Chapter 2
Stay cool, stay cool, don’t look back. Theo told himself as he headed toward the bar, his body shaking.
He wasn’t sure what he expected to happen by going to the DeLux Cafe, despite the fact that he’d heard a lot of great things about it.
Some of the guys in Theo’s dorm were frequent flyers themselves—including his roommate, Patrick—aka Trick—and they all attended the speed date nights on account that they’d heard there were supernaturals that went there looking for human mates.
I’m not sure I believe in all that magic-fate stuff, even in my own realm.
It’s probably just a marketing ploy, but whatever the case, the guys are always raving about how hot the women are and how the drinks are some of the best in the city, so why not at least see what all the buzz is about, right?
Theo surmised as much when Trick shoved a plastic mask at him and told him to put his big boy pants on because he was going with them tonight to this Mystery Masquerade thing at the DeLux Cafe, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer.
”You need to get laid, Theo.” Trick said the words like Theo was going to die tomorrow if he didn’t somehow find some beautiful woman to sink his cock into.
As if being a perpetually single twenty-four year ex-fiancé slash student who doesn’t have time for a relationship between school, the gym, and now this new work study I’ll be starting Monday, is a bad thing.
Theo’s load wasn’t huge this semester, with just fifteen credits, but since he’d put off all his electives the last couple of semesters, his schedule had become less stuff he wanted to do, and more requirements to graduate.
Seriously, what does a kinesiology major need Creative Writing and Painting 101 for?
Though there was one particular class, Theo found himself interested in this semester—Lifestyle Drawing.
Learning how to capture the body and movement from a different angle seemed like it might actually be helpful for him, even applicable, to some measure.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit intrigued at the idea of drawing naked models for a couple hours out of the week. Theo wasn’t an artist by any means, but sometimes he’d sketch doodles on his notes when he was bored.
Theo garnered that perhaps it might not be such a bad idea for him to zone out with his headphones and paint or doodle for a few hours, maybe even take a break from everything.
But he was not going to tell Trick or the guys, that.
Especially not when they were more interested in pre-gaming and snapping each other’s masks like idiots.
Trick is right, though. I do need to put myself out there. I don’t want to be alone, it’s just... easier, sometimes.
Theo’s mind wandered even now to his friend’s incessant nagging that Theo “get laid”, while also worrying that perhaps his friend was too optimistic.
“The best way to get over someone, is to get underneath someone else, Theo,” Trick had said, his voice tinged with sympathy.
Though Theo didn’t want to think about his failed relationships, or his lack of confidence when it came to women.
Something Trick had taken upon himself to try and fix.
As if enough pick up lines and parties would erase everything.
Trick did not understand that Theo wanted more.
And four years ago, he thought he’d had it when Emily said yes to his proposal at prom.
But as he and his fiancé neared their prospective futures, yes turned to no.
And when Theo had arrived at Emily’s dorm, after a long two-year engagement, with flowers to surprise her on her birthday nearly three weeks into the semester only to find her with some jock, his pants around his ankles and his cock buried inside her, he knew the love he thought existed between him and his fiancé was a lie.
So Theo did the only thing he could. He broke off his engagement and focused on his studies, on himself.
It was easier than allowing anyone into his heart again, for fear it would be demolished.
But he was not impervious to loneliness.
He missed being with someone. He missed late night summer makeouts and cuddling on the couch.
He missed the spontaneity of discovering new things, and he certainly missed sex.
But Theo garnered it was better this way.
Happily Ever After, fate... all of it was a lie.
But Trick was not easily dismissed by Theo’s admissions of a botched forever.
“You’ve got all the time in the world to get married, Theo. You’re only young once, dude.” Trick said after Theo had confessed his shattered engagement. Trick didn’t understand. That was what Theo wanted more than anything else in the world.
He wanted Happily Ever After, a love that was forever. A woman he could cherish and love and give his whole heart—and his body—to.
How wrong he’d been. And even after their dissolved engagement, he had tried to move on.
He’d even had sex once or twice, mostly because he felt like it was what his dates expected, and he rationalized perhaps it would help him out of his rut, but that only left him feeling empty and like shit, which was why he’d stopped and shifted his focus.
Nothing felt quite right, and Theo was worried it never would.
But Trick wasn’t about to let that be an excuse.
“I will get you laid, Theo, if it is the last thing I fucking do,” Trick had said, before loading him into the Uber alongside him and his teammate, Shaun.
“I’m not like you, Trick. I don’t have game. I’m awkward at best when it comes to flirting, and—”
“Fuck that self-deprecating bullshit, man. You have more to offer than you think, Theodore. Just think of it as practice tonight. A chance to put all you’ve learned from me to the test,” Trick said as the car took off.
Theo sighed, knowing there was no use in arguing with the man. When Trick got something in his head, it was hard to convince the wide receiver to change his mind.
Theo looked out the window, watching as the lights blurred in the darkness.
“And if all else fails, man, at least there’s the drinks!” Shaun said, his eyes like saucers.
Trick high-fived him before grabbing Theo’s shoulder. “Amen to that.”
Theo forced a smile, but it was not genuine.
Maybe Shaun’s right, too. Maybe I just need to have a drink or two and relax. I can do that, right? Tonight doesn’t have to be about getting laid. It can just be about talking to people, hanging out, sipping on some Pina Coladas.
Though even as Theo thought these things, he felt like a fish out of water.
He was ashamed to admit how long it had been since he actually slept with someone at this point, or gone on a date that didn’t end with a girl ghosting him.
That was what Trick and his friends failed to understand.
Theo had tried. To flirt, to date. Four years was a long time to be single.
Especially when Trick and his friends were constantly having sex.
Very loud, sometimes suspicious sex, in his dorm room.
Upon his descent from the Uber into the den of seduction that was the Mystery Masquerade at the DeLux Cafe, Theo found himself on the edge of a precipice. Trick grabbed his shoulder, squeezing it with excitement and Theo rallied himself to do as Trick suggested.
Which was much easier after the two Pina Coladas he’d consumed so quickly, his nerves getting the better of him as he waited patiently for the event to start.
His goal was simple—it was just conversation, after all. Surely he was capable of conversing with a woman, and covering his face would likely provide an extra air of anonymity for Theo to hide behind.
Here, tonight, at the DeLux Cafe, Theo could pretend to be someone else.
Someone confident and cocky who knew how to flirt and please a woman, should the circumstances present itself.
He could pretend to be the man he wanted to be. A man a woman would want. To keep.
Not some rejected perpetually single nerdy college student.
And just as the second fruity little drink hit him, the night began.
He’d found his seat across from a lithe, beautiful woman wearing an ivory toga that clung to her curves deliciously.
The tight pull of the fabric around her breasts enhanced her ample cleavage, elevating her pale skin.
Her mask was a deep bronze, intricate, and looked far cooler than the black plastic mask Trick had likely picked up from Party City.
But it wasn’t her breasts or her lusciously dark, curled hair with its mysterious slivers of pink shining through that spilled out of her stylish updo that drew Theo to the woman before him.
No, it was something else, some force he could not quite explain save for the fact it felt magnetic.
He could have sat anywhere in the cafe, but he’d chosen to sit there. It was almost as if fate had lured him there.
Theo did not believe in fate, but what if fate believed in him?
He didn’t know her name. Nor did he know how old she was. Theodore Lange did not know anything, really, except that the minute he caught her amber gaze, he felt like she could see right through him. Underneath his mask, to his bloody soul. And that was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.
He’d never felt this way about anyone before, not even his ex-fiancé.
So, he did exactly as he had promised himself to do.
He put Trick’s teachings to the test. It was a miracle he’d remembered his ice breaker—a cheeky little bit about what a person’s drink says about them, something he’d discerned from many nights out with Trick and his teammates—and he’d delivered the conversation without managing to look like an absolute fool.
And Miss Perfect—because as far as Theo was concerned, the goddess in front of him was the embodiment of perfection itself—had done the one thing Theo feared from the get-go.
She challenged his claim.