Chapter One Goldie
Chapter One
Goldie
Present day, Halloween
“Wait. What the heck are you? I can’t tell.”
My sister, Evie, smiles as she wiggles a bloody severed finger at me through FaceTime. It’s doubtful she can see my returning smile through the minuscule mesh cutout in my blow-up costume, but that doesn’t stop me.
“What it looks like.” I tilt my floppy, oversize head while awkwardly trying to prop my phone against a can of hair spray on a rack in the middle of the Walgreens, before I back up, making a swish, swish, swish sound.
“I’m a large theropod. Also known as the OG of predators.
” I spin my tiny arms around quickly before holding them open like I’m saying “Ta-da.”
“I’m a muthafuggin’ T. rex.”
“Nuhhhoooo. You’re such a nerd. But you even have little claws.” She laughs. “That’s amazing.”
“Who needs a sexy cat costume when you can have a little fan inside to keep your booty cool. It’s the twenty-first century. Comfort over cute all day, every day.”
My laughter joins hers before she claps her hands together, trying to get us back on track. We tend to veer in every conversation we have.
“Okay, focus. I need as much blood as they have. Buy it all. I can’t believe I ran out. Uh, gawd, Golds, I really want to make a good impression on these guys. New kid knocks it out of the park and all. Ya know?”
I’m nodding, but I don’t think my big dino head is moving, so I blurt out, “Yeah, Eves, I get it, and I got you. What are big sisters for? Plus, you’re the most creative special effects wizard in the city of Boston. That company is lucky to have you. Stop worrying. You’ve already got the job.”
“You’re right. As usual. Also, I’ll pay you back tonight, so get as much as you can.”
“Evie. I’ve been out of work for two days—it’s not desperate times just yet. I can swing some Walgreens blood.”
As her lips part to respond, her eyebrows shoot up, too, like she’s had a brand-new thought, before she suddenly disappears from the screen, yelling.
“Goldie. Oh my god. You have to see the head. After I drained it, it turned out so good. Literally, epic. I’m so glad I chopped it off.”
I chuckle under my breath, looking around the shelves for the fake blood, because if anyone were to overhear this, they’d probably call the cops.
I’m suddenly imagining me, as a dinosaur, explaining that my sister made a fake dead body and then decided to use it for her company’s annual Halloween party.
She’s dressing as Wednesday, holding Uncle Fester’s head; there’s even a light bulb in his mouth. It’s diabolical.
The sound of things falling in her apartment draws my eyes just as her butt comes back into the frame.
“Ooh, I’m excited to see your headless uncle,” I joke, but before she says anything, the gruesome creation’s dead eyes are staring back at me.
Holy cheese and crackers. Wait, did I gasp?
My head whips to the side, blood instantly draining from my face.
Oh god. No . . . It wasn’t me.
Two of the most precious senior citizens—I’m talking about real Disney movie Up characters—are gaping at me wide eyed, ashen and horrified. The little cardigan-wearing husband’s holding a bag of candy, probably for trick-or-treaters, as his eyes volley between the phone screen and me.
My mouth falls open, but nothing comes out. Not even the laugh that’s stuck in my throat as I shake my head and jazz-hand my claws, but I’m pretty sure it looks like I’m about to attack because now they’re backing up slowly, the wife’s aged hand clutching her husband’s forearm.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
“Oh gosh, no, no, no . . . It’s not what you think. We don’t even have an uncle . . . It’s just a nickname my sister had for the body . . .”
I’m stumbling over my words, rambling a hundred miles an hour, embarrassed and on-brand awkward while shuffling toward them, my tiny arms waving in front of me.
The old man drops the candy on the floor as he makes the sign of a cross over himself.
“Oh god,” I rush out, intertwined with laughter, before righting myself back to serious. “No. I didn’t mean—”
Evie cuts in loudly, “Sheesh. I miss the old guy. Good ole Unc. Too bad he had to go, but that’s what happens when you do bad things. Like buy the mini Snickers instead of the full size. Amirite?”
She makes a slicing motion across her throat, along with an evil laugh, and all three of us look down at the candy on the floor . . . minis.
I’ll kill her.
Or, more likely, go to jail for murder since Pop-Pop and Mimi are as white as ghosts. For a hot second, as we stand in the most awkward silence, I think there’s a chance they might actually yell for help.
Sweet little Betty White finally looks at her husband as if to say, Let’s get out of here. These girls are unhinged.
And you know what? Fair.
But I try to fix things anyway. I raise my voice to their backs as they turn, swinging my tiny arm back and forth between the phone and myself. “She’s lying and a horrible person. But not like murderer horrible. Just regular awful . . . We didn’t kill anyone. I swear. It’s fake.”
My sister’s cackling as I flop my blown-up dome down and cover my face with my three claws before I hiss “What is wrong with you?” as I look back at the screen.
“They looked like they wanted to call the cops. What would I have done? Run? I’m pretty sure the cops would’ve been able to hear me at least halfway down the block.
Either that or the friction from this suit would’ve set me on fire. ”
Evie’s hands muffle her giggling, but she still manages to get an eye roll out of me.
“Come on. I’m supposed to ignore the opportunity for comedic gold? The bit presented itself. It was my obligation to accept it.” I reach for the zipper of my costume to free my head as she adds, “But no more super-fun distractions. Just hurry, ’kay? I need bluuhd.”
“Yes, psycho,” I breathe out. “I’m on it. I will haul dino ass the whole five blocks.”
She hangs up as my shoulders shake. I clear my throat quietly while, out of my periphery, I notice someone new coming around the aisle, but I’m already mid-swish-swish back to my phone.
But I don’t get a look at whoever’s approaching because as I reach out, my polyester claws make me clumsy, and my big blown-up fingers knock my phone sideways, plummeting it straight off the shelf.
“Noooooo—”
I’m squealing my plea to the phone gods as it dives toward the floor in what feels like a dramatic slow-motion reenactment of “fuck around and find out.”
Gah, why didn’t I take my hand out of the costume?
To drive that point home, the piercing smack against the floor forces my eyes closed and my soul into deep cracked-screen pain.
I grunt as I bend over, not caring about who’s watching.
Which is exactly the opposite of what the Lord intended for this costume because the head grows taller and pops back over my real one. Since I’m not zipped, my face lands somewhere around the neck, leaving me in the dark while I try and swipe the floor with my teeny freaking arms.
“Dammit,” I grit out, swishing louder and louder, not reaching anything, just grabbing at air like a jackass, looking a lot like Chris Farley in Tommy Boy when he put the coat on that was too small.
“I hate you,” I groan, talking to the costume while trying to move myself to a better position. But because my life brand has suddenly become “hot mess,” my tail hits a shelf, knocking a bunch of stuff onto the floor.
“No wonder I went extinct,” I mutter before I jerk back up with a heavy whoosh of a breath. My dino head flops halfway off before I’m soul-shatteringly arrested.
Frozen.
Like cemented in place.
Oh. My. God.
Standing tall enough to force my chin up is a drool-worthy neck tattoo attached to the first and hopefully last hallucination I’ll ever have because if I’m dying, he’s definitely heaven.
My lips part and then shut before repeating the process as my lashes flutter a bit too fast, maybe to keep time with how my heart rate just picked up.
A pair of sapphire eyes so boldly accessorized by the dreamiest olive skin stare back at me. Not to mention a jawline that makes me want to see him get angry, just so I can watch it tic. He runs his hand through effortlessly sexy charcoal black bed head hair before he smirks.
This man cannot be real. Except it kind of feels like I’ve seen him before.
“Damon?” I whisper, my thoughts tumbling out faster than my mouth can stop them.
Oh my god . . . I just said that aloud. I called him the Vampire Diaries guy’s name.
Before I can enter into evidence a defense plea of mentally unfit, his voice washes over me, deep and rich, like the embodiment of luxury—or velvet—or something else that feels insanely sexy.
“No . . . Noah, but I do have a brother named Stefan.”
My eyes pop open. “You do?”
He scrapes his teeth over his bottom lip, letting it glide out slowly before shaking his head no.
I have to curl my pout in over my teeth to hide my embarrassment, still feeling the burn in my cheeks, as he bends to swipe my phone off the floor.
Jesus, he’s the hottest guy I’ve ever seen in my whole life. And I’m dressed like a flipping dinosaur. Amazing.
My hands work quickly and of their own accord, shoving the costume off my head and smoothing my errant hair because I’m not thinking, at least not with my brain. No, that’s malfunctioning as I swallow hard, watching him straighten to his six-foot, I’d-have-your-babies height.
His eyes glimmer with amusement as I swallow down my dignity.
But still, we stand in silence, the Walgreens store playlist becoming our meet-cute score as our eyes stay indecently locked, just staring at each other, me on bated breath.
One blink. Two. Three.
Is that “These Dreams,” by Heart? What in the eighties is going on here? Maybe I am actually hallucinating, and the universe is trying to clue me in.
He tilts his head, his blue eyes seductively shy, like a modern-day James Dean, dropping them away before meeting mine again. “Good news. It’s not broken.”