Chapter 17
chapter
seventeen
SHAY
The next day I sat on my sister’s vintage pink stool while Eames did my hair and Olly did my makeup. My sister threw outfits on a bed.
It felt like I was getting ready for prom. Or what I imagine it would have felt like, if I’d gone.
“Can we turn down the lights?” I asked. Olly had placed a big ring light directly in my face. Combined with the angry girl pop my sister had blaring, it was so overstimulating.
Lithie came out of the closet with two dresses. She held them to me and then nodded to herself, setting one on the bed, before turning her attention back to me.
“Okay, time for sister advice.”
“Sister advice?” I asked.
“Rule number one: we don’t take drugs or alcohol from men we just met.”
I blinked. “You think I would do that?”
“Two words,” Olly said. “Graveyard. Sex.” She gave me a smile, letting me know she was teasing.
“Hey, this is a no-judgment zone,” Lithie continued. “Sometimes a guy offers you an edible and you think, yeah, that sounds fun, and you don’t realize until later, at home, in the bath, that that could have been a roofie and goddamn you were lucky.”
I sat forward, messing up whatever Olly was doing with my face. “Did that happen to you?”
Olly shoved me back into position as my sister waved her hand. “Unimportant.”
“I think rule number one should be we don’t meet strangers in graveyards for sex,” Eames deadpanned.
“Call that rule zero,” Lithie amended. “Now, I’ve spent a decade deciphering the fuck-boy language. Let me give you a crash course. A tourist’s understanding of French, as it were.”
“Fuck-boy language?”
“After you finish fucking,” Lithie continued, “you may hear such things as ‘I have an early day tomorrow’ or they could yawn and say, ‘I’m sleepy.’ It’s important you know they’re lying assholes and are trying to get you to leave.”
“Mm-hmm,” Eames agreed at my back, unwrapping a strand of hair from a hot roller.
“I don’t know if that will be a problem,” I said.
“You’re meeting a guy for a one-night stand. The odds of him being a fuck boy are at least ninety-eight percent.”
Fuck boy.
That in-over-my-head feeling came rushing back. I’d only ever slept with one person. The one time I tried to be spontaneous, I ended up in a graveyard, and even that I fucked up. I hadn’t kissed anyone new in years. Now I had to learn a whole new fucking language?
Earlier, I’d gone back to C’s profile, trying to learn about him.
So much of my life had been unpredictable and out of my control that mapping the future became my coping mechanism.
It used to be so bad that I couldn’t go to a new place unless I knew exactly everything about it.
How far is parking from the door? What’s the dress code?
There were things I already knew by his bio, like his height—six-four. He’d graduated with a degree in accounting—which felt a little too normal for the vibe his pictures gave off. He loved to read, but didn’t list a genre.
Other information I gleaned. His tattoos were mostly hidden by his long shirt, but his knuckles were visible. Every finger was tattooed in runes—some meant protection, others strength. There was a unique symbol I’d never seen on his hand, like a sigil mixed with something animalistic.
His bio was too sparse. I still didn’t know enough about him, and I kept stuttering on one line.
In town for a few months. One night only.
Maybe I wasn’t anxious with Void because it never felt real. It was like a fantasy sprung from my books. There were no stakes.
But this? This was dinner. This was a one-night stand that would probably happen in a bed.
“Don’t use flavored lube,” Lithie continued. “I can’t eat a cupcake ever again without associating it with the worst sex of my life.”
“Also it’s always the cheapest shit,” Olly added. “Say hello to contact dermatitis.”
“That,” Eames added, unwrapping another strand of hair. It fell hot to my shoulders.
Olly sat back, holding a powder brush, like she was examining me for imperfections.
“Do your best to stay away from straight boys,” Lithie said, drawing my attention from Olly’s furrowed brow. “They are objectively the worst in bed.”
I raised a brow. “Objectively.”
“It’s peer reviewed,” she said.
“Me, I am the peer,” Olly said, leaning back in and resuming her work on my face.
I don’t think I’d ever spent this much time on makeup.
I was a tinted-concealer-and-lip-balm girl.
Not because I didn’t like it—I was deeply envious of anyone who could do a full glam—but I knew my limitations: organic chemistry, bell peppers, and the perfect winged eyeliner.
“Get you a bisexual baddie,” my sister continued. “A heteroflexible hunk. A genderqueer gem. A pansexual…” She made a face, like she wasn’t sure what would alliterate with pansexual. “Prince?”
“I’ll do my best to find a pansexual prince,” I deadpanned.
Olly told me to close my eyes, and I felt something cool mist my face. Then she and Eames stepped back.
“I give you…” Eames drew in an exaggerative breath. “A princess.”
“Do I get to see what I look like?” I asked.
“No,” all three said in unison.
Lithie handed me a black dress. “Get dressed first.”
The dress my sister had chosen was deceptively simple, with thick black straps and a straight neckline. So when she handed it over, I didn’t push back.
Then I slid it on.
Oh god, it was so much worse than I imagined.
It clung indecently. My breasts were almost spilling out. It barely reached my thighs.
“This is way too much,” I said, tugging at the hem, trying to stretch it farther down my thighs. “Also, it’s winter.”
“That’s what coats are for,” Olly supplied, unhelpfully.
Eames had tamed my normally unruly, frizzy curls into a soft, glossy bounce. For as much time as Olly had spent on my makeup, it was subtle. She’d made my brown eyes pop, my skin look flawless, and my lips extra pouty.
Lithie turned me around and grabbed my hands in hers, earnestly. “God put me on this earth to be an absolute menace to the male sex. That’s all I want for you.”
Yeah. There was a reason my mother named her Lilith, not me.
I arched a brow. “To be a menace?”
Lithie nodded solemnly, squeezing my hands ever so slightly.
“Not, like, true love or someone who treats me well?”
She dropped my hands, making a faux retching noise, fingers in her throat.
“Okay.” Olly clapped her hands. “Location?”
“Shared,” I said.
“If you go anywhere outside of the restaurant without letting us know,” Lithie continued. “Like, I don’t know, a graveyard, expect a heavy police presence.”
“Noted,” I said.
All three offered to drive and pick me up, but I insisted on a Lyft. I needed some space to integrate this new reality, as my mother would say.
I was going on a date.
As the car drove closer to downtown, nerves vined their way up my throat. Butterflies the size of beetles slammed in my gut, the vibration echoing in my chest.
Was this the worst idea in the world? What if he didn’t match his profile? What if he did?
I was so in my head, I didn’t notice when the car came to a stop. The man eyed me in the rearview.
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”
White gold streetlights, jewel-red headlights, and overlapping sounds of downtown met me when I stepped out.
Car exhaust froze in the winter air, leaving behind a mystical fog on the street.
A massive iron-and-wood door marked the entrance to the restaurant.
Above it, a similarly brushed metal sign hung, denoting the name.
Through the windows, a throng of people waited around the hostess.
It was frigid with winter, and I felt increasingly stupid in my dress. Occasionally people glanced at me as they went inside. I tugged at the hem again and shifted on the heels Lithie forced on me.
Do I go in? What did I say? I wasn’t even sure of his name. Oh god, I hadn’t mapped this out enough. What if he was already sitting down and I was supposed to go inside? Or what if I was supposed to stay out here—
A low, dark voice cut through my thinking. “Bibliomaniac?”