Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Friday night meant Neon Pulse.
I leaned against the busted streetlamp outside Sierra’s building and checked my phone for the third time in five minutes.
Raven was beside me with her arms crossed, dark lipstick somehow surviving the humidity.
Calliope shifted from foot to foot. She’d been doing that since middle school whenever she was waiting on someone.
Her spiky red hair caught the flickering light.
“Where is she?” Calliope asked.
“Probably forgot.” Raven crossed her arms tighter. “She’s been spacey all week.”
“Ghost girl’s got her twisted up.” I pocketed my phone and glanced at Sierra’s building. The lights were on in her apartment, so she was definitely home. “Give her another minute.”
I’d dressed for it. Black jeans. Deep purple shirt.
The glitter gel was on my arms and cheekbones again because Calliope had no off switch about glitter.
Silver hoops. I looked good. I was good, too, which was a thing I rarely admitted out loud, because admitting it had a way of making it stop being true.
Tomorrow night, I had a date with Ellis. An actual date. Dinner at some Italian place in Park Slope, with cloth napkins and wine lists and the whole deal.
My stomach twisted.
“You’re smiling at nothing.” Raven’s eyes narrowed. “That’s unsettling.”
“I’m in a good mood. Sue me.”
“It’s Gym Guy, isn’t it?” Calliope grinned. “The date’s tomorrow?”
“His name’s Ellis, and yes.”
“He’s got you all…” She gestured vaguely at my face. “Glowy.”
“I’m not glowy.”
“You’re extremely glowy,” Raven agreed. “It’s weird.”
Before I could defend myself, Sierra appeared in the doorway, hair still damp from the shower. Frazzled, guilty, and beautiful the way she always was without trying.
“You’re late,” I called, grinning. “Fashionably late, I’ll allow it, but next time you’re buying the first round.”
“Disappear on us again and I’m filing a missing persons report. Don’t test me, Turner.” Raven’s eyes narrowed like she was only half-joking.
“It’s club night, darling.” Calliope looped her arm through Sierra’s before she could blink. “The gods have decreed it. Your protest has been overruled.”
“I didn’t even say…”
“You don’t get a vote,” we chorused, and I laughed at Sierra’s resigned expression.
Neon Pulse was already going when we got there. The sign out front buzzed in its pink and blue. Inside it smelled like perfume, vodka, and the start of things that were going to end somewhere worse.
We moved through the crowd in a blur of elbows, glitter, and strangers pressed too close. The bass beneath our feet was doing its job.
I threw myself into it the way I always did. Spun Calliope until she shrieked. Dipped Raven, exaggerated enough that it almost worked. Got Sierra to actually dance instead of just standing in the rough vicinity of dancing, which was her usual move.
My mind kept drifting to tomorrow. Ellis across from me at dinner. Whether he’d kiss me goodnight or hold the careful boundaries he’d held at coffee. The way he said my name.
My body did the choreography of years of Friday nights. Hips, arms up. The rhythm I’d memorized so completely I could perform it half-asleep. I just couldn’t get lost in it the way I usually did.
“You’re distracted.” Calliope danced close enough to be heard over the bass.
“I’m dancing, aren’t I?”
“Barely. You keep checking your phone.”
“I do not.”
She raised an eyebrow, and the phone in my hand answered for me.
“Okay, fine. Maybe a little.”
“It’s cute.” She spun away, rejoining Raven. “You’re twisted up over this guy.”
Sierra froze mid-step.
Her whole body went still, face locked on something across the dance floor. I followed her gaze to a girl dancing under purple lights, long black hair, lean build, lost in the music.
“Oh my god!” Sierra breathed.
“Is that?” Calliope started.
Sierra pushed through the crowd before any of us could finish. We followed, watching as she got closer, closer, until…
The girl turned.
Wrong face. Wrong eyes. Not the one from the park.
Sierra’s shoulders dropped. The disappointment hit her face so hard it hit mine. She mumbled an apology to the stranger and stumbled back toward us.
We didn’t ask. Just surrounded her, creating a buffer between Sierra and the rest of the club. Back at our table, we made room, and she collapsed into the booth.
“I thought I saw someone from the park.” Sierra ran her fingers through her hair. “I took her photo while she was feeding the birds. She’s been stuck in my head ever since.”
“Bird girl?” Calliope gasped as if it were the juiciest gossip of the year. “Tell me everything. Was she tragic and beautiful? Mysterious and doomed?”
Raven squeezed her hand. “Ghost girl crush. That’s so you.”
“Babe, you’re living in a rom-com and I’m absolutely here for it. Ghost girl has my vote.” I gave her a fist bump.
“I don’t even know her name.” Sierra dropped her head into her hands.
Calliope nudged her. “Maybe the universe does.”
We didn’t mock her. Didn’t push for details. Just let her hold the ache without prying.
“You’ll find her.” My voice went low. “I don’t know how or when, but you will. Sometimes you just know when someone matters.”
Sierra looked up at me, eyes still a little red. “Speaking from recent experience?”
“Maybe.” I thought about Ellis. About how three days of silence had sent me spiraling. About how one coffee date had rearranged my entire Saturday. “Yeah. Definitely.”
“Tomorrow’s the big date, right?”
I pulled out my phone, showed them Ellis’ profile picture, him on a hike somewhere, smiling at the camera with mountains in the background. “This is him.”
“Holy shit,” Calliope breathed. “Jett. He’s gorgeous.”
“I know.”
“No, like, really gorgeous.” She zoomed in on the photo. “He looks… nice.”
“He is nice. That’s the problem.”
“How is that a problem?”
“Because nice guys want relationships. They want to actually get to know you.” I gestured vaguely. “They don’t just hook up and disappear.”
“And you’re into him, anyway.” Sierra’s voice dropped.
I stared at Ellis’ photo. The unguarded smile. The posture of a man at ease in his own body. Everything about him screamed that he gave a shit about things, which I had long classified as a red flag.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I really am.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is I don’t know how to do this. The whole dating thing. Getting to know someone. Letting them get to know me.” The words scraped out rougher than I’d meant. “What if I screw it up?”
“You won’t.” Sierra squeezed my hand. “And if you do, you’ll figure it out. That’s what dating is, figuring each other out.”
“Plus,” Raven added, “he already knows you’re kind of a disaster and he still wants dinner with you. That’s a good sign.”
“Hey!”
“It’s a compliment. We’re all disasters.” She raised her glass. “To being disasters who are trying, anyway.”
We stayed at the table longer than usual, talking instead of dancing. About Sierra’s ghost girl. About my date tomorrow. About Raven’s crush on someone from her tarot class. About Calliope’s latest dramatic breakup that already felt like ancient history.
Around midnight, we called it early. Sierra looked exhausted, and honestly, I was ready to go home and obsess over what to wear tomorrow.
We walked Sierra back to her building, said our goodnights, and I headed toward the subway.
My phone buzzed.
Ellis: Still awake?
Something dropped through my stomach in a not-unpleasant way.
Jett: Yeah. Just leaving the club. You?
Ellis: Couldn’t sleep. Too excited about tomorrow.
Jett: Same, and maybe a little nervous.
Ellis: Me too. Good nervous though.
Jett: The best kind.
Ellis: Get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow night.
Jett: Night, Ellis.
Ellis: Goodnight, Jett.
I stood on the subway platform, staring at my phone, smiling like an absolute idiot.
Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.