Trick-or-Treat
Qiang’s POV
She was by his side, telling him something with embellishment and excitement, which had him tipping his head back in laughter.
He was so happy and carefree, and it was such a terrible slap in the face because I’ve never given him that.
I’ve given him anger, rage, boundaries, and confusion.
And now–now that I’m starting to get my head screwed back on straight–I’m seeing how amazing of an opportunity I had, and watching it blossom so amazingly under someone else’s attention.
I need to drive it out of my mind, though, because Marcus, Tristan, Qi, and I are going to this event as a group. I don’t know if Imani is planning to join us, and if she does, I don’t want to look green around the edges. Green has no place in tonight’s costume.
Jealousy aside, I've been working on this costume for weeks, so pulling out all the stops tonight is more about giving this masterpiece its well-deserved moment in the spotlight than anything else. While my style is everyday stunning, it’s fun to explore the creative depths makeup can reach with color and embellishment from time to time.
Thanks to Natasha, I have a costume that will draw everyone’s eyes straight to me. Stunning, eye-popping, colorful, confident—many things I’m not, but the armor lets the world know I’m out of its grasp, untouchable, unaffected.
Natasha is studying fashion, and she’d started making a cloak of orange, red, and black feathers.
Overall, the look she was going for was never gonna work, and I’m not surprised she abandoned it.
However, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be utilized in another way.
Taking my concept to her and spending hours mixing her creativity with my sense of color, we came up with an ornate set of phoenix wings.
No one has seen the finished product yet except for Natasha and me. And as a massive thank you for letting me reshape and use her idea, I modeled it for her so she could use the concept in one of her classes, which she promised me she wouldn’t present until after Halloween.
It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been her model, nor will it be the last. The hours spent with her creating masterpieces and then taking pictures are among the most carefree I get to spend away from the harsh realities outside our studios.
I take a deep breath and one last long lingering glance in the mirror before straightening my shoulders and heading towards the stairs to make my grand entrance, because with the amount of ‘hurry up’ texts I’ve already received from Qi, there’s no way they aren’t all gathered downstairs waiting for me.
One would think after the countless times I’ve told Qi he can’t rush a masterpiece, he’d get it by now, but he’s still as impatient as he’s ever been.
I try, I really try to focus on anything other than Marcus’s reaction, but I fail miserably. I fail so hard that I question whether I really even tried or if I’d just intended to try and drove right by it without slowing down.
And a huge part of me is so damn smug at the way he takes me and my stunning phoenix costume in. Poetic, really, since a huge part of me feels like every barrier in my mind I’ve ever built has come crumbling down, and I’m rebuilding myself from the ashes.
Aside from the sweeping pair of feathered wings, I’ve put a temporary orange tint in my hair to give it just a touch of bronze, and then pulled it back into a ponytail and teased it up to look like a phoenix’s head plumage.
Black winged eyeliner sweeps across my eyes with a mixture of reds and oranges on my lids and lips.
I’m wearing a red cut-off shirt with black suspenders that are attached to an orange-and-black plaid skirt, along with a flame-colored belly button ring and my trusty knee-high black boots.
Of course, Marcus's reaction doesn't disappoint at all.
His eyes pop, then slowly move, taking me in from my face down to my toes, back to my face.
The slow drag of his gaze is so heavy and heated it's almost a physical caress.
I watch his Adam's apple bob slowly as though there's something caught in his throat before his eyes meet mine with that desire and heat I've been trying so hard not to put any stake in anymore.
The vanity in me preens with delight at his obvious appreciation, but it does little to soothe the ache from seeing him with Imani earlier.
I try so hard not to let it make my face fall, though, because I know I’m the one to blame for that.
He wanted me badly enough to put up with so much, and I’m the one who drove the final nail into that coffin.
Doesn’t help at all that he looks absolutely mouthwatering in a red zoot suit from the Jazz and Swing Era.
He’s got a black shirt tucked into the red suit, a red-and-gold tie, and a red fedora with a gold stripe wrapped around it.
I’m not even gonna pretend like I don’t low-key love that we are in somewhat matching colors.
His eyes meet mine, and there’s so much appreciation and heat in the way he’s staring at me that I have to look away.
Neither of us is the type to play around when one or both of us are in any semblance of a relationship with someone else.
Not that either of us has much practice at relationships, but I still know neither of us would cross that line and hurt someone like that.
Looking and longing just makes that shit harder, so I focus on Qi instead.
He and Tristan dressed up as Malec. I shouldn’t be surprised at all that these two are going with a couple's costume.
They are all about the traditional couple goals every time I turn around.
If they can find a way to make something coupley, regardless of how independent it is, trust me, these two will find a way.
It’d be nauseating if it weren’t for how much I love seeing Qi so happy, and of course, that little nudge of jealousy I’m trying so damn hard to ignore. Wasn’t it just a few months ago that I was trying to convince Marcus that I wasn’t jealous of what they have because I don’t want the same things?
Qi’s eyes flit to mine, and he looks at me curiously before his mouth spreads into a timid smile. Now that I’ve learned to drop so much of my armor at home, it’s easier for him to see when I’m spiraling over something.
He spent the night with me after that last therapy session, not wanting to leave me alone, as if the incident was recent instead of years old.
He was frustrated, angry even, in the beginning because I’d faced all of that alone.
I tried to point out that if I’d involved him, I’d have been thrusting him right into the path of a predator that already had sights on him, but he said I’d already decided to leave him out of it when I’d taken the flash drive to begin with.
There’s also a bit of lingering blame because he thinks the worst of what happened would have never happened if he’d kept his hands to himself. Kingston would have crowed and then left us alone after he got his last digs in, and we all would have moved on without the additional layers of horror.
But there’s also the part where I know now how much I mean to Qi. The years between then and now where he’s been the center of my gravity, and maybe I haven’t been doing that great, but even at my worst, I’ve always been loved by the greatest person I’ve ever known.
So yeah, there are a lot of really bad things here that haunt me, and maybe I see Qi’s point that I should have let him in instead of acting alone, but there are still tiny pinpricks of light that have made everything survivable.
Even now, while diving into everything, I don’t think I’d be able to face it as well as I have if not for knowing how deeply unmoving Qi is by my side.
“Wow, Qiang. You look amazing!” Qi says, pulling me out of my musings.
“Qiang always looks amazing,” Marcus says to Qi before turning and focusing his eyes on mine. “But I think you’ve outdone even yourself tonight.”
I inwardly preen with delight, but outwardly act unaffected as I head towards the door.
“Are we ready? Or are you guys just going to stand there and gawk at me all night?”
“I’m good with option two,” Marcus rumbles lightly in my ear, his fingers brushing along my side as he ushers past me to hold the door open for me.
If I said the clouds didn’t part, and angels didn’t start to sing, I’d be lying through my teeth. Shit’s ridiculous.
Why couldn’t I have had these revelations two months ago, when the only thing standing in our way was me?
Now there’s Imani, and as jealous as I am and as much as I’m kicking myself in the ass about it, I can’t deny that Marcus has taste, because Imani is the type of girl I’d go after myself if I weren’t so hyperfixated on Marcus.
Knowing that doesn’t help the jealousy at all, and sometimes it really pisses me off that I can’t just hate her, but such are the prices of spending the last several months being a twat–dammit–traumatically repressed.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Qi grumbles while lightly shoving me through the door. Tristan trails after us, laughing quietly to himself.
“Not like you guys aren’t going to just make out the whole time and rely on us to shuffle you around the event anyway,” Marcus points out while locking the door behind us.
I can’t help but bark out a laugh because there’s no lie in that statement at all.
Idon’t know what I expected when I heard about this event. Maybe the house being overcrowded, like it usually is when they have parties, only with a bunch of doors that have random artwork thrown in the mix.
I mean, I knew the artwork was good. I’d already gotten a glimpse of it when Gio had invited Tristan, Qi, Marcus, and me to spend an afternoon at the house helping them work on it. Evidently, it was a surprise for Holt, who came up with the entire frat-house trick-or-treating idea.