Chapter 71: Green Room Reckoning
The roar from the control room didn't translate to the main lounge. Out here, the victory was a quieter, stranger thing. The synthwave playlist had cycled to something atmospheric and slow. Holographic projections of Akira’s Kaneda bike silently streaked across a mirrored wall, painting the faces of lingering cosplayers and associate creators in ripples of red light. The air still buzzed, but the frequency had changed. It was the hum of low, stunned conversation, of phones being passed around with clips of Alexis’s stream already edited and trending.
Alexis felt detached from it, floating a few inches outside her own body. Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling. She kept them shoved deep in the pockets of her jeans, fingertips cold. Someone handed her a cold can of sparkling water; the condensation shocked her skin.
“You look like you just fought Godzilla,” Desmond said, appearing beside her with a plate of untouched popcorn. His usual grin was there, but softer at the edges. “And won. Mostly.”
She managed a weak sound that wasn’t a laugh. “Feels like he landed a few good hits.”
“Nah. You vaporized him. Keeana’s stream went offline two minutes after you signed off. Full disconnect.” He crunched a handful of popcorn. “The mob has turned. They’re digging through her old tweets now. It’s a whole thing.”
That should have felt better than it did. It just felt like the energy had been transferred, not dissolved. A different target for the same beast.
Mark was across the room, surrounded by Leeland, Affiong, and a couple of guys from the editing team. They were talking numbers, sponsors, damage control shifting into opportunity. He was nodding, engaged, but his eyes kept cutting through the neon-dappled crowd, finding her. Each time, his gaze held for a half-second longer than was casual.
She needed air that didn’t taste like LED lights and anxiety sweat. She slipped past a group laughing about the “mac and cheese leverage” line, toward a secondary hallway that led to the unused green room.
The corridor was darker, quieter. The thumping bass was muted here. She leaned against the cool wall, closing her eyes, trying to will her heartbeat to settle. The adrenaline was abandoning her, leaving a hollow, shaky exhaustion in its wake. She’d done it. It had worked. So why did she feel like she was going to vomit?
The faint scent of his cologne—sandalwood and something citrus—reached her a moment before his hand did.
He didn’t speak. His fingers wrapped around her wrist, firm but not rough, and pulled her gently through a parting in a heavy black curtain she hadn’t even noticed. They were behind the stage, in a narrow space crammed with unused light stands and coiled cables. A single work light cast long, distorted shadows.
The curtain fell back, sealing them in semidarkness.
“Hey,” she started, but the word died in her throat.
He was already there, his body crowding hers against a sturdy rack of equipment, his hands coming up to frame her face. His eyes searched hers in the low light, intense, unblinking.
“You,” he said, the word a low rasp that vibrated in the confined space. “You were magnificent.”
It wasn’t a compliment. It was an observation, filled with a kind of awe that felt dangerous. Before she could reply, his mouth was on hers. It wasn’t the gentle, exploratory kiss from their first date. This was claiming, desperate, a physical translation of the emotional cannonball they’d just fired into the world. His lips were insistent, his tongue sweeping against hers with a urgency that stole her breath.
One hand slid from her face, down the column of her throat, his thumb brushing her hammering pulse. He broke the kiss to trail his mouth along her jaw, down to the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder. His teeth grazed her skin, not biting, but pressing, a sharp point of sensation that made her gasp and arch against him.
“Mark—”
“Quiet,” he whispered against her skin, the sound muffled, hot. “Just for a second. Just this.”
His other hand slipped from her waist, fingers skating under the hem of her shirt. They were warm, slightly calloused from controller grips and weights. He palmed the curve of her hip, his grip tightening, anchoring her to him. Then his fingers dipped lower, tracing the top of her jeans before easing beneath the waistband.
Her brain short-circuited. This wasn’t passion. It was possession. A silent, furious conversation his body was having with hers, saying everything the statement and the stream and the analytics couldn’t. You stood for me. You fought for me. You are mine and I am yours and everything else is noise.
He pressed the heel of his hand against her, the rough denim a frustrating barrier, but the pressure was perfect, immediate. A sharp, stunning friction that cut through the last of her nerves and coiled a tight, liquid heat low in her stomach. She choked back a moan, her head thudding back against a cable box. The metal was cool through her hair.
He watched her face, his own expression stark in the shadows—jaw tight, eyes dark with a focused hunger. He moved his hand, a slow, deliberate rub that had her hips jerking forward of their own accord.
“They’re all out there talking about winning,” he murmured, his lips moving against her throat. “This is winning. Right here. You. Seeing you like this.”
From the lounge, a burst of collective laughter echoed, muffled and distant. They were celebrating. In here, the celebration was a stolen, secret, physical truth. Her hands came up, tangling in the fabric of his shirt, clutching him closer. The world narrowed to the heat of his body, the pressure of his hand, the ragged sound of their breathing in the dark.
A phone vibrated, lighting up in his pocket with a frantic, persistent buzz. Then another. And another.
The spell snapped.
He stilled. His forehead dropped to her shoulder, his breath coming in heavy gusts against her collarbone. The buzzing continued, a relentless digital nag.
“Leeland,” he gritted out, not moving.
“Or my mom,” Alexis said, the real world crashing back in like a cold wave. The thought of Ava, having undoubtedly seen the stream, was a potent sobering agent.
Slowly, reluctantly, he withdrew his hand, smoothing her shirt down with a tenderness that contrasted violently with the feverish intensity of a moment before. He rested his palms flat against the equipment rack on either side of her head, caging her in, but now the energy was different. Spent. Shifting.
He looked at her, really looked, and she saw the faint sheen of sweat at his temples, the flush on his skin. “You okay?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice. She was more than okay. She was unraveled and put back together, all in the space of five minutes.
He leaned in, pressed one last, soft kiss to the corner of her mouth. “We should go back out there. Before Desmond sends a search party.”
“He’ll know,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
“Let him.” Mark’s smile was faint, real. He took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. “Come on. The world’s waiting for the victors.”
He pushed the curtain aside. The light and sound of the lounge rushed back in, a sensory assault. As they stepped out, a few people glanced over. Their joined hands didn’t go unnoticed. A knowing smile from Affiong. A dramatic eyebrow waggle from Desmond.
But the atmosphere had solidified around them. The crisis had been punctured. The path forward was still minefield, but they were on it together. Someone had turned the music back up.
Mark didn’t let go of her hand as they walked back into the neon glow, towards the crowd and the noise and the uncertain future, his thumb making one final, sweeping pass over her knuckles—a silent promise, a completed thought.
Mark didn’t let go of her hand as they walked back into the neon glow, towards the crowd and the noise and the uncertain future, his thumb making one final, sweeping pass over her knuckles—a silent promise, a completed thought.
The celebration was already shifting, the raw energy of the stream calcifying into logistical talk. Leeland was scrolling through a sponsor’s frantic emails on his tablet, muttering about revised contracts. “They want a joint statement now, of course. The ‘power couple’ angle. Marketable.”
“Tell them to draft something,” Mark said, his voice back to its usual, measured calm, though he didn’t release Alexis’s hand. “We’ll review it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Leeland looked up, incredulous. “Mark, the momentum is now. We should—”
“Tomorrow,” Mark repeated, a finality in the word that silenced further argument. He was looking at Alexis, at the slight tremor in her fingers he could still feel against his own. She was running on fumes, the crash imminent.
Desmond materialized with two fresh cans of soda, handing them over. “For the warriors. You good, Lex?” His gaze was knowing, skipping from her slightly swollen lips to the rumpled hem of her shirt.
“I will be,” she said, forcing a small smile. “After a week of sleep.”
The vibration started in Mark’s pocket again, a harsh, insistent buzz. He frowned, pulling out his phone. The screen glared in the lounge’s dim light: AVA MOORE.
Alexis saw the name and her stomach dropped through the floor. It was a different kind of plummet than the one before the stream. This was colder, deeper, rooted in a lifetime of measured disappointment.
Mark’s jaw tightened. He’d only met Ava twice; both times were a masterclass in polite, surgical assessment. He swiped to answer, bringing the phone to his ear. “Ava. Hello.”
He didn’t step away. He kept his hold on Alexis’s hand, an anchor point. She could hear the tinny, sharp cadence of her mother’s voice through the receiver but not the words. Mark’s expression didn’t change, a perfect neutral mask.
“Yes,” he said after a moment. “She’s right here.” A pause. “I understand that.” Another, longer pause as her mother’s voice sliced through the line. Alexis could imagine the phrases: unstable environment, predictable spectacle, not what we discussed for your future.
Mark’s eyes met hers. He gave her hand a slight, reassuring squeeze. “With respect,” he interjected, his voice calm but unyielding, cutting through Ava’s monologue. “What you saw wasn’t a spectacle. It was a defense. Your daughter just executed one of the most coherent, effective pieces of public rhetoric I’ve ever witnessed. She ended a crisis.”
The tinny voice escalated.
“No, I’m not flattering her,” he said, a sharp edge entering his tone. “I’m stating an objective fact. The metrics are right here on our screens. She won.” He listened for another few seconds, his gaze never leaving Alexis’s. “She’s an adult, Ava. She made a choice. My job isn’t to make her choices for her. It’s to support the ones she makes.”
Alexis felt a dizzying rush of something fierce and grateful. He wasn’t backing down. He was reframing the entire narrative for her mother, just as she had for the internet.
“I’ll put her on,” Mark said, his voice final. He held the phone out to Alexis. “She wants to talk to you. I’ll be right over here.”
He pressed the phone into her palm, his fingers lingering for a second before he turned and walked a few purposeful steps away, giving her the illusion of privacy while remaining within sight. He crossed his arms, a silent sentinel facing the party, his back to her.
Alexis took a deep, steadying breath and brought the phone to her ear. “Hi, Mom.”
“Alexis.” Her mother’s voice was a dry ice burn, controlled and deadly cold. “Would you like to explain to me what in God’s name that was?”