“Oh God!”

He mimics the Meaningful Look in the photo and makes a wet kissy noise. I flick a card at him sideways. He flicks one back. It nicks my ear. I put up my fists and he yelps and takes off and this is what it feels like to chase a boy, no fear or shame or anything, just the two of us gasping and laughing like kids as we zigzag the ballroom and skid around chairs and run right into the shiny gold badge and foreboding beige shirt of Johnny Law.

Johnny Law is what my dad calls cops, or anyone in a vageuely coplike uniform. He’s probably the only person who uses the term with hushed respect and not irony: Slow around this bend; Johnny Law hides out there. If I ever get a call from Johnny Law saying you’ve been drinking‌…‌

“You two,” says the security guard. “Hold up.”

My stomach knots. Johnny Laws make me nervous, even when I haven’t done anything wrong, and even when they’re frog-eyed and freckled with a friendly broom of orange bristles right below the nose.

“He started it,” Abel says. “He’s a terrible influence.”

I smack him. “Sorry, sir,” I say. “We’ll stop running. I guess we got‌—‌”

“No no no. That’s not it.”

“Oh.”

“It’s Mr. Manners. He’d like to see you backstage.” Johnny Law lets out a tiny sigh and loosens his stiff brown tie. “It’s, uh. Urgent.”

***

The corridor smells like chlorine and coleslaw. We follow Johnny Law past the glassed-in pool and seven or eight closed doors. The change in his pocket jing-jangs like cowboy spurs.

Abel’s going omigod omigod.

“I know,” I whisper.

“My heart’s going supernova.”

“What do you think he wants?”

“You.”

“Really?”

“Maybe.”

“He’s got a girlfriend.”

“He could be bi.”

“This is crazy.”

“Eh. Maybe he’s just a fan.”

“Of us?”

“We have fans!”

“What, so he sits around in his trailer watching fan vlogs?”

“Maybe he’s bored.”

“Maybe he ships Abandon.”

He shoves my shoulder. I crack up.

“Guys‌—‌guys.” Johnny Law makes a simmer motion. “He asked that the room be kept quiet, okay?”

“Yeah. No problem.” Behind his back, Abel gives me an exaggerated shrug, eyes wide and laughing.

The door we go through has a VIP sign taped to it, but the meeting room inside doesn’t look too special. There’s a bunch of long tables and folding chairs with convention equipment scattered around‌—‌stacks of crinkled programs, empty boxes with bubblewrap crumpled beside them. Johnny Law marches us up to a partition of flimsy black curtains. One of the curtains has a paper sign pinned to it: ACTORS LOUNGE. QUIET PLEASE!!

I hold my breath as he nudges the curtain aside. Augie Manners is right there, right in front of me, so close I could take three steps and touch his arm. It’s so weird. Usually he’s covered with grease from trying to patch up the Starsetter, or he’s roasting a sand rat over the crew’s campfire, his fingers caked with dirt and blood. Now he’s nibbling from a tray of rolled-up deli meats, wearing noise-canceling headphones and reading some book called Still Life with Woodpecker.

“Heyyyyy, guys,” he says. “Come on into mi casa here.”

The guard’s like, “Should I stay?”

“Naw, they’re cool. Right?”

“Definitely,” says Abel.

Johnny Law looks us up and down like he expects to see us in a lineup later, but he leaves. When he’s out of sight, Abel immediately dorks out:

“Mr. Manners I just want to say we’re such huge fans of the show, like since episode one, and I know we have this vlog and we kind of make fun of things a little but for real, just being able to be here and meet you is amazing and we‌—‌”

“Awesome, yeah, that’s sweet, man.” He’s looking at me. He steps closer and rests his hand on my upper arm. Dutch Jones, I tell myself. His hand. My arm.

“Lemme ask you something, okay?”

“Sure.”

“It’s gonna seem‌…‌” He shakes his head. “ ‌…‌totally out of the blue.”

“Okay.”

“Can I have your shirt?”

“My‌—‌”

“Yeah, not the blue button-down thing, that’s like J.C. Penney or some shit, right?”

“I don’t know‌…‌”

“This t-shirt.” He opens up my button-down and ogles the tee underneath. “Ohhhh, yeah. Oh, baby. Ka. Ching.”

My starstruck-ness starts to fade; he smells like old socks and this is really pretty goofy. The shirt he’s salivating over is a baggy old Bob Dylan concert tee, and it’s not very sexy. The image on front is a foursquare grid‌—‌three of the squares hold cartoon outlines of faces, and then the fourth one is filled in with Dylan. There’s a rip near the neckline and it’s been washed about five thousand times, so I can’t imagine what he wants with it.

Manners cracks open a beer. “My mom, right, is this huuuuuge Dylan fan, like she’s got a Scottie dog named Zimmy and she makes these giant replicas of his album covers with bottle caps and everything‌—‌Beer?”

“No thanks.”

He takes a big swig. “‌—‌and so this one time in college I took one of her t-shirts, like that exact shirt, and I left it at the beach like an effing moron and oh my God you’d think I murdered her dog ‘cause she never let me forget it. This is authentic, right?”

“Yeah.”

“From the ‘88 tour or whatever?”

“I guess.”

“Where’d you get it? It’s super-rare. I’ve looked seriously everywhere!”

“I don’t know. My sister got it for my birthday.”

“Birthday. Exactly. Mom’s birthday’s in two days.” He claps his hands and rubs them together. “So how much you want for the shirt? Two hundred?”

I glance from Abel to Manners. The character I am in “How to Repair a Mechanical Heart” clicks to life. Brandon realized that the man looming before him was just a person, not a god. He felt a white streak of power surge through him. He could say anything. Do anything he wanted.

“It’s pretty sentimental, sir,” I shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Two-fifty. And my shirt, here‌—‌” He starts peeling off the surf-shop tee, unveiling his pale freckled chest. “You can sell it to some fan or whatever. My sweat’s all over it.”

I glance at Abel. Vibrating, sucking his lips in.

“Well, that’s a generous offer,” I say. “But‌—‌”

“Your sister would freak, Brandon,” Abel tsks. “You know how Natalie gets.”

“Mm. You know she just had another breakdown, right?”

“Did she? No! I’m so sorry.” He shakes his head. “I thought she’d gotten so much better since the staple gun incident.”

Augie Manners gets this shifty, desperate look on his face. “Okay. Okay okay oh-kay.” He peers outside the curtain, and then he goes, “THREE-fifty, plus my shirt, plus my official Series 1 action figure, still in the box, which I will autograph RIGHT NOW, plus this‌—‌” He digs deep in his army-green rucksack and pulls out a wrinkled envelope with a coffee ring and a smudged Happy Birthday! on the front. He leans close to me and talks through his teeth. “Keep this on your person and if anyone asks, I didn’t give it to you. Okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.” I peek inside. Six thin homemade cigarettes rolled in blue paper.

“They’re Spaceman Straws. You drink in some serious wisdom with these.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me. I’m not responsible for what happens if you decide to partake.” He claps me on the shoulder like a grandpa, stuffs the envelope in my shorts pocket. My eyes trace the Big Dipper in his chest freckles. “Just make sure you’re someplace safe. Comprende?”

***

I don’t plan to exit the Actors’ Lounge naked from the waist up. It just sort of happens. When we pass Johnny Law he barely lifts an eyebrow, which kind of makes me wonder what kind of deranged stuff a hotel security guard sees on a daily basis. I button my shorts pocket over the joints.

Abel’s dying. He’s absolutely losing his mind, bouncing all over the corridor like a sheepdog on uppers.