Page 119 of Forever

It was when a customer with a long, streaked-blond mane sauntered in along with a buddy who had a skull trim that he sent a glare up to the ceiling.

“If the ghost of Peter-frickin’-Steele walks through that door next, I’m leaving.”

Of course, the Creator wasn’t going to hear him, and even if He did, the ya-gotta-be-kidding wasn’t going to make any impression. But come on, obvious much?

“And Vishous would never drive a truck,” Lassiter muttered as his number popped up in the pole position on the your-meal-is-ready screen.

After he got his Big Mac and his fries, he wentover and stared at the drink choices with his cup. He picked Coke because he felt like death and surely caffeine and sugar would perk him up?

There were lots of seats to choose from, and he zeroed in on a pair of benches right in the front windows because it was far away from Not Really Rhage, Not Actually Phury and Z, and Also Not Xhex.

Out on the street, cars passed by on the rural road at a lazy rate. He was far from Caldwell, just off the Northway at one of those exit conglomerations of fast-food joints and gas stations, the branded structures crammed in tight on either side of an overpass. He wasn’t exactly sure how far into the Adirondack Park he was, but he remembered choosing this location for its proximity to the great outdoors.

When he was on his way to reclaim Tohr.

What the hell had he brought the guy? Not that it mattered.

The food tasted really pretty good, and the Coke did perk him up. As he sat by his little lonesome, he watched the people come and go: An old man in a black suit shuffled in, his white hair precisely tended to, his eyes bright in spite of his age. A woman with a long, black braid down her back and a body that suggested she could meet a full-grown male more than halfway in a ground game fight.

A pair of guys, one with dark hair and a Gothvibe, the other a redhead who was dressed like James Spader ca.Pretty in Pink.

“Where’s the dually baby carriage,” he said under his breath. “You’re slacking.”

As a couple consisting of a brunette man in a very nice jacket and tie and a blond woman who was dressed like she was going to the opera waltzed in, Lassiter tossed his napkin and crossed his arms over his chest. Sure, the Creator was capable of great things, but why in the hell He would waste His time corralling all these doppelgangers into a Mickey D’s in upstate New York on a random…

What day of the week was it?

He couldn’t immediately remember, and as part of his brain churned over the calendar, he shook his head at the vastness of hours ahead and behind him—as well as the seven billion people on the earth. So many lives being lived minute by minute, all of the cycles of birth and death churning in a constant consumption and release of energy on a rock ball hurling through space. Reduced to its granular details, everything was just a bunch of physics calculations in a fruit salad of governing rules. Utterly pointless in the grand scheme of things.

Except for love. Love was like the core of the earth, a transformational warmth that turned a cold marble into a place of forests and sunsets… and a carbon-based life form at the mercy of biology into someone who remembered to leave a light on sotheir spouse wouldn’t trip on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Love was life to the dead, and make no mistake about it, a person could be a corpse even if they had a heartbeat.

Even if they were immortal.

When a fine-fellow-well-met with a mohawk and an amethyst silk suit pimped into McDagger-con, Lassiter pulled a fuck-it and got to his feet. The reason for the leavin’ was as ridiculous as this display of almost-theres.

Then again, he should be glad a nearly Rahvyn wasn’t opening any doors and ordering a McFlurry.

He was liable to break in half—

“It was a double cheeseburger.”

Lassiter froze in a crouch of bench evacuation. That voice. That… unforgettable voice.

Closing his eyes, he breathed in and smelled meadow flowers. And as he braced himself to turn around, he couldn’t decide whether the Creator was just being cruel or if destiny’s ultimate navigator was going to make it fucking impossible for him to go black-hole on the mission he’d been given.

Feeling like he was moving through quicksand, Lassiter twisted to the right—and lost the ability to speak. The female who was never very far from his mind was standing in front of him, a tray in her hands with a single hamburger, a small soda, two napkins, and a straw on it.

As their eyes met over the modest meal, the connection snapped into place, even as he knew they could never truly be together.

“Would you like fries with that,” he whispered as he stared into the face of his one, true love.