Mingling, Part 4

Richard found Andy near the side gallery, both men hovering at the edge of the party like **** guests at their own intervention. From here, the inside of the Dance Hall looked almost reasonable: music, women, a punch bowl, laughter. But Andy could see the other world—Erin’s impossible green, Myra’s fox ears, the flaring geometry of Tracy’s tail, the stone-flecked sheen of Scarlet’s forearms as she gestured in debate. It was a place that had never been meant for men like them.

Richard leaned on the rail, eyes flitting between the ocean and the party inside. “How long did it take you,” he asked, “before this started to feel like real life?”

Andy considered. “I’m not sure it ever did.”

Richard snorted, the sound equal parts commiseration and regret. He ran a hand over his hair, then nodded at the window. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? I’ve spent a couple of years living inside chaos, but at least Congress ran on an insufferable logic. Here…” He trailed off, then let his gaze sweep the hall again. “It’s not even logic. It’s just escalation.”

Andy watched his own reflection for a beat, the way his shoulders always slouched inward when he felt outnumbered. “It’s supposed to be disorienting. Arabella told me as much. She said the audience needs the chaos, or they get bored. So—” he shrugged, “—we keep dancing.”

Richard nodded. “You ever get the sense it’s not about the audience at all? That maybe there is no audience, and that the whole thing is just to see how far you can go before you break?”

Andy barked a short laugh. “If that’s the test, we’re both failing upwards.”

Richard grinned at that, but it faded quickly. “Can I ask you something?” The way he said it, you could tell he’d debated whether it was allowed.

“Shoot,” Andy said.

Richard’s jaw tightened a millimeter. “Is it better?” he asked, voice quiet. “Here. With the women. Does it get easier to look them in the eye after a while?”

Andy turned the words over, trying to find the right side to display. “It gets easier,” he said, “but only if you stop pretending. The minute you start seeing them as contestants, or currency, or a way out—” He shook his head, “—you lose any shot at it being real.” He turned to look at Richard. “And it’s harder on some women than on others.”

Richard nodded slowly, as if weighing that against an internal ledger. “Aubrey can’t do it. Not yet. She says she doesn’t care, but I see the way her mouth goes thin every time I look at someone else too long. She knows it’s part of the show, that I wasn’t choosing it, but she’s not built for this kind of math.”

“Neither was Erin,” Andy said. “She—” He paused, weighing whether to betray confidence. “She spent the first three weeks convinced that if she could just be better, louder, or more… present, that I’d forget the others. It took a lot of proof, a lot of time, and conversations with the other women, before she believed none of us chose this. That love here wasn’t a zero-sum game.”

Richard’s eyes went glassy for a second, then cleared. “It’s good hearing that it worked once.”

“It is,” Andy said. “But only if you really want it to be.”

They stood in silence, the ocean muffled by the thick glass. Inside, someone—probably Riley—howled a laugh that carried all the way through the double doors.

Richard glanced sidelong at Andy. “How about blowing it up? The system, I mean. Just… not playing.”

Andy shrugged. “I’ve thought about it. But if I did, I’d lose all of them. The only way out is through.” He smiled faintly. “Just not the way they want you to, perhaps.”

Richard grunted. “That’s what Maeve would have said if she was here.” He glanced at Andy. “She’s my therapist. She’s one of the women Genet took.”

Andy laughed for real this time. “My therapist’s in mine too. Marissa. Although by this point, she’s really not my therapist anymore.” He glanced at Mark, towering in the distance. “I don’t know that anything we’re going through is something a therapist can really help with, but keep yours for as long as you can, if she can help you. Don’t give in, with her.”

Richard made a face. “God, I hope not.” They both grinned, something like respect growing between them.

Andy considered him. “Is it the women, or the structure?” he asked, quietly. He didn’t need to specify what he was discussing.

Richard shrugged, caught for a second. “It’s the architecture, I think. There’s something about it that doesn’t sit right with me.”

Andy said, “You sound like you’ve studied it.”

Richard looked at him, a flash of his old campaign fire in his eyes. “I was a political science major before I went to law school. Game theory, narrative construction. The game isn’t subtle. But knowing the rules doesn’t mean you can win the game.”

Andy thought about it. “Sometimes you can subvert them. A little.”

Richard watched him, searching. “How?”

Andy considered the question for a long moment. “You build the relationships anyway. Even when the show tells you to pit them against each other, you remind them it doesn’t have to be that way. You make your own team, and you don’t let the Producers divide you.”

Richard shrugged. “It's not that way for us. Genet wants us to change, but she doesn't seem to be trying to make them fight. When it happens they're doing that on their own, and I think it's making both Genet and I nervous.”

“I get that. It’s the same for mine,” Andy said. “I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with your season, and seasons like ours don’t seem common,” he glanced at Caleb, then Harper. “My advice may be a little biased. But we are responsible for them, all things considered. Even when they fight on their own, it’s on us. It’s hard, sometimes. But it’s better than the alternative.”

Richard leaned back, letting the ocean breeze ruffle his hair. “I didn’t think I’d get advice worth a damn tonight,” he said, then, softer, “Thank you.”

Andy shrugged, a little embarrassed. “It’s not advice. Just what worked for me. Your results may vary.”

They stood together, watching the party through the glass. Erin and Aubrey had reentered the fray, walking shoulder to shoulder. Erin shot Andy a look that was pure mischief, then broke off to challenge Stella to an arm-wrestling contest. Aubrey hesitated, watching Erin for a moment, then drifted toward the cluster of women around the memory wall, her posture less brittle, more anchored.

Richard said, “You think you’ll win?”

Andy didn’t look away from the window. “Not sure it’s possible to win. We’re not playing, after all, you and I. But I’m not planning to lose, either.”

Richard nodded, then smiled, genuine this time. “That’s the best I’ve heard all week.” He straightened, a little of the old campaign posture returning. “If you need anything from me, let me know. I’ve got contacts.”

Andy grinned, then shook his head. “If I had a nickel for every time someone said that to me here…” He studied the other man. “Same offer goes to you. If I can help in any way, let me know. And I’ll have Arabella let me know when Genet opens fanmail for you. I’ll check in. We’re all in this together.”

Richard chuckled, and with a parting nod, he headed back inside, shoulders looser than when he’d come out.

---

The memory wall had fascinated Emi since Claire put it up, Polaroids and glossy prints and snapshots assembled in a dense puzzle. Emi saw herself there, blurry and doubled, the flash of her six arms captured in various postures of laughter, shyness, or surprise.

Emi drifted to the wall during a lull, her arms folded and unfolded in a fluttering choreography that soothed her nerves. The room behind her thrummed with conversation and the distant treble of music, but here it was almost quiet—a space for ghosts, maybe, or for what happened to people when they fell out of the main current of the party.

She wasn’t alone. Anna—whose eyes held more years than Emi had been alive—stood by the memory wall, inspecting it with the patience of a collector appraising a gallery. Her blue dress shimmered in the low light, her hair a black river pulled back with lapis pins. She looked at the wall like it was a map, or a wound.

Emi stopped a respectful distance away, unsure if she was interrupting.

Anna turned, caught her watching, and smiled with a gravity that made it hard to look away. “Hello, Emi,” she said. Not a question.

“Hi,” Emi said, letting two of her arms wave hello. The other four hung at her sides, like she didn’t know what to do with them.

Anna’s gaze moved, assessing each detail without judgment. “You’re from Warrenville, yes? Andy’s old world. Did you know him before… all this?”

Emi nodded. “I lived two streets over from Laura. We were friends. Not close, not like—” She pointed to the centerpiece photo, the Polaroid of Andy and Laura on the hood of the car. “They were always together. Even before they knew they’d end up together.”

Anna studied the picture, then Emi. “Were you jealous?”

Emi tried to laugh, but it came out thin. “Not really. I always thought it was romantic. Like, they were fated to find each other, and I just got to watch. Sometimes I wished—” She hesitated, then shrugged. “Sometimes I wished I could be part of it. But I knew it wasn’t for me.”

Anna nodded, as if that confirmed something. She leaned in closer to the memory wall, her fingers tracing the outline of a photo without touching it. “Andy and Laura loved each other very much,” she said, voice almost a whisper. “Do you think you ever loved him? Or did you love the way he loved her?”

Emi’s breath caught. She’d never thought to ask herself that, not so clearly. “I loved that he was so loyal. That he could care that much. I wanted someone to feel that way about me. But it never happened. Not at home, not until…” She gestured around, at the Hotel, at the swirl of impossible women. “Not until here.”

Anna tilted her head. “And do you love him now?”

Emi felt her cheeks flush, a double wave of heat as her upper and lower faces both blushed. “I do. But it’s different. He’s not the same, and neither am I. Sometimes it feels like I’m just here because I’m supposed to be. Like I’m a character in his story, not my own.”

Anna was silent for a while, then said, “Aren’t we all?” There was no edge to it, only a sadness so deep it felt bottomless.

They stood together for a long minute, the quiet thickening between them. Finally, Anna said, “Do you want to hear a secret?”

Emi nodded.

“When I was very young, I lost someone too. Not to a river, but to the world. It shaped everything I became. I spent centuries trying to fill that emptiness, and it never worked. I loved many people, but it was always from a distance. Always as a guest in their stories, not the author.” She smiled, but it was a moonlit smile, bright but not warm. “This may be embarrassing for me to admit, considering who I am, but it took me longer than I care to admit to understand that love is not a transaction. You cannot earn it by being good, or beautiful, or even by wanting it more than anything.”

Emi listened, every nerve awake.

Anna continued, “You are very alive, Emi Kim. More than most people I have ever met. It is not a curse to be a witness. Sometimes it is the greatest gift.” She glanced at Emi’s six hands, the restless ballet of them. “You should use them to hold on to what matters. Andy loves you too. Whoever else he may love, the way he feels about you is real.”

Emi smiled, for real this time. “Thank you,” she said, and reached out with one hand, then another, as if the surplus of limbs might help her hold onto the words.

Anna let Emi’s uppermost hand clasp her own. For a moment, Emi felt a tingle—a weird double-pulse, like déjà vu or a skipped heartbeat. It wasn’t static, but something else: a memory that had been waiting for this touch.

“I dreamed about you once,” Emi said, before she could stop herself. “Not here, not after, but years ago. I was at a beach, and there was a woman with black hair, and she told me she loved me. That the world would catch up, eventually.”

Anna’s eyes widened just enough to show surprise. She didn’t answer right away, then said, “That is a very old dream. I am glad it found its way to you.”

Emi looked at her. “Was it you?”

Anna’s lips curved. “Sometimes I am more than one person,” she said, “and sometimes I am less. But in that dream, it was me.”

Emi nodded, feeling the old sadness drain away, replaced by something steadier.

“Will you remember this?” Anna asked.

Emi said, “I never forget anything important. Not really.”

Anna released her hand, but the sensation lingered—like salt air, like sunlight at the very end of a day. And then she did something Emi would remember for the rest of her life. She reached out, gently took Emi’s head in both hands, and kissed her on the forehead. Anna’s lips were electric, yet the kiss felt very much like returning home. She turned back to the memory wall, eyes scanning the faces, then said, “Keep your heart open, Emi. You are loved more than you think.”

Emi believed her. She watched Anna walk away, the blue dress glimmering even in the dim.

---

If there was a moment when the party tipped from managed chaos into pure celebration, Andy didn’t notice it. The transition was gradual—a building of laughter, a shift in music, the gradual relaxation of people who had spent too much of their lives braced for disaster. It might have been when the conga line hit critical mass, or when Norah convinced Tracy to shotgun a can of whipped cream in front of the whole room. Or maybe it was when Harper and Laura, both three drinks past “witty” and halfway to “philosophical,” staged an impromptu debate about whether Masters should have to duel for the right to keep their harems.

Andy drifted the party in slow, eccentric orbits. The room’s center of gravity seemed to shift every few minutes: sometimes it was the memory wall, where Claire and Nick’s Dawn Willowbrook perched on a bench and compared notes; sometimes it was the ad hoc stage, where Stella and Liesa traded the microphone back and forth, roasting each other in a sequence of ever-more-bizarre improv games.

The party had become a confluence of seasons: a pride parade of strange and familiar faces, every Host and Master and plus-one circulating in a dance too complex to map. Andy sometimes caught himself looking for an exit—not out of discomfort, but because the surreality of it all threatened to make him float right off the ground.

He found himself near Harper, who stood apart from her harem, sipping something bright blue from a glass that looked like it belonged on a spaceship. Andy offered her a nod. She met it with a crooked smile, her aquamarine skin almost luminous in the indirect light.

“Quite the turnout,” Andy said.

Harper considered the room, then shrugged. “Not bad. Nobody’s thrown a punch yet. I think that’s a record.”

Andy grinned. “How are you holding up?”

Harper’s gaze flicked to the floor, then back up. “The girls keep me on the straight and narrow,” she said. “And I let myself enjoy it.” Harper’s smile softened. “See you on the far side,” she said, and then faded back into the noise.

A few minutes later, Andy found Laura by the drinks, sharing a low-voiced joke with Genet. The dragon woman’s wings were folded tight, but her posture was loose, comfortable. She noticed Andy, and gave him a tiny, knowing salute.

“Hey, birthday boy,” Laura called. “Turns out you’re the only one who can keep up with me,” she grinned, nodding to the drinks table.

Andy shrugged with a grin of his own. “It’s a living.”

“Slow is how it’s done,” Genet smiled, pouring herself a modest two fingers of something. She offered Andy a glass, and when he took it, Laura leaned in.

“Careful,” she whispered. “The more you drink, the more likely you are to make a fool of yourself during your speech.”

Andy grimaced, but smiled. “Duly noted. Thanks for the warning. For now, I think I need a lap of the floor.”

Laura nodded, and returned to her drink and her companion, already talking shop like nothing had happened.

He moved through the room, passing Nick and his wife at the edge of the memory wall. Nick was telling a story to Myra and Lily, and Mary sat near him, attentive and at ease. When Nick caught Andy watching, he gave a little nod, the kind that said, “I get it, man,” and then returned to his audience.

Caleb stood by a window, half-shadowed, watching the moon. Andy joined him for a minute, neither speaking, and they watched the ocean roll in and out in companionable silence. He placed a steadying hand on Caleb’s shoulder, hoping the younger man would carry the memory of this evening, that he was not alone. Then he let the current of the party take him, and it brought him—inevitably—to the memory wall.

The photos were a timeline, each one capturing a moment Andy had never known anyone else witnessed. He saw himself grinning like an idiot at the beach, shirtless and sunburned, with Emi laughing in the background.

And there, in the dead center, was the Polaroid: him and Laura, thirteen years old, frozen on the hood of that Chevy. For a second, the party faded away, and all Andy could see was the two of them, pressed together by a gravity stronger than the one that kept planets in orbit.

He remembered the last birthday he had with her. His mom, like always, made it a double party—Laura’s parents never did birthdays, so they celebrated together, always. That year, his mom ordered a cake big enough for a wedding, with both their names in blue icing, and a pile of presents that overflowed onto the floor. They were inseparable that day, running from yard to kitchen to treehouse, outpacing even the grownups’ attempts to keep them in sight.

He remembered the exact moment the photo was taken: they sat on his uncle’s Chevy, and Laura had just dared him to eat an entire slice of cake without using his hands. He’d tried, failed spectacularly, and gotten icing on his nose. Laura wiped it off, then pulled him in for a side-hug so fierce it nearly knocked him over. He remembered the smell of her hair, the way her laugh vibrated up through her ribs into his. He remembered the certainty—solid as bedrock—that they’d always be together, no matter what the world would throw at them.

Looking at the Polaroid, Andy could see now what he’d been too dumb to see then: Laura had known exactly what she wanted. She’d known she loved him, even if the words never passed her lips. Andy was the one who couldn’t say it—too afraid, too naive, too certain there would always be another chance.

The grief didn’t hit him like a wave. It was quieter than that. A tide coming in, slow and inevitable, erasing the lines between now and then. Laura’s birthday was in three days. There would be no double celebration this year either, nor any year after that. He wouldn’t get to see her tease him about getting old. He wouldn’t get to tell her about the other women in his life, or show her the world he’d built with her memory as the cornerstone.

He blinked, once, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

As he stepped away from the wall, Chloe was there. She didn’t say anything, just squeezed his hand, soft and certain. Andy squeezed back.

A moment later, Erin appeared at his elbow, not bothering with words. She leaned in, her cheek brushing his shoulder, the green of her skin vivid and unashamed. She smelled like mint and clean air. When Andy looked at her, she met his gaze head-on—no hiding, no question, just the understanding of two people who had decided, against all odds, to try again.

Across the room, Emi caught his eye and waved, six hands in the air, a beacon. Andy smiled, genuinely. He saw Marissa, too, standing with Scarlet and Ellen, her eyes on him, always reading, always ready to offer a life raft if he needed it.

These women. All of them. They’d built this night for him, orchestrated it down to the last drink and string of lights. There was no reason for them to care this much, not after all the mistakes he’d made, not when they could have just drifted away. But they stayed. They gave him this.

Andy let the sadness settle, but he let something warmer in, too. He let himself be drawn, gently, back into the current of the party, where the future wasn’t certain but at least, for tonight, was his to claim.

---

Aubrey had drifted toward the perimeter of the party, partly for air and partly to escape the feeling that she was always walking in on other people’s punchlines. She’d never been shy—if anything, she was usually the one loud enough to get herself in trouble—but tonight, every familiar trick felt a half-second off. There were too many strangers, too many women who seemed already paired, grouped, or mid-story, and after her talk with Erin, she realized she needed a buffer before she tried any more “fake it till you make it” routines.

She found herself at the edge of the memory wall, beside the small cat-eared woman in the round glasses, who was writing—furiously, the kind of pace that meant either “doing homework” or “too excited not to.” Aubrey peered at the page, expecting maybe a poem or a diary entry, and instead saw line after line of tidy block script, annotated in three different colors. The script wasn’t English, not entirely—she recognized bits of Latin, a few Greek characters, and something that looked like Old English but with more flourish.

Claire, for her part, didn’t seem to notice Aubrey at first. She scribbled, erased, wrote again, then, sensing observation, paused. She glanced up, eyes flicking once to Aubrey’s face, then returned to the page. But after a heartbeat, she set her pen down, turned the notebook so Aubrey could see, and gave her a quick, questioning tilt of the head—Did you need something, or are you just here for the show?

Aubrey grinned. “Is that Old English?” she said, leaning in. “Or is it a cipher?”

Claire’s eyes widened slightly—pleasant surprise, not annoyance. She tapped the top of the page, where she’d written: Dream of the Rood, translation exercise, with cross-reference to Gospel of Nicodemus. She pointed to the side margin, where she’d written a line in Greek, then to the Latin beneath it.

“I teach,” Aubrey said, by way of explanation. “Mythology, or I was about to, but mostly language arts and creative writing.” She hesitated, feeling suddenly out of her depth. “I tried to teach my kids how to spot when a story got re-used from another culture.”

Claire nodded, clearly delighted, and flipped the page to a flowchart: it mapped the origins of several mythic motifs (“Sacrifice of King,” “Tree as Axis Mundi,” “Hero’s Lament at Riverbank”) across Greek, Norse, and Celtic traditions. There were arrows, color-coded, asterisks for outliers, and several post-it notes flagging INCONSISTENCY? in all caps.

“Okay, that’s amazing,” Aubrey said, and she meant it. She was used to meeting language nerds, but never quite this… prepared. “You do this for fun?”

Claire picked up her pen, wrote quickly: Always. Then, with a wry smile, she jotted beneath it: It’s a stim for me. Instead of spinning a pen, I dig into how the idea of ‘the chosen one’ gets translated into three different language groups.

Aubrey burst out laughing, which made Claire startle, then smile herself.

“I love that,” Aubrey said. “Do you have a favorite myth?” She expected maybe “Orpheus” or “the Odyssey” or, if she was lucky, some deep cut from Sumerian tablets.

Claire did not hesitate. She wrote, in big letters: PERSEPHONE. Underlined it. Then, softer: She gets used everywhere. Sometimes as a prize, sometimes as a rebel. I like how she is both a victim and a ruler, depending on who’s telling it.

Aubrey nodded. “I taught a Persephone unit once. It was supposed to be a throwaway, but the kids got obsessed. We spent three weeks arguing whether she loved Hades, or if she was just bored and making the best of it.” Aubrey smiled at the memory. “When I was student teaching, one of my girls wrote a story where Persephone escapes to join Artemis’s hunters and invents chocolate. She was eight.”

Claire’s tail, which Aubrey hadn’t really noticed until now, twitched with amusement. She wrote: That’s better than most retellings. She made a note: Check if there is a myth linking a Persephone figure to cacao. Perhaps in Mayan myth?

They both laughed again, the tension easing.

“I could do this all night,” Aubrey said. “But if I start, I’ll be quoting the Aeneid by the next round.” She shrugged, suddenly shy. “Sorry. I talk too much about work.”

Claire wrote: I prefer that. She hesitated, then scribbled: Not many people want to do this with me. Most people get bored or don’t want to go that deep.

“Not me,” Aubrey said. “I love it. It’s the only time I feel like I make sense, you know?” She sipped her punch, then added, “I always wanted to do a PhD, but life had other plans.”

Claire wrote: I never finished my thesis. Then, after a pause, she wrote: I was scared to talk to my advisor. I still think about it.

Aubrey grinned, recognizing the posture. “Yeah, it’s easier to be the teacher than the student, right? All the authority, none of the risk.”

Claire nodded, then pointed to her notes. Do you want to see the Greek original? Or the Latin?

“Both,” Aubrey said, instantly, then laughed. “Wait—show me your favorite weird word. The one that never translates right.”

Claire turned three pages, then pointed to a line: Aqua nos mortificat, aqua nos vivificat. She pointed to “aqua” and then wrote: Tertullian. Water, but also baptism. Could also be interpreted as ‘flood.’ If you use the wrong one, you get a different sense of the whole line.

Aubrey’s eyes lit up. “Oh my god, yes! It’s like ‘anemos’—it’s wind, but also breath, but also spirit. If you miss it, you miss the whole layer of meaning.”

Claire looked at her, then scribbled: Most people don’t care about words this much.

“I do,” Aubrey said, and she meant it.

They kept going. They bounced from story to story, myth to myth, sometimes getting so into the weeds that even Aubrey’s mind spun a little. At one point, Aubrey asked, “Do you ever get tired of having to explain what you mean, all the time?” and Claire shook her head, but wrote: I don’t mind, as long as the person cares about the answer.

Aubrey looked at her, softer now. “I care,” she said, quietly.

Claire smiled, her whole face lighting up, and scribbled: I’m glad you found me.

They talked for nearly an hour. They ran through Persephone, the Odyssey, the Celtic myths about twins who became trees, and even a brief detour into the “Knight of the Swan” cycle from medieval France. They both confessed to having been ostracized for being “too much” (Claire) or “not enough” (Aubrey), but here, now, that was exactly the thing that made them happiest.

Eventually, Sam’s voice echoed across the hall. Aubrey looked at Claire. “You coming?” she asked.

Claire nodded, tucking her notebook into the crook of her arm. On impulse, Aubrey reached over and squeezed Claire’s shoulder—not hard, just enough to be sure it was okay. Claire’s tail wrapped, delicately, around Aubrey’s wrist, and for a moment they just stood like that: the teacher and the librarian, two oddballs, utterly in sync.

“You know,” Aubrey said, “if you ever want to guest-lecture a mythology class, you’d be amazing.”

Claire’s face went pink, but she scribbled: I’d like that. She held up the notebook, and, in careful print: Thank you for making this the best conversation I’ve had in years.

Aubrey laughed. “Right back at you.”

They rejoined the party, side by side, partners in mischief.

---

Sam waited until the conga line reached peak density, then did what she always did best: she projected her voice over the chaos, corralling the attention of thirty-plus women (and a handful of shell-shocked men) with a single, “ALRIGHT, PEOPLE! SHUT UP AND GATHER ROUND THE STAGE.”

It worked better than Andy expected. Maybe it was her presence, or maybe the crowd was just starved for structure. The line dissolved, the dancers coasted to a stop, and the whole party drifted toward the dais at the center of the Dance Hall—a low, raised platform with a glittering backdrop and two gold-painted microphones set side by side. Norah, Riley, and Myra claimed front row, immediately elbowing out Harper and her wives. The rest clustered in, anticipation building.

From the far end, Chloe, Emily and Dawn emerged, each pushing a massive cart draped in pink linen, each cart topped with a towering cake. The effect was… dramatic. Chloe’s chest heaved with the effort of wheeling the cakes in (and possibly with excitement), while Dawn held her skirt at the hip and bounced with every step. Emily’s hair fluttered around her as if moving in a faint breeze. Emi trailed behind, arms loaded with serving plates, her six hands performing an impossibly coordinated ballet of preparation.

The cakes were impossible—Andy saw that instantly, even before the linen-draped carts had fully cleared the crowd and made it to the foot of the dais. The first was unmistakable: a full-body Erin, from the soles of her hiking shoes to the mint-green skin, to the wave of auburn hair, rendered in terrifyingly accurate fondant and airbrush. The pose was pure cheesecake, huge breasts perched over crossed arms, one eyebrow raised in deadpan challenge. The second cake, wider than the first, was a diorama: marzipan figures of every harem member, each hand-placed and painted in meticulous detail, arranged on a tiered platter like the world’s weirdest game of Candyland. Emi’s six arms each gripped a different tiny instrument; Marissa’s cleavage was a feat of engineering in sugar; even Riley, caught in a licorice bondage wrap, had her expression nailed—half-annoyed, half-secretly thrilled.

The third cake was pure art: a panoramic island scene, palm trees and cliffs sculpted in layers of sponge and buttercream, a blue glassine ocean lapping at the base. On the shore, a tiny, fondant Andy stood with hands in pockets, staring out at the rolling surf. It was the only figure on the cake, and Andy felt the symbolism settle like a hand on his back.

Chloe and Dawn guided the carts to a halt with a stage-manager’s precision, Emily fussing over the tablecloth and Emi already prepping plates, her hands a blur as she lined them up. The crowd surged forward, then paused, instinctively clustering around the edges of the Dance Hall’s low platform.

Sam seized the moment. She vaulted onto the dais in one smooth motion, microphone in hand, and called, “Alright, people—let’s give it up for the real reason we’re all here tonight: Andy Cooper, and his impossibly patient, dangerously underappreciated, and occasionally naked harem!” She raised her arm like a conductor, and the room erupted in applause and whoops. Riley’s wolf-whistle cut through the noise, followed by Norah’s “Fuck yeah!” and, incongruously, a high trill from Tracy, who nearly toppled Laura with her excitement.

Andy felt the flush rise up his neck. Even in the chaos of the last weeks, he’d never quite gotten used to this: being the axis, the center of gravity. He saw Harper, at the back, clapping politely; Mark and Cassandra to her right, both smiling, Mark with the resigned air of a man who’d already seen this movie and knew how it ended. Even Arabella was clapping, though she watched him with an analytic calm, her Host smile dialed down to something almost ****.

Sam beckoned, her grin sharky. “Come on, birthday boy. Don’t make me drag you.”

He hesitated, but only for a second—then Riley and Norah seized him from either side, hauling him up onto the dais in a parody of a wrestling move. He found himself center stage, half a foot higher than the crowd, with the three cakes lined up behind him and every face in the room pointed his way.

He looked out and saw the whole story of the last two months—every fight, every joke, every impossible morning—mirrored in the eyes of the women below. His own, literal, life in cake form.

Sam handed him the microphone, stage whispering, “Don’t say anything dumb or I’ll dock your points.” Then she stepped aside, arms folded, daring him to mess this up.

Andy was not a speech guy. He’d made it through graduation, one startup launch, and a dozen holiday dinners with minimal exposure. He stared at the mike, then at the crowd, and felt every cell in his body want to climb down and hide behind the Erin cake. But the women of his harem were all watching, and even the guests—Harper, Mary, Skye, Lily, Nick, Caleb, and all the others—seemed to expect something.

He took a breath, bracing for the feedback, and said, “Wow. Okay. I… I don’t think there’s a playbook for this.” There was a ripple of laughter, quick and kind. He tried to catch every eye, and found more encouragement than he’d earned.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get to celebrate a birthday again,” he started, voice soft but steady. “When I woke up here, I figured maybe I’d survive a week, or two. But I didn’t expect this. Not just…” he gestured at the cakes, “the spectacle, or the insanity, or the fact that Erin is now edible in three flavors.” There was a crack of laughter—Erin’s, loudest of all. “I mean… I didn’t expect that I’d get to live this. With all of you.”

He looked at Sam, who gave him a subtle thumbs-up, then at the women arrayed behind her: Marissa, arms folded, a little teary but hiding it; Emi, hugging herself, eyes shining; Claire, perched on the edge of the stage, pen poised but not writing, her ears canted forward as if she’d catch every syllable.

“If I’m being honest—and I’ll try to be, since apparently you all have some kind of bullshit detector built in—I’ve spent my whole life running away from… this. From birthdays, from milestones, from the idea that I could matter to anyone more than for a night, or a job, or a project. I used to think that’s how I liked it. Being on the edge, un-catchable.”

He paused, scanning for a signal to keep going. Chloe was in the front row, hands pressed together, and he saw the way her gaze flicked to the marzipan figures on the cake and back to him, like she couldn’t decide which was less believable.

“I tried to keep you all at a distance,” he said, the words growing easier the further he leaned into them. “I thought it’d be safer that way. For me, for you. But you wouldn’t let me. You kept showing up, every day, every night, even when I was an ass, or when I disappeared into my own head. You all took a chance on a guy who’d rather build walls than bridges, and I don’t think I ever thanked you for that.”

There was a hush—not silence, because the room was never silent, not here—but the kind of shared stillness that meant every single person was holding their breath.

Andy gripped the mic a little tighter. "Chloe, you remind me every day what it means to put others first, even when it hurts. Dawn, you make me want to wake up in the morning, because I know you'll be there, smiling, ready to forgive whatever mess I left behind. Riley, you keep me honest, and I know I make you crazy, but I hope you know that you're one of the strongest people I've ever met. Myra—" he glanced at the blind fox-girl, whose tail flicked in embarrassment, "—I know you can't see this, but I hope you feel it. You helped me see things about myself that nobody else ever could."

He swallowed, the words coming faster now. "Norah, we’ve had our ups and downs, but now that I know you, I can say there’s no one else I’d rather have by my side, especially in a boardroom. Marissa, you always know what to say, even when I wish you didn't, and you make me want to be a better version of myself." She blinked rapidly, and the woman next to her, Scarlet, handed over a tissue with a practiced gesture.

"Emi," he continued, finding her multi-armed silhouette in the crowd, "you've shown me that being different isn't just okay—it's extraordinary." He scanned for Liesa, found her just behind Sam, arms wrapped around Chloe, both of them watching him like he was the most interesting experiment in the world. "Liesa, I know we never got a proper story before, but I'm grateful you gave us another shot. I hope I can make it worth your time." He hesitated, then looked at Sam. "Sam, you know I could never say this to your face, but you're the only reason I didn't quit a hundred times. I'm sorry I was a shit friend in college, and I'm glad you're here now. You make it easier to breathe."

His gaze found Emily at the edge of the crowd, meticulously straightening a stack of plates. "Emily, your attention to detail makes this chaos feel like home—thank you for caring about the little things that the rest of us miss." He turned next to Claire, who was trembling on the stage, notebook pressed to her chest. "Claire, I used to think I had you figured out, but the truth is, I'll spend the rest of my life trying to understand how you work. Thank you for… for believing in me, even when I didn't deserve it. And for teaching me it's okay to just be." He stopped, eyes stinging, and saw that hers were too.

Erin stood at the back, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised in that way that always made his stomach flip. "And Erin—" his voice caught, "—you challenge everything I thought I knew about myself, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

He let out a shaky laugh, aware of the absurdity of it all. “I’m not a hero. I’m not even sure I’m a very good Master, if I’m being honest. But I care about every person in this room, and if I had a wish, it’d be that we all get to see each other again—next year, or ten years from now, or whenever the universe allows it.”

He glanced at the cakes, then at the crowd. “So… here’s to making it another year. Here’s to maybe, finally, getting it right.” He held up the knife, a joke at first, but the crowd caught on and cheered. “Let’s eat some cake before someone tries to make me give another speech.”

There was a thunder of applause, louder than before, and he saw faces he barely knew—Candy, Skye, Lily, Ellen, Mary—wiping eyes, or pretending not to. Sam sidled up, taking the mic with a flourish. “You did great, Big Guy,” she said, sotto voce. “I’m proud of you.”

Claire, who had been perfectly still throughout, inched closer and took Andy’s hand in both of hers, squeezing tight. The feeling shot up his arm, clear and strong, and he let himself lean into it.

The crowd surged in, everyone talking at once, but for a moment Andy felt outside of it—standing at the shoreline of his own cake, watching the tide come in, seeing every step that brought him to this strange, impossible island.

Erin reached him first, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Nice job, Andy,” she whispered, and for the first time all night, he let himself believe he deserved it.

Chloe was next, her face damp but beaming. She hugged him from the side, pulling Dawn and Liesa into the pile. Riley and Norah high-fived over his head, and even Myra found his sleeve and clung to it, the way she always did when she was happy but didn’t have the words.

Arabella stood at the edge of the crowd, watching. Andy caught her eye, and she mouthed, “Well done.”