Chapter 23 #2
His lips curl into a smile. “Among other things.”
“Right,” Stacey says, in resplendent Fem Fantastic cosplay. “Prepare for a long, hot night. Bea, you’re at reception. Rest of you can take your places.”
Poison Hemlock has a bit of a startle. “What? I thought I was going to be locked in a cell.”
“It’s crowded enough as it is in Malum Escape, and I need Mike focused on the customer experience”—Stacey looks up—“not your lab coat.”
“Hey,” Mike says affably to the jeers of his colleagues. “Can I help it if I’m impressed to have a doctor among us?”
“I’m a doctor,” someone in blue face makeup and a cyborg-looking suit says.
“Yes, but you’re not in a lab coat. So how would I know?”
“Villains! To your cells.”
“Great costume, Bea,” Mike says. “It’s almost as cute as your Starship Cruiser uniform.”
I saunter closer and hook one of my fingers around one of Mike’s suspenders. I’m not going for cute. “And you look absolutely deranged, Mike.”
“Takes one to know one,” he says in a singsong voice that hisses and buzzes in that way of his that makes my skin prick. “You going to come over to my cell and play later?”
I snap his suspender back in place before pressing my lips into a deathly smile and sliding my hand up Mike’s chest. “Oh, believe me. I want to.”
Mike lets out a strangled whimper.
I drape my free hand around his neck and lean in to whisper in his ear, “But I hear it’s too crowded.” I inhale and sigh before pulling away.
Mike stands there with his mouth slightly parted for a beat before wheezing into hysterical, high-pitched laughter.
“Save it for the customers,” Stacey barks before demanding Mike get to his post. “Bea, I need you to sign a waiver in the break room before I clock you in.”
I find Vanessa there. She’s taking practice swings with a baseball bat, for reasons I’m sure have to do with comic book lore that I will never understand. “Where’s Catstrike?” I ask.
“Miss Kitty is pretty shy. She slips into her cell right before shift starts and disappears just as quickly when it ends. If you’re lucky, you might see her for pictures.”
Except I’m greeting guests, checking reservations, and making sure the queue moves along.
So much for the reign of Poison Hemlock, sexy villainess.
I’m nowhere near Mike. It’s three hours of pretending I recognize and love everyone’s costume as I manage reception, until Stacey sends me to the break room.
Mike is waiting for me. “Hello.” His voice slithers.
Playtime at last. “Miss me?”
His chuckle sounds completely unstable, but he stops abruptly. “You have no idea.”
I saunter closer.
Mike’s jaw works, and his honey eyes have never looked more intense. “Tell me you missed me too?”
I open the staff fridge and grab a water bottle before bumping the door closed with my hip. “Wouldn’t it be more fun if I showed you?”
He shakes with silent laughter before rising from the staff table. “Do you have plans tonight?”
My skin pebbles, but I arch an eyebrow. “I don’t know. Should I?”
“We’re having an after-party at the pub down the street. You should come.”
The door swings open, and Stacey pops her head in. “Can you both stay until one a.m.? First round of drinks at the after-party is on me if it’s a yes.”
Ordinarily, I would groan and refuse, citing my aching feet or the pile of fiction on my nightstand that will not read itself. But I’m not ordinary me tonight. “Of course. Just tell me when to start turning people away at the door.”
Stacey’s eyes narrow. “You okay?”
“Perfectly.”
She’s still looking at me suspiciously. “It’s too hot in here. Drink some water. I don’t want to fill out the paperwork if you pass out. You too, Mike.”
“She’s right,” I say after the door closes. I shrug out of my lab coat and thoroughly enjoy the look on Mike’s face when I toss it over the back of a chair. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the man is lost in a world of pain. I open the fridge and grab another water bottle.
“Something wrong?” I toss Mike the bottle.
He catches it but still looks completely dazed. He clears his throat. “The after-party. Are you coming?”
I bite my lip, only to see if it makes Mike squirm. It doesn’t, unless I count the corner of his mouth twitching. “I don’t know if I can looking like this. And I don’t really feel like changing.”
“It’s an after-party. I promise you can come as you are.”
I step closer. Close enough to faintly smell eucalyptus and thyme. “I like promises.”
Mike slides a hand around my waist and tugs me closer. “Then promise to come.”
“Because you desperately want to play? With me? Say it, and it’s a deal.”
“I’m always desperate to be with you.”
The door swings open. “Mike, let’s go,” Stacey shouts.
“Keep missing me,” Mike says before he leaves the break room.
It’s another three hours before I get the go-ahead to tell the last few stragglers at reception, “Sorry, we’re closing up, but we’ll be open again tomorrow.”
“Maybe you could make an exception?” a familiar voice says.
I look up and realize Adam is in Nightbat cosplay.
“You made it!” I pull my brother in for a hug. “Nice suit.”
“Yeah?” He gives his cape a little shake.
A woman dressed as Fair Play, rivaling Vanessa, gestures at Adam. “We thought he’d found the original last summer and nicked it.”
A man looking like a garish Badpun pipes up, “Wouldn’t be the first time an intern walked off with borrowed property.”
“Bea, let me introduce you. This is Sean and Carla from Halifax Studios. I told them I had to make it down for the last round of escapes on our first Customer Cosplay Night, and they insisted on coming.”
“Carla, Sean, this is my sister Bea, who until very recently was an attorney at McKinney and Co.”
“Oh, a gun for hire?” Carla hands me a card. “Ring me if you ever want to get into entertainment law. We could use more help on the contract end of things.”
“Thanks.” I politely tuck her card behind the iPad I’m using. “Good luck escaping. You can follow the prom queen—”
“Penny Price,” Adam corrects.
“Right, Penny Price, Catstrike, and Mallard on in. Good luck escaping.”
“Stacey,” I yell. “One last group. Very deserving.” Our code for influencer types. “Begged to do Malum. I couldn’t say no.”
Stacey sighs. “Last in the queue?”
“Yup.”
She grabs a couple of water bottles from behind the reception desk. “I’ll reset the villains.”
“Is Vanessa around?”
“She will be after this last escape. Why?”
“She told me to find her to help me remove my mask.”
“Right, isopropyl myristate. We keep it in the break room. Cotton balls, circular motions, gentle pulls. Do not rip. You might bleed if you do, and I do not—”
“I know, I know. I don’t want anyone filling out OSHA paperwork either.”
Stacey’s smile is weary. “I’ll send Vanessa to come help as soon as she’s done.”
Fifteen minutes later, Vanessa finds me in the ladies’ room. Her hair is now black, and she’s changed out of her blue and red cutoffs into a pair of baggy white jeans and a black crop top. “You’ve got most of it off. You want me to do the rest?”
“Please. But could you maybe leave some of my eye makeup?”
“Girl, I got you.”
Vanessa works her magic, removing the glitter from my lips and eyes but leaving the eyeliner and some of the smoky shadow.
She stains my lips a dark red. “Do you have a good lip balm or something on you? Because you’re going to have to moisturize religiously after what I’ve put your lips through tonight. ”
“I’m not sure.”
“You could always ask Mike.” I see the smirk on her face and am bracing for some ribbing, but she just shrugs. “He's an alpha looksmaxxer. No one takes care of their skin like that man.”
“He does have nice skin.”
She unpins my hair and pulls the ivy out. “If you say so.”
Ten minutes later, I’m making my way through a very packed pub toward Mike, who’s seated at the bar, chatting with a woman in wings and a unicorn horn. He’s still in his white shirt, but the makeup is off, and his suspenders are hanging at his sides.
“Don’t you look comfortable?” I drape an arm around Mike’s neck. “Did you miss me?”
Mike stares at me like I’m insane before he pulls me into his arms. “Are you kidding? Let me show you.”
Oh my stars and space time continuums, he’s about to kiss me. I stop him with a raised finger against his lips. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
Mike’s lips break into a smile against my finger, but I pull it away before he can do anything else. “Bea, this is Lena. Lena, this is Bea.”
“Pleasure,” I say. “So how do you know Mike? Were you in the same sixth-grade play too?”
“No.” Lena looks about as amused as I usually feel. “Were you?”
“No, I just live at his place.”
Lena’s mouth hangs open.
“Oh gosh, not like that.”
Vlad, who cosplayed as Magnificent Man at the escape room, appears and persuades Lena to join him for a game of darts.
“I know you’re playing with me,” Mike says as I slide onto the recently vacated stool. “But if you could keep it up for the rest of the night, that would be incredibly…”
I drag my nails down one of his sleeves. “Fun?”
He captures my hand and interlaces our fingers. “Helpful. I’m in a less-than-ideal situation.”
My laugh is throaty. “Oh?”
“It’s a bit of a real-life Twelfth Night, except the casting is all wrong.”
“Are you about to introduce me to your twin sister?”
Mike laughs. “I’m an only child, Bea.”
“Must have been so lonely for you.” I bring Mike’s hand, still tangled with my own, to my cheek. “So if you’re not Sebastian in this impromptu production, who are you?”
Mike brushes a strand of my still auburn locks behind my ear with his free hand. “I was unwittingly cast as Lady Olivia. Meanwhile, Vlad is playing the part of Viola, and Lena over there is his Count Cesario.”
“Are you telling me that you have a crush on Vlad?”
“Not at all. Vlad is into Lena. Lena thinks she’s into me. I am into neither of them.”
“So what part do you want me to play in this little drama?”
“My girlfriend.”
I let our hands fall from my cheek.