Expanded universe, p.1
Expanded Universe, page 1
part #13 of The Last Picks Series
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Expanded Universe
Copyright © 2025 Gregory Ashe
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests and all other inquiries, contact: contact@hodgkinandblount.com
Published by Hodgkin & Blount
https://www.hodgkinandblount.com/
contact@hodgkinandblount.com
Published 2025
Printed in the United States of America
Version 1.01
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63621-131-2
eBook ISBN: 978-1-63621-130-5
Engineered Public Confession
This story is set before Mystery Magnet.
1
For the record, I hadn’t wanted a birthday party.
But here we were, March 16th, our apartment crowded with people who, for the most part, I didn’t know. Hugo had turned the music up loud enough that the neighbors had already complained once, and it was twice as embarrassing because there was so much Justin Bieber on the playlist. Even though it was freezing outside, someone had opened the windows—because somebody else was smoking—and the crush of bodies managed to switch from sweltering heat to arctic cold between one step and the next. I was thirty minutes into a perfume headache. I was smiling because this was important to Hugo.
Arm wrapped around me, he kissed my cheek and shouted, “This is amazing, right?”
Rum on his breath. And the shouting wasn’t doing anything for my headache. I smiled some more and nodded and checked the clock. At eleven, the police would enforce the noise ordinance, but people wouldn’t start going home until—two? three?
“I love you!” Hugo shouted.
Before I had to respond, Hugo kissed me again—this time, his tongue finding its way into my mouth. A drunken cheer went up through the crowd. The taste of rum and Coke was overpowering, and the kiss went on and on, and I could feel every eye in the room on me. (Or it felt like it anyway.) That sensation of being the center of attention was like a noose, and it tightened until I finally had to press a hand to Hugo’s chest. He gave ground grudgingly, and when the kiss finally broke, he had a boyish expression that somehow mixed guilt and glee. Then he whooped and staggered, and he would have fallen if Brody—his best bro—hadn’t caught him.
“I need a drink,” I said.
Hugo was laughing at something Brody had said.
“I need a drink!”
After a bleary look, Hugo grinned and nodded. “Totally.” Then he went back to talking to Brody.
I waited for a few more seconds, and then I turned and pushed into the crowd. Hugo had set up the drinks in the kitchen, but when I got there, I found a guy I didn’t recognize presiding over the makeshift bar.
“Mixology is all about sensation,” he was telling a girl. He had terrible facial hair, and the girl looked like she’d skinned a sofa set to make her dress for the evening. He was leaning in as he talked, but his eyes were so red I thought it might not be leaning; it might be more of an incredibly slow fall. “It’s all about knowing what makes people feel good. That’s, like, my passion, you know. Knowing how to make people feel good.”
The girl in the sofa-set dress giggled and said something that the music swallowed.
I looked at the collection of bottles, trying to find something I’d like. Then, considering my limited options, I decided I’d settle for something I could tolerate. I tried to figure out how it was possible for Hugo to have spent so much money on booze (which I knew because we shared a credit card, because according to Hugo, that’s what committed couples did), and somehow all we had was enough Mike’s Hard Lemonade for a dorm full of freshman boys, and a ridiculous number of cans of something called Joose, which I’d never heard of and certainly wasn’t going to try (“premium flavored malt beverage,” no thank you).
“Excuse me,” I said.
“That’s probably why I’ll never own my own bar,” the guy with the terrible facial hair was explaining. “Because, like, capitalism and stuff. Plus my mom would kill me if I owned a bar.”
“Hey!”
He turned to me and blinked.
“I thought Hugo got some gin. Or some whiskey. I know he bought rum.”
“Huh?”
I fought a scream.
“Who’s Hugo?” he asked.
“You have got to be—” I managed to stop myself. “Who are you? Why are you even here?”
“It’s a party,” he said as though that explained everything. Then, to the girl wearing the sofa set, “Some guys just don’t know how to chill.”
Maybe it wasn’t a headache, I thought. Maybe it was an aneurysm.
I had to minnow my way between bodies until I reached our bedroom. When I opened the door, a couple of guys I didn’t know were making out on our bed.
“Bro!” one of them shouted. He was, of course, wearing a Red Sox cap backwards.
“Get out of my room!”
With some grumbling (and pulling up their pants), the guys stumbled out. Red Sox kept giving me death glares. I hadn’t seen either of them before. Maybe Hugo had issued an open invitation to everyone in Providence.
I shut the door and lay on the bed, but the music continued to pound, and even here, in our room, I felt like there were bodies pressed up against me. Finally, I opened the window and stepped out onto the little Juliet balcony. Stepped out was a loose term. It was more like crouching on the sill, my feet squeezed onto the narrow platform. The air was cold and smelled like the dumpster and the alley and snow that probably wouldn’t fall.
I didn’t hear Hugo until he was settling onto the sill next to me. Rum. Rummy breath warm on the side of my face.
“You’re missing your party,” he murmured, one arm sliding around my waist.
My party, I thought.
“Are you having a good time?”
His head settled onto my shoulder, and it made me think of that expression on his face earlier. Sometimes, in some ways, he was still such a kid. The question, with its earnestness, was just another example.
“I’m having a great time,” I whispered as I stroked his hair. “Thank you for throwing me a party.”
2
Teaching creative writing to college freshmen—particularly to freshmen who were already convinced of their own genius—had its ups and downs. On the one hand, these college freshmen were, undoubtedly, smart and determined and high achievers. On the other hand, they knew it. Which meant, in the span of an hour, a class could go from argumentative to devastated to elated and back to argumentative again. Especially when we did critiques—their egos were on the line, after all, and everyone had something to prove.
And then, every once in a while, I got a student like Andrew Ferreira. He was smart. And on top of being smart, he was a good writer—especially for an eighteen-year-old. He was polite and responsible and friendly. He had a sense of humor, and he managed to keep it even when people were ripping his work apart. The first time we’d done critiques, I’d said something about a choice made by one of his characters. Something like, That decision really turned me off. And without missing a beat, he’d murmured, Then I definitely won’t do that again. Everyone had broken up laughing, and Andrew had flashed a big, white smile.
We were doing critiques again when my phone buzzed. I glanced down to where it lay in my bag and saw a message from Hugo.
“—I understand what you’re trying to do,” Roderick was saying, “but as cat owner myself, I just didn’t believe a real person would act that way—”
My phone buzzed again. Another message from Hugo.
“—this story would be better if he kissed the cat directly on the mouth and then told the cat that he loved him and that he’d never leave him and that the cat was his special little guy and that he couldn’t trust anyone else in the whole world—”
I managed not to say, Good Lord, out loud, but I thought anyone who glanced my way would see it in billboard letters above my head. Fortunately, Roderick’s time was almost up, and we’d move on to someone with, uh, a slightly different focus to their feedback.
But my phone buzzed again.
The student next to me, Stephanie, glanced over. She didn’t make a face or anything, but my face still turned red. I grabbed my phone. I caught a quick glimpse of the messages:
Hey babe, how’s your day going?
Where are you?
What are you doing?
And then it vibrated again: Hey, just checking in.
I turned off my phone. When I looked up, the classroom was silent, and every set of eyes was staring at me.
A prickling rash of heat. Flop sweat. “Sorry about that,” I said.
Andrew gave me a quick grin and a roll of his eyes.
I smiled in spite of myself. “I think Cameron was next.”
Things went smoothly after that, and before long, the bell rang. As students filed out, I packed up my papers.
“Hey, Mr. Dane.”
“Hay is for horses, Andrew.” I slung my bag ov er one shoulder. “And you know you can call me Dash.”
“Right.” I got that big smile again. He was fumbling with the straps of his backpack. A flush rode under the olive tone of his cheeks. “Thanks.”
“What’s up?”
“So, um, remember that story I gave you at the beginning of the semester, ‘Broomings?’” He plunged ahead like he was afraid to wait for a reply. “Well, I sent it to the Pawcatuck Review, and they asked me to revise and resubmit.” He said it like he’d won the lottery—which, to be fair, was how I’d felt the couple of times I’d managed to sell a short story.
“Andrew, that’s amazing! Congratulations!”
His face lit up, but he mumbled, “It’s not like they bought it—”
“Nope. None of that. This is a big deal—it means they like it; they just want you to show them you can take it to where they want it. You should be proud of yourself. This is huge!”
For a few moments, he made incoherent noises that still managed to be surprisingly cute—a lot of ums and yeahs and vocalizations. Finally he got around to “So, um, I was wondering if you could help me. Revise it, I mean. Not if it’s too much trouble. And not if you don’t want to. And not if—”
“I’d love to,” I said through a laugh. “Really, Andrew. It’d be an honor.”
I noticed, for the first time, that he had a dimple when he smiled. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Okay, well, I know this fire coffee shop that just opened, and they have the best pour-over you’ve ever tasted, and, like, if we get hungry, there’s this little Thai place next door—”
“Hey.” Hugo’s voice was a little too loud. “There you are.”
I turned in time to see Hugo already leaning in for a kiss. My mind went blank, and my body froze. Hugo pressed his lips to mine and stayed there, lingering, the kiss getting longer and longer. When I finally recovered enough to pull back, he wore a grin.
“Is everything okay?” Hugo asked. “You weren’t answering my texts. I got worried.”
“Mr. Dane?” Andrew said.
“Mr. Dane,” Hugo said with a little laugh. “That’s so cute.”
“Everything’s fine.” I directed the words between them. Then, in a lower voice, I said to Hugo, “I was in class.”
“Oh shoot. I forgot your schedule changed.”
We’re twelve weeks into the semester, I almost said. My schedule hasn’t changed since January.
But I didn’t.
“I was wondering,” Hugo said without missing a beat, “if you wanted to grab a late lunch.”
“Actually,” Andrew said, “we were about to get coffee.”
Hugo didn’t say anything. He looked at Andrew, and Andrew stared back, and then Hugo put his hand around my elbow and said, “Could I talk to you for a minute?”
Under the shade of an oak that was just leafing out, he said in a low voice, “I don’t want you spending time with that kid outside of class.”
“Wait a minute, Andrew just got a revise and resubmit—”
“And he’s obsessed with you.” Hugo spun a finger next to his temple. “Psycho. You don’t want to put yourself in a situation where something could go wrong.”
“I would never—”
“I know.” He squeezed my arm and smiled. “I know, dummy. But what if he said you did? You’ve got to think about that stuff. About how things look. You’ve got to be careful—there are a lot of crazies out there.”
For a moment, the thought came to me: how did you know where I was? How did you find me if you’d forgotten my schedule had changed?
“See?” he murmured, brushing my hair back and giving me that boyish grin again. “This is why I have to worry about you.”
3
“Get over,” Hugo instructed as I turned through the intersection. “Right-hand lane.”
“I think I see a spot.”
“Dash, get—come on.” He threw his hands up, but he mostly sounded amused as he said, “Okay, I guess we’re going to have to circle the block.”
This was why Hugo normally drove. I wasn’t sure why I’d insisted tonight; for some reason, it had seemed incredibly important that I drive. Hugo hadn’t cared, of course—he’d just tossed me the keys and grinned, like somehow it was all a big joke.
“Ha!” I said as I continued down the street. Providence was quiet tonight, and only a handful of other cars had braved the spring rains. But we were going to Taj Palace, and I was literally (okay, not literally) going to murder some naan. “I did see a spot!”
“With a fire hydrant,” Hugo said and ruffled my hair. “Around the block, Jeeves.”
So, I went around the block, and I got into the right-hand lane, and I saw the spot Hugo had noticed. It was still empty, of course. That was the way things went for Hugo—everything always worked out.
“I’m going to eat eight samosas,” I said. Rain sprinkled the windshield, and after a quick glance at Taj Palace (at the far end of the block now), I pulled my hood up as I reached for the door. “No, ten.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Hugo said. Then he pointed. “We’re going to Hutchinson’s.”
The urban steakhouse was right in front of us. Not at the end of the block.
“But—samosas. And naan. And butter chicken.”
“And carbs, and carbs, and rice—more carbs.” Hugo laughed at whatever he saw on my face. He took my hood gently, pulled me in for a kiss, and then gave my head a little shake. “Come on.”
Inside, Hutchinson’s was all shadow and texture: leather and the raw edge of wood and polished steel. The light came from Edison bulbs in pendant fixtures, and their dim yellow glow did little to push back the gloom. Because my stomach is a treacherous beast, it raised its head and sniffed the air, scenting the aroma of seared meat. So much for ten samosas, I thought as we settled into our seats. More texture: the thick tablecloth. Our waiter was a middle-aged man in a pair of Keds, and when he asked about drinks, Hugo said, “We’ll both have water.”
I gave Hugo a look as the waiter retreated.
“Do you want to have a headache tomorrow?”
“Maybe.”
Hugo rolled his eyes and picked up the menu. He only glanced at it for a moment before he said, “I think we should stay away from the sides.” His eyes came to me. “Is a wedge salad too much? All that dressing.”
“I want a potato.”
“Dashiell.”
“I want lots of potatoes. With lots of cheese. And fried—everything fried.”
“Okay,” Hugo said. “Here we go.”
“We’ve been eating healthy all week. We’re young. We’re healthy. We can enjoy a cheat meal.”
Hugo set the menu down and spread his hands.
When the waiter came back, Hugo ordered a wedge salad to start (apparently, the dressing wasn’t too much), and a filet with a side of steamed vegetables. The waiter looked at me.
Porterhouse, I thought. Medium-rare. And give me all the potatoes.
But Hugo was right. Even if he hadn’t said anything, even if he hadn’t spoken out loud, I knew what he was thinking: we were trying to stay healthy. We were trying to make responsible choices. And, if I didn’t eat every potato in the house, there was the possibility of dessert.
“The filet,” I said. “And the steamed vegetables.”
“He’ll have a wedge salad too,” Hugo said. “Dressing on the side.” When the waiter departed, he said, “So.” The light from the Edison bulb gleamed against the dark waves of his hair. He put his hand on top of mine. “Tell me about your day.”
So, I did. And Hugo told me about his day. And his fingers laced with mine, tightened, stroked, squeezed. He’d always been more comfortable with public displays of affection. More comfortable with touch in general, if I were being honest. That was one of the reasons we worked—because the first time he’d held my hand, and my whole body had locked up, he’d laughed and wiggled my fingers for me until I relaxed. Always more affectionate, always more demonstrative. Always more in control.
The food was delicious, of course, even though there was still a tiny spot of me craving Indian. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how Hugo had picked the spot in front of Hutchinson’s without telling me we were coming here. About how he’d barely glanced at the menu. About the wine, and the wedge salad, and the dressing on the side. When the waiter came to ask about dessert, Hugo started to shake his head.
