place is absurd, coercive, and otherworldly. I am not suggesting that makes the rules meaningless. But some of the rules we carried in with us were not laws of nature either. Maybe there are things our old lives taught us not to want because wanting them was inconvenient.”

“You are romanticizing captivity.”

“Possibly. I am also asking whether captivity invented every desire it exposes.”

Evelyn looked at her for a long moment.

Evelyn marked her page, stood, and collected the tea. She reached the doorway before she stopped.

“Perhaps the more useful question is why our old lives did not give us the things we wanted in the first place.” She glanced back. “If this place is going to force us to examine ourselves, I would prefer that we choose at least some of the questions.”

Then she left Katherine alone with the thought.

—--------------------

By the time Fiona and Van started talking again, the game had found an easier rhythm.

Fiona was ahead. Van had enough letters that the outcome was becoming obvious, but he was still making her earn the last one. They played several turns in quiet before Fiona found something easier to talk about.

Fiona watched him miss and caught the rebound. “After the running lesson, I half expected you to throw the ball like a baseball at the backboard.”

Van gave a weak laugh. “Clint would have killed me. He worked receiving and decided nobody was allowed to touch the ball until they learned how to shoot properly.”

“I thought you didn’t talk to anyone at work.”

“I said I kept to myself.” Van waited for the ball to come back. “I didn’t have people over. I didn’t do birthdays. I didn’t go looking for friends. That doesn’t mean I spent every shift pretending everyone else was furniture. I knew a lot of people there.”

“Apparently.”

“Some of the trainees too. Heroes came through the building all the time.”

Fiona tossed him the ball. “Which ones?”

He thought while lining up his shot. “A girl named Tessa used to come downstairs a lot. Blonde. Blue in her hair. Some kind of light power.”

Fiona caught the rebound and kept it. “Bright blue highlights? Couldn’t make a five-minute coffee run without turning it into a group activity?”

Van’s expression changed. “She liked noodles.”

Fiona stared at him, then laughed hard enough that she had to brace the ball against her hip. “Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me. Tessa was my roommate. At the training center. For months.” She pointed at him. “You’re Sad Loading Dock Boy.”

His mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “I was not Sad Loading Dock Boy.”

“You absolutely were. Tessa talked about you all the time without ever using your name, so I started calling you that to annoy her. She tried to drag me to an all-day anime marathon while I had bruised ribs because she thought emotional support improved healing. That is the woman we are talking about.”

Van rubbed a hand over his face. “That does sound like her.”

Fiona bounced the ball once, still grinning. “She never told me whether she actually asked you out.”

Van’s eyes narrowed. “Then I’m not telling you either.”

He took the next shot and missed badly. Fiona slowly turned her head.

“That was a very informative miss.”

Van retrieved the ball. “If Tessa kept something private, I’m not going to make it public for her now.”

The grin left Fiona’s face. She nodded once. “Fair.”

She let him have the ball, then asked more quietly, “Was that why you turned her down? Whatever was happening with you then?”

Van looked at the seams beneath his fingers. “I was in a bad place. I wasn’t good to be around.”

Fiona studied him, then took the next pass. “That makes another weird connection between you and somebody here. This place keeps pulling threads that were already near each other.”

Van bounced the ball once and said nothing.

Fiona sank her shot.

He missed the return.

She looked at the final letter, then at him.

Van sighed. “Is the interrogation over, or do I get to start asking personal questions now?”

Fiona rubbed the back of her neck. “I went farther than I meant to.”

“That sounds almost like an apology.”

“Don’t ruin it.”

His next attempt caught the rim and fell away.

Fiona caught the rebound.

“HORSE.”

Van groaned. “I hate this game.”

The victory settled through her with a satisfaction sharper than the game deserved. She had beaten him; now he owed her.

The thought arrived quietly without her really examining it.

Fiona rolled the ball beneath one palm. “I want another workout.”

Fiona met his surprise without backing off. “A real one. You want to get better, and I know how to make people better.”

He studied her long enough that she nearly snapped at him for it.

“All right,” he said. “But I want a neutral referee. Somebody you respect enough to listen to when they say stop. Preferably somebody you’d be afraid to work to death.”

Fiona barked a laugh. “You really think I’d work you to death?”

Van looked at her and very deliberately did not answer.

Her laugh got louder. “Fine. You pick the third.”

“Deal. I choose Claire.” Van returned the ball to the rack.

Fiona was already walking toward the path when she called over her shoulder, “Come on, Sad Loading Dock Boy.”

His groan followed her toward the resort.

—--------------------

By the time Claire, Cassie, and Lizzy left STARLITE, the boardwalk had quieted. The lake reflected the resort lights in long broken streaks, and music drifted faintly from somewhere farther down the shore.

Cassie made it perhaps twenty steps before she said, “You should send him the picture.”

Claire had known this was coming. She still felt heat rise into her face. “I am not sending Van that poster while he is on a date with Fiona.”

Cassie’s smile sharpened immediately. “Interesting restriction.”

“You are twisting my words.”

“I don’t need to. You tied them in a bow for me.” Cassie walked backward so she could watch Claire. “Fine. Don’t send it. On my next date I’ll bring him here, order the cherry shake, and then—wow, Claire, who knew there was a giant pin-up of you on the wall?”

Claire swatted her shoulder.

Cassie laughed and turned forward again.

Lizzy had been quiet. “What if he did see it?”

Claire looked at her.

“I mean by accident,” Lizzy said. “Would you actually mind him seeing you like that?”

The question took longer to answer. Claire slipped her phone into her pocket. “I can’t control whether Van sees me as a woman or thinks I’m attractive.”

Cassie gave her a sidelong look. “That is a lot of Evelyn words. You are trying very hard to avoid saying you want to make Van very hard.”

Claire stopped walking. Lizzy made a horrified sound beside her. “Cassie!”

Cassie only grinned. “You spent the entire evening imagining him looking at the poster.”

Claire’s hair lifted behind her.

Cassie’s grin widened. “Case rested.”

Claire caught her hair and forced it back over one shoulder. “There is a difference between the Hotel putting my face on a wall and me choosing whether one person sees the picture. If I sent it, that would be my choice.”

Lizzy nodded slowly.

Claire looked down at the path. “Though maybe I wouldn’t hate him thinking I look good.”

Cassie waited exactly one second. “There. Human language.”

Claire shoved her again.

Cassie stumbled sideways, laughing. “You can’t take the high road with me. You gave us a field report on his morning erection after your date.”

“I did not see his penis.”

Cassie’s laughter became dangerous.

“He was wearing pants,” Claire said, now committed to the correction. “I saw an erection through his pants. That is not the same thing.”

“Important scientific distinction.”

“It was the first one I had ever seen. I didn’t know how to react.”

They made it several more steps before Lizzy slowed. “Do you realize what we’re doing? Claire went out with him. I went out with him. Fiona is with him now. We’re talking about whether Claire wants him to think she is sexy, and somehow the strangest part is that we’re talking about it like this is normal.”

Claire’s embarrassment eased.

Cassie’s did not appear at all, but her answer was less flippant than usual. “Eh, not me. He's cute for a giant dork, but I’m not trying to steal your boyfriend.”

“He is not my boyfriend,” Lizzy corrected a bit too quickly.

“Your emotionally significant giant, then.”

Cassie continued before Claire could help. “Besides, I’m not the one who stuck her tongue down his throat at the fair.”

Lizzy’s hands dropped. “There was no tongue.”

Claire laughed first. Cassie joined her, and even Lizzy did after a few seconds.

When the laughter faded, Cassie tugged once at the hem of her shirt. “I do need points, though. I want a phone, and I would really like to own clothes that stop negotiating with gravity. If there are harmless things I genuinely don’t mind doing—holding his hand, hugging him, whatever—I’m not going to refuse just because the Hotel might reward me for it.”

Claire glanced at her. “That sounded suspiciously reasonable.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

Lizzy looked at Cassie. “You really think he’s cute?”

Cassie’s step hitched.

“Cute dork, I think she said,” Claire reminded her.

Cassie paused to think of a defense. Before she could, the other two broke. Lizzy failed first, laughter escaping between her fingers. Claire followed a second later.

Cassie stood in the middle of the path while both women laughed at her.

Her expression turned defensive. “So what? I'm not blind, and we've all seen his ass in that speedo.”