1.
"Dude, no," Teddy shook his head before taking the final swig from his bottle of cider, "I told you I'm staying the fuck away from Mega Con this year!"
Mike placed the big plate of nachos down on the coffee table. "Come on man. The games. The panels. Hot cosplay girls. Fucking Matt Smith AND Alex Kingston. I'll even pay for the autograph session"
Teddy sighed deeply, "I refuse to go anywhere near that thing." He glanced forlornly towards the door leading to his bedroom.
His bedroom. Not theirs. Not his and Becky's.
There was still a small box containing some of her things over on what used to be here side of the bed. He absolutely hated passing it every time he went to the bathroom.
He also hated the fact that he took the can of her body spray out of the box last night and sprayed the sheets so he could imagine that she was still there.
And he hated Mike just a little bit right now because he was the "go between" - the one who was taking the box after he left to drop it off with his girlfriend Karen, who in turn was going to drop it off to Becky.
Mike picked up a small plate and began scooping some of the nachos onto it.
"Okay, I know something and it's gonna piss the fuck out of you, but it will also make going to the con easier."
Teddy's left eyebrow raised slightly, "Go on."
"Becky's not going this year."
Teddy's eyebrow arched even higher, "Go on," he repeated.
Mike took a sip from his beer bottle. "She's not going...because she's going on vacation."
Teddy felt his jaw tense up, "With him?"
"Um, yeah."
"Great," Teddy leapt up from the couch and made his way right to the kitchen. He flung open the refrigerator door and grabbed another bottle of Angry Orchard, "Just fucking great. I hope they have a great time. No really. I hope my fucking ex-fiancée and that asshole douchebag former boss of hers have a fantastic time! Are they going to Turks and Caicos? I mean why the fuck not. That's where we were planning to go on our honeymoon. She did all the research, so makes sense right?"
Mike said nothing but kept drinking.
"Oh my hell," Teddy shouted, "they ARE going to Turks and Caicos, aren't they?"
"Dude," Mike attempted, but then took another sip of his beer,
"Dude nothing!" Teddy continued to rant, "Do you have any idea how fucking embarrassing this is? It's not cliché enough that my fiancée dumped me for her boss. They're basically going on my fucking honeymoon!"
Mike took a deep breath, "Dude, I love you. You're my best friend. Brothers from different mothers. You know that."
Teddy stood there listening, trying not to throw his bottle and trying not to cry.
"This isn't me saying I told you so. We've already had that talk. This isn't me saying there's blame to go around. We've had that talk too. This is me simply saying come with me to Mega Con. I've got the hotel. I got you a ticket. And surprise, I already fucking got us into the autograph session. And before you say anything, consider this both an early birthday gift AND my way of saying thank you for last year."
Hearing that, the anger seemed to flush right out of Teddy.
Mike's dad had died the previous year after a painfully short bout with pancreatic cancer. Teddy was there for everything. He helped with funeral arrangements when Mike and his sister couldn't handle them. Teddy sat in a bathroom while his friend puked his guts out after drinking himself into near oblivion.
They'd been friends since junior year of school and helped each other get through parental divorces, a sibling drug overdose, breakups, job losses, and, as Mike put it "the horror of JJ Abrams Star Wars."
Now Teddy actually felt his eyes tearing up.
"You fucking suck, you know that right?"
Mike raised his bottle and smiled, "Only when they pay me."
2.
The ride from Queens to Marlborough, Massachusetts was usually fairly quick. This evening, as Teddy drove, it felt like an eternity.
Teddy had insisted on driving and Mike put up little resistance. He'd been putting late hours in at the ad agency as his team scrambled to save an account with a major fast food chain. In the end the efforts paid off (and Mike was well compensated, hence paying for the entire trip), but he was clearly in no shape to drive.
While his best friend snored lightly, Teddy drove in silence. He didn't want to put on his favorite playlist, knowing a few of the songs on it were ones that Becky had suggested. And he sure as hell wasn't about to listen to "Comedy Bang Bang" anytime soon. Becky had gotten him hooked on that podcast and there was little chance anything they said was going to make him laugh anytime soon.
There was no question, Teddy missed his "Nerd Girl."
They'd met at Cornell, both of them studying to be veterinarians. They had smiled at one another a few times, and had a few brief conversations, but never seemed to have much luck getting schedules to sync. Finally one Friday afternoon, they bumped into one another at a Starbucks off campus and ended up sitting together. Teddy asked Rebecca "Becky" Jwa if she had ever seen "Battlestar Galactica" because in his opinion, she looked exactly like actress Grace Park.
She looked at him with a sly smile, "Maybe at some point, you'll find out if my spine glows red when I fuck."
It was about three days later when Teddy confirmed that while it didn't glow red, Becky was:
1. Insane in bed.
2. As huge a nerd as he was.
Like his off-campus apartment, hers was adorned with nerdy baubles, posters, books and movies. She sewed her own cosplay costumes and could sing along to Buffy without messing up a single lyric.
Becky's goal was to become a zoological veterinarian, while Teddy was content with the plan of taking care of everyone's pets back in his hometown of Maspeth NY. Graduation, time zones and life goals resulted in them splitting amicably but remaining close.
A few years later, Becky got offered a position at the Bronx Zoo which she jumped at. Teddy offered to let her crash at his apartment while she found her own place, and she never left.
As cliché as it sounds, life was good. When they weren't working, they were attending cons or playing Dungeons and Dragons with Mike and several others. Mike's girlfriend Karen and Becky hit things off and became besties, even if Karen wasn't as nerdy as the rest of them.
Of course, when they weren't gaming or binge watching anime, they were fucking. Becky loved putting her legs over Teddy's shoulders so he could penetrate her deeply. She would literally growl as his dick plunged as far inside her as possible. She also was obsessed with playing with herself while they fucked, which Teddy found incredibly arousing. As soon as he felt her fingers rubbing against her clit, he knew it would be just seconds before he came. Becky was on the pill, so most times he stayed inside her. But he also enjoyed seeing pulling out and letting it splash on her belly, watching his semen eventually pool into her navel.
As time went by though, both of them became extremely busy in their own careers. Teddy and a colleague opened a successful practice in Maspeth, while Becky continued to rise in the ranks at the zoo. Comic conventions and RPG nights became few and far between, as did romantic interludes. Thinking about it now while he drove, Teddy realized the proposal wasn't so much an act of love as it was an act of desperation. Even if they were too busy for one another then, they would have the rest of their lives together.
It was stupid and naïve. Teddy failed to see the warning signs until it was too late and Becky was confessing to the affair with her boss. One of them was going to have to leave the zoo, but they were in love and going to work it out, she explained through tears. And just like that, her closet of costumes, her statues and manga books were gone.
His colleague, Dr. Michelle Gorman, practically jumped when he told her he was going to take a few days off to go to Mega Con.
"Thank fucking Christ, Ted!" she cheered as she gently placed a groggy cat back into its cage to recover from its surgery, "I was literally telling my wife last night that you need to get the hell out of town for a few days. Do your nerd shit. Or whatever the fuck you do at those cons. Hell maybe meet a girl and get laid."
Teddy did not like that last part in the least. He had no intention of going to the con for anything other than to forget about Becky, or at least make a half-hearted attempt to.
3.
The first day of the con, Teddy swore he saw Becky at least twice.
Of course both times he realized he was wrong once the girls turned and faced his direction. In one case the girl was dressed as Harley Quinn. Becky despised Harley Quinn so she would never have been caught dead cosplaying as the character. The second girl however was dressed as Tsuyu Asui/Froppy from "My Hero Academia" - one of Becky's favorite characters from the series. And even though he knew Becky didn't have a costume (at least not while they were together), there was still a moment when Teddy froze in terror thinking Mike had made a terrible mistake.
Speaking of Mike, he was having a fantastic time as attendees were stopping him to take pictures of his costume: he was wearing a mashup of Deadpool and Eleven from "Stranger Things." His Deadpool mask was topped with a blonde wig and he was wearing a dress similar to Eleven's. He still had his fake foam swords strapped to his back and he was carrying an empty box of Eggo waffles.
"Dude, you totally should have dressed up today!" Mike's muffled voice came from beneath his mask.
"I'm fine, really" Teddy said half-heartedly. The most effort he could muster up was a t-shirt depicting Rick from "Rick and Morty" sticking his head out from the TARDIS and giving the finger.
"The cosplay contest is happening at 2pm," Mike said as two girls rushed up and asked for pictures. They were both dressed as scantily clad anime characters that Teddy didn't recognize. Mike however appeared to have no problem as they each took turns practically grinding him while the other snapped away.
"I'll see you there," Teddy said, "I'm just gonna hit the vendor floor for a little while."
'Deadpool' shook his head, "If I find out you ended up going back to the hotel room, I'll...hmm." Mike looked at the anime girl, "Dear child, what should I do if my friend cruelly abandons me?"
"We'd take care of you" the girl next to Mike said suggestively, then added "But you'd have to keep your mask on."
