Four
I survived dinner. Barely.
Back in our room, I could finally breathe. But my irritation still clung to me like cigarette smoke.
Nathan said, "Showers?"
"Yeah. We don't have that much time."
We were supposed to pregame in the girls’ room in forty-five minutes, then hit the Stone Lion before the show. Alex could always get herself and Kelly in—she had connections everywhere—but I almost hoped Nathan and I would get carded. It might be our only shot to ditch them.
The communal bathroom was mostly empty. A few guys at the sinks, someone in a toilet stall. We hung our towels on hooks right next to each other and stripped down.
This was always a little weird when it happened. Our class schedules never quite lined up, so we usually showered at different times. But every once in a while—like now—we ended up in there together. Fully naked. Showering across from each other.
He was broad and solid, muscles more developed than mine. I looked like a teenager next to him. He had a hairy chest—darker than the blond on his head—and freckles scattered across his shoulders and forearms.
And he was big. Not just tall and built, but big big.
He seemed completely oblivious to it, soaping up and rinsing off like having a dick like that was no big deal.
I turned toward the wall and finished up.
"I'm gonna go lay out the clothes," I said.
I grabbed my towel and got out of there.
Back in the room, I pulled on my boxers. I was still half-hard.
The light was wrong. I flicked on the overhead—way too harsh—then tilted the banker's lamp up from the desk. Much better. Almost theatrical.
I rubbed Aveda pomade through my damp hair, then French-braided it tight against my scalp. If I let it partially dry like this and took it down later, it’d be deliberately messy in a Michael Hutchence kind of way. That’s how I imagined Lestat.
I lit a cigarette and sat on the edge of his bed, waiting.
Nathan appeared in the doorway with a towel around his waist. Shirtless, bare feet. His hair was dark and heavy, slicked back from his face. Lamplight caught in droplets on his shoulders.
He went over to our dresser, opened a drawer, and pulled on white Calvin Klein briefs beneath the towel before dropping it. He was being weirdly modest considering we'd just been naked together.
We were Louis and Lestat in reverse. Nathan was blond and beefy. I was the dark, skinny one.
"Your hair looks cool like that," he said, nodding at my braids. "You should wear it like that sometime. Just like it is."
I didn't know what to do with that. I just mumbled, “Thanks.”
Nathan looked at himself in the mirror. "Should I blow-dry mine?”
"No. We're going for slicked back. It'll work better wet." I grabbed his Paul Mitchell gel. "Sit."
He dropped onto the desk chair, facing the mirror. I moved behind him and squeezed some into my palm.
"Don't use the whole tube," he said. "That shit's expensive."
My mom bought it for me. I'd never thought about what it cost.
I worked it through his hair, my fingers sliding against his scalp. He relaxed under my hands, his head tipping back slightly, his face going slack.
I pulled a comb through, slicking the hair straight back from his forehead to the nape of his neck. Even tooth marks. Perfect.
"Don't touch it. Let it dry just like this."
He opened his eyes and turned his head from side to side, studying himself in the mirror.
With his hair down, Nathan always looked boyishly handsome—a little dopey, unthreatening. But like this, his brow and jaw looked harder, more angular. His cheekbones stood out. His lips were really full.
He looked sexy.
In the mirror, both of us shirtless, me standing behind him... I looked away before he could catch me staring.
"Stand up," I said. "Turn the chair around."
He did it without question. There was something about how easily he did what I asked that made my throat tight.
I dragged the trunk over and sat on its edge, facing him. I was getting hard again. "Sit back down."
He sat. And when I scooted forward to get close enough to work on his face, my knee slid between his thighs. He didn't move his legs to make room. Just let my knee press against the thin cotton of his briefs. My other leg was outside his, our feet bracketed on the cold floor.
I reached out and put my hand on his knee. Just for a second. My palm against his warm skin, my thumb on the inside where the muscle curved. He didn't pull away. Just sat there, waiting.
I pulled my hand back.
“You’re not gonna be able to see what's happening," I said. "It’s gonna be a surprise. You’ll just have to trust me."
"Okay." He said it simply, willing to go along with anything I suggested.
I picked up the white cream makeup and the wedge sponge. "Close your eyes."
His lashes fluttered, and then settled.
I held his jaw with my free hand and tilted his face toward the lamplight.
I waited for him to flinch, the way he had when Kelly tried to touch him at dinner.
But he just let me guide him. I dabbed the pale base across his forehead, his cheeks, his nose.
Blended it down his neck, under his jaw.
I had to angle his chin up higher to get it right, and when I did, he swallowed. I watched his Adam's apple move.
My thumb was on his pulse point. I could feel it beating. Faster than I expected.
I picked up the blue pencil and leaned closer. "Turn your head. Left."
I traced a delicate vein along his temple, smudging it thin toward his brow. Then down the side of his neck, following where a real vein would be. My face was inches from his throat. He had goosebumps even though the room was stuffy.
I drew another vein along his cheekbone. He shifted slightly, and his knee briefly grazed my crotch.
Neither of us said anything.
I set the pencil down and opened the eyeshadow compact, loading the applicator with charcoal. "Keep them closed."
I swiped the color into the crease, then switched to my fingertip directly on the paper-thin warmth of his eyelid to blend it. His lips parted. His breathing went shallow.
My free hand had drifted to the curve of his neck to steady myself.
I picked up the liquid liner. "Okay, this part's tricky. Look up, but keep your eyes open. And don't blink."
There was a faint ragged gold ring at the center of his hazel eyes, with tiny flecks of amber at the edge. I could count his lashes.
His eye started to water. A single tear escaped toward his temple.
"Shit, sorry—"
"It's okay." His voice was quiet. Rough. "Keep going."
I wiped the tear away with my thumb before it could ruin the powder. My hand slid to the back of his neck, fingertips in the wet hair at his nape. He made a small sound—not quite a word.
I finished his lower lash lines. Then gave them a slight smudge for that undead look.
His foot shifted on the floor, his toes grazing mine.
I didn't move.
My heart was hammering. I was so hard it actually ached.
I uncapped the lipstick—a dark wine-red I’d borrowed from Alex. The last touch.
"Open your mouth a little," I said. “Let your lips go slack.”
He parted them. His breath ghosted across my face, warm and minty.
I held his chin between my thumb and forefinger. My hands were shaking—I hoped he didn't notice. I dragged the color across the bottom, then the top.
His tongue darted out to wet his lips and caught the edge of my thumb.
My whole body went hot.
Without needing to be told, he pressed his lips together, spreading the color. His eyes were on my mouth.
I had this sudden urge to bite the crease in his lower lip. Maybe it was all the vampire talk.
I took his face in both hands—the way I would if I were going to kiss him. I was checking my work. Taking in the whole picture. But then I let myself actually see his eyes, and he was watching me right back.
It was just… way too much.
I pulled away. “Check it out.”
He turned, and I watched him see himself.
Silence. Then a grin spread across his face. "Holy shit."
He looked like a vampire—pale and hungry and way too good-looking. Those dark-rimmed eyes, that red mouth.
"When do we do the teeth?"
I grimaced. “Uh. Let’s do those last. They'll probably be annoying as hell by the time the night’s over.”
I watched him study his reflection, tilting his head, touching his cheekbone. I felt… proud. I did that. I made him look like that.
He stood and reached for the pirate shirt I'd laid out for him. He pulled it on, the white fabric loose against his chest.
"Oh yeah," he said, looking in the mirror. "I can see it."
"Wait." I grabbed the velvet jacket from the bed. "This is the killer piece.”
He shrugged it on. The lavender-gray looked perfect against his pale makeup and dark lips. It was a little tight across his shoulders, but he filled it out in a way I never had.
He was grinning at his reflection. "Well, it's either Louis or a lost member of Duran Duran."
I chuckled. "You look hot."
He turned and looked right at me. "Do you really think so?"
"Yes." The word came out thick, almost slurred.
His eyes stayed on mine, and I held my breath. Then something shifted in his expression, and he turned back to the mirror.
I saw myself standing there behind him in my boxers, watching him, my eyes shining. I looked like I could eat him alive.
He started to shrug the jacket off—it was getting hot in the small room—and looked at the bed where I’d laid out my own gear. “So what are you gonna wear?”
"I’m going with the modern rock-star Lestat. From the beginning of the second book. It’s easier to pull off. And it’s all about the hair anyway.”
He nodded. "That'll work."
I rushed through my own transformation while Nathan rolled us cigarettes and made us bourbon and cokes. I'd refused to drink until I'd finished his makeup. I’d needed steady hands. Now I needed the opposite.
I took a long swallow of the drink he handed me, then took out the braid and shook my hair out into loose waves. My makeup was rougher than his, faster, but it still worked. Dark eyes, pale skin, red mouth.
I pulled on my black jeans and a black silk button-down. I didn’t have motorcycle boots, but my Docs would do.
We glued on the fangs together, baring our teeth at each other like idiots until the glue set. Nathan fumbled with his, couldn't get the angle right.
"Here." I took the fang and pressed it onto his canine—my thumb against his tooth, his mouth open and waiting. "Hold still. Let it set."
He made a sound. Almost a laugh, trapped behind my thumb.
It was too much—me reaching into his mouth, his spit on my finger, him just letting me do it. It felt like a secret we weren't supposed to have.
I let go and reached for my leather jacket, throwing it on over the silk shirt.
We stood together in front of the mirror.
We didn't look exactly like Louis and Lestat. I'd mixed the time periods—Louis all old-world velvet and ruffles, me doing Lestat's twentieth-century look. But we went together. We looked like we belonged next to each other.
He said, "We need to let somebody take our picture."
I snorted at the lisp the fangs gave him, but I agreed. We looked too good not to.