Patrick throws down a copy of Publishers Weekly, and says flatly, "He did it again," and Pete looks up from his morning coffee. It is too fucking early for this stupid shit, and Ryan always gets his coffee perfect, and can't he just enjoy it before some idiot author or idiot agent or idiot says something stupid to a trade?

"Mrph," says Pete into the coffee cup.

"'Books save lives,' says author Gerard Way," reads Patrick. "'They're important for kids, they're important for adults. They saved my life. They can save anyone's.'"

"Deaaaaath," moans Pete, and Ryan pops up. Which is nice. He's like a little pocket toy that Pete can take out and play with when he gets bored and it's his job to get Pete coffee. And booze. And sometimes girls. Whatever Pete wants. Except Ryan's ass, which is unfortunate, because it is tiny and cute.

"More coffee," says Ryan decisively, and Pete's glad someone can be decisive about something this early.

"Whose idea was it to have a 9 - 5 workday?" asks Pete. He rubs his eyes and comes away with last night's glitter and eyeliner on his fingers. Maybe he'll start signing the author contracts by rubbing eyeliner and glitter over his thumb and giving an imprint of it.

"Yours," snaps Patrick.

"I don't care what Gerard says!" Pete's arms might flail a little, but that's not because he hates when Gerard tells people that books save lives. It's because—ah, there another cup of coffee.

On cup of coffee number three, Pete finally gives in and reads the whole Publishers Weekly article, and, okay, Gerard doesn't sound like quite so much of a dick as he would if he wasn't the kind of guy who wrote picture books about ducks in eyeliner. The real dick is stupid Gabe, who says, "Gerard Way is right. Books save lives."

("That should have been an em-dash" is what Patrick is thinking, and Pete knows it, because Patrick says, "There should've been an em-dash there.")

Gabe. Trying to woo away Decaydance authors with his agreement! With his stupid small press that's even smaller than Pete's—but somehow they never seem to run out of money and all their authors love them and Saporta doesn't ever fucking go to the goddamn office. Or he's ignoring Pete's calls.

"And," Pete grouses to Patrick, who's slouched on the couch reading the new Library Journal, "they have a stupid name. What kind of name is El Cobra Starship Ink, anyway?"

"Jealousy gives you wrinkles," says Ryan, putting another cup of coffee in front of Pete.

"Not jealous," Pete insists. "We have a great name." He even believes that. It's everything else—Gerard is the only moneymaker they've got. He says so.

"Well, art is its own reward," snarks Patrick from behind the safety of the magazine. Pete would throw something at him, but all he's got is coffee, and it's actually what Pete himself said in an interview for some stupid online magazine a few weeks ago.

Pete settles for, "Shut up," and a consoling pat from Ryan on the shoulder. Ryan's wearing turquoise eyeshadow today, lined with pink in a sweep across his cheek. Pete almost wishes he was eighteen again, interning with a hot boss, if he does say so himself, and wear—

No, Pete really doesn't want to be eighteen again. He also doesn't want to own a flagging small press.

"I just need one really awesome book," he says. "Stop rolling your eyes, Trick. You're in this too."

"Yeah, but I don't have the find the book, I just have to make it." Patrick folds down the pages of the magazine and lifts the corner of his mouth, just a little.

"Don't smirk at me, you bastard." Pete slouches in the chair and holds his coffee close to his mouth so that he's breathing in coffee air. "I just gotta find one."

At the doorway, Ryan is staring at him, lips pursed. It is totally not fair that along with coffee, Ryan doesn't bring Pete his ass. Damn.

**

To make himself feel better, that afternoon, while Patrick is editing the newest volume of Joe's poetry—which Pete really doesn't understand at all, but knows it's cool because... okay, because Ryan likes it, fine—Pete looks through all the books they've published. Yeah, Joe's poetry, tiny little volumes Patrick and Pete stay up all night hand-stitching together. And Gerard's crazy picture books, "Because, Pete," Gerard told him earnestly; Gerard said everything earnestly, "kids need to learn it's okay to be different when they're young enough that it can save their lives!"

The books that kicked it all off—Pete and Patrick's half-dozen books about a kid from Chicago whose heart was broken, full of as many music and novel references as Pete could cram in, with all the perfect punctuation that Patrick could muster. A how-to book about playing punk rock basslines. The fourth book they ever did: black and white pictures that were reviewed only by zine reviewers and called pretentious. Just because the dude called himself j*walk, which Pete really thought made him less like a pretentious art dude, and more like N*Sync.

Pete's thinking about Joe's poetry epic, Cheese Fries & other Poems of Love, when his sidekick buzzes. It's a number Pete doesn't recognize.

pete? its ryan.

Pete frowns. ryan who? did i fuck you?

ryan ROSS. yr rcptinst.

Oh. Fuck. Pete sticks his head out of the office. "Ryan, what the fuck? Why are you texting me?" He hollers it. Plus he's out of coffee. Why is Ryan texting him when Ryan should be bringing him coffee and modeling tight pants?

i hv a bk. ill show it to you if you wnt.

Pete stares down. A book, huh?

is it you nkkid?

He hears a disdainful sniff from the reception area—okay, the desk at the front of the office, separated from Pete and Patrick by office dividers that don't even go all the way up to the ceiling. Pete cut a door in his using scissors, and keeps it from fraying with duct tape.

Then: mybe.

"Okay!" yells Pete. "Bring it in some time. And give me some coffee, bitch."

"You're the bitch," Ryan yells back, but brings him coffee anyway, just the way Pete likes it, with two sugars, a Splenda, an Equal—Pete loved those commercials with Cher when he was a kid—and lots of half and half.

**

The next morning, Pete is halfway through his first cup of coffee and first fantasy about Ryan's ass when his phone buzzes. He is supposed to have a receptionist to answer the phone. Ryan is supposed to answer the phone. That is why they pay him to be an intern. They pay him transport and all the coffee he can drink. And his Christmas bonus was a Starbucks card and some Mac eyeliner. What more does the kid want? Not Pete's ass. Unfortunately.

Pete answers the phone on the third ring. If he lets it go to voicemail, then he'll just have to listen to the voicemail and reply to it. Extra steps. Why people can't just text him, he will never understand.

"Decaydance Press, go for Wentz," he says, and giggles to himself.

"Books save lives, Pete. I want to write a story about how books saved the life of—"

"Gerard. You can write whatever you want," says Pete, but Gerard keeps going, describing how a book saves the life of a baby kitten who has a black stripe across his eyes. Pete drinks all his coffee, drinks a second cup, and then starts stabbing his letter opener into his desk. There are a bunch of dents from the last time Gerard called, and it keeps getting stuck.

Gerard ends with, "And books save lives, Pete."

"No, Gerard," says Pete. "You save lives with your books."

And, satisfied, Gerard hangs up. If there's a dude who drinks more coffee than Pete, Gerard is it. And he lives in Portland, where there is way better coffee than the shit that Ryan makes in the tiny little coffee pot plugged in behind his desk.

**

Ryan's book turns out to be as hot as his ass. "There's four of us," explains Ryan, tossing his hair. Today he's wearing a vest with a bunch of chains and a lot of black eyeliner, and Pete keeps thinking how hot he'd look in nipple clamps. Normally Pete doesn't go for that kind of thing, but Ryan makes him a perv.

More of a perv.

"But," continues Ryan, "the other guys are in school. So it's just me and Brendon—"

"Hi! I'm Brendon!" The kid is wearing a t-shirt with stars made out of velvet pasted on. Pete likes him already. "I don't do a lot of the writing. Mostly I do concept. Like the part with the lollipop, that was my concept. I like concepts. The word concept. It's round. Like a ball. Like a lollipop!" he finishes triumphantly.

"Okay. And it helps that you're hot. Are the other guys hot?"

Ryan stares at him but Brendon nods enthusiastically. "Yes! We're all hot. We're hot like burning, Pete, like fire, like we are on fire we're so hot. We spontaneously combust."

"Not in my office," says Pete. Brendon's jeans are really tight. Pete approves.

The book is actually really good. Pete describes it to Patrick as "Moulin Rouge meets The Tropic of Cancer," and Pete knows that Patrick is thinking, "Don't be a pretentious fuck," but also thinking, "Wow, I want to read that." Pete knows what Patrick is thinking, because Patrick says, "I want to read that."

The "Wow" is implied.