My Kind of Trouble

by L.A. Schwartz

Why did the enemy have to be so hot? Why did evil get all the hottest people on its side?

A familiar longing stirred through his chest. He did want that. And more. The whole romance thing. Someone to be with in the quiet at the end of the day, instead of just his own worries.

When the right someone comes along, they’ll be kind to you and just tell you they like you.

And yeah, maybe he spent too many of his slivers of free time retreating into books.

He had to work to be accepted, to be masked, to be useful—sometimes he wished he could just be.

One thing you could always trust was that people could always be uglier than you expected.

“Because your superpower is ignoring boundaries and beguiling everyone you meet.”

“It’s for people who like books. You’re a person, you like books.” “Maybe too much.”

“Anything I like, I like too much. So I have rules, two comments, then stop.” “Preston, that sounds exhausting.”

Things had been so, so bad. And then, slowly, they were all right. He’d been hanging on to all right so hard, he didn’t know what might happen if he reached for anything more.