Chapter Sixteen
He might be the hottest guy I’ve ever seen.
Or maybe I’m just drunk.
Or maybe it’s a bit of both.
I’m sitting on a sofa, halfway through laughing at something when I first notice him. My plastic cat ears are sliding down my head again, and I’m in the middle of fixing them when he walks past.
Suddenly the joke isn’t funny anymore and I sit up straighter, staring, because he looks so completely, absurdly out of place.
I mean, first of all, what even is his costume?
This is a Halloween party. People are dressed as vampires, skeletons, sexy pirates, and at least three different versions of Harley Quinn.
But this guy? This guy looks like Steve Jobs circa 1998.
Black turtleneck. Blue jeans. Both of them are extremely well fitted, which I appreciate, but still.
He pauses near the kitchen doorway, glancing around the room like he’s trying to decode it. Or maybe he’s scoping it out as a potential venue to launch a new iPod.
The music is too loud, someone is standing on a table pouring vodka directly into a dinosaur costume’s mouth, and there’s fake cobwebs stuck to the ceiling.
Meanwhile this guy looks like he wandered in from a tech conference.
He runs a hand through his hair, still scanning the room, looking completely lost.
And for some reason . . .
That makes him even hotter.
“Hey,” a voice says beside me, and a masked face drops heavily onto my shoulder.
“Hey yourself,” I reply, my eyes still fixed on Steve Jobs 2.0 across the room. “Having fun?”
“At my work’s annual Halloween party?” My sister’s eyes roll so hard behind her mask I can practically feel it through my collarbone. “Sure.”
I tilt my chin towards the doorway. “Who’s that?”
My sister lifts her head, squinting across the room. She’s dressed head to toe as an angel, which, if you’ve ever spent more than three minutes in her company, you’d realize is the height of irony. “No idea,” she says, adjusting one of her crooked wings. “But he looks like a douche.”
An immediate spark of defensiveness flares in my chest. “No, he doesn’t.”
“He really does,” she insists, swiping my glass of sauvignon and swigging it easily. “I mean, what kind of costume is that?” She leans forward and away from my shoulder, studying him more closely. “Is he dressed as . . . Oh my God. Is he actually dressed as Steve Jobs?”
I shrug, trying very hard to look casual. “Maybe. I mean, you can’t mistake him for anyone else. It’s a clever costume, right?”
“It’s a cheap costume,” my sister snorts, before she tanks back another mouthful of my wine. “Although I guess black turtlenecks might be hard to come by these days. You know, now that the GAP has closed.”
Across the room, Steve Jobs runs a hand through his hair again, still looking mildly bewildered by the entire situation. My sister watches him for another moment, before she glances sideways at me.
“Oh no. Oh no,” she says.
“What?”
“You’re totally into him.”
“I am not.”
“Come on. I know that slightly dopey expression in your eyes. You absolutely, one hundred per cent are.”
“I’m not,” I protest, a little too fervently. “I only saw him, like, thirty seconds ago.”
“So? Thirty seconds is all it takes sometimes.” My sister taps me on the nose. “You should go talk to him.”
A blush instantly forms across my cheeks. “Talk to him? Are you crazy? Or just drunk?”
“Both,” my sister says with a grin. “Go on, talk to him. You never know, this guy might be the one you’re meant to marry.
You could have lots of babies. Little nieces and nephews for me to cuddle.
” She sits back, taking in the cat ears on my head and the whiskers painted on my cheeks.
“Tell me, what do you get when you cross Steve Jobs with a cat?”
“Is that a joke?” I ask suspiciously.
“It is now.” My sister grins. “You get an iCat.”
“Urgh,” I groan. “That’s terrible.”
“I know, and you’re welcome.” She hands my wine glass back to me like she’s just performed a public service. “Now go and talk to him.”
“I’m not talking to him.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” I say, gesturing vaguely in Steve Jobs’s direction, “look at him.”
She squints across the room again. “I am looking at him.”
“He’s cute,” I continue, blushing deeply. “But he looks so serious. He probably owns property and drinks his coffee black. While I’m sitting here clutching cheap wine and wearing cat ears that light up when the music gets too loud.”
As if on cue, my ears flash pink, and my sister bursts out laughing. “Fuck, you have to go and talk to him now.”
“Absolutely not.” I’m certain that by now my cheeks are the same colour as my fake ears.
“But you’re wasting a perfectly good meet-cute,” my sister argues. “I mean, I just spoon-fed you iCat. Trust me, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
“I really hope it does.”
My sister sighs dramatically, clearly giving up. “Fine,” she says. “Be like that. Don’t talk to him. Don’t marry him or have cute iKittens for me to cuddle. Keep being miserable and lonely and—”
Suddenly there’s a loud crash from somewhere near the kitchen, and we both turn to see the punch bowl — ornate, enormous, and genuine crystal — lying on its side on the table, red liquid cascading dramatically onto the floor like a low-budget scene from a bad horror movie.
My sister winces. “Fuck,” she exhales slowly. “What a mess. Do you know how much vodka is in that thing?”
The punch continues pouring onto the floor.
“Was in that thing, you mean,” I correct her, and she sighs.
“I better deal with it.” She kisses me on the head. “Get yourself some more wine while I’m gone.”
Before I can protest, she’s up and has slipped into the crowd, angel wings bobbing as she disappears towards the disaster.
“And talk to Steve Jobs!” she calls over her shoulder. I watch her go, shaking my head.
Then I turn back towards the doorway.
Towards Steve Jobs.
Except he’s gone. Disappeared into the night.
I blink, scanning the room again, but the doorway is empty now. Just a guy in a vampire cape arguing with someone dressed as a hot dog.
I sit up a little straighter, looking over the heads of the crowd, but there’s nothing. No black turtleneck. No confused expression. No ridiculously good-looking man who looks like he accidentally wandered into the wrong decade.
“Huh,” I mutter, and for a strange moment, disappointment settles in my chest, which is ridiculous, because I didn’t even talk to him. I only saw him for, what? Maybe thirty seconds?
Still. I take another sip of wine, leaning back into the couch, and try very hard not to keep looking for him as the party carries on around me like nothing happened.
Music thumps through the walls, someone turns the volume up even louder, and the smell of cheap vodka and fake fog fluid hangs thick in the air.
My ears continually flicker, the flash of lights reflecting on my glass.
Across the room, I spot my sister again, but she’s got a mop now.
It’s a downgrade from the angel wings, but hey, this is her office party, and her job is on the line if someone slips, cracks open their head and then sues the company for all they’ve got.
She’s standing near the kitchen doorway, aggressively swiping at the floor while arguing with a man in a devil mask and costume, who clearly knocked the punch over in the first place.
He’s got plastic horns, a red tail, and the deeply offended posture of someone who believes mopping is beneath him.
I watch as my sister gestures furiously at the spreading lake of punch on the floor and the devil gestures furiously back.
They’re clearly in the throes of a pretty satisfying argument, and I’m not going to interrupt, so for a moment I just sit there, watching an angel mop up a river of red alcohol while arguing with the devil.
Suddenly, I realize I’m tired, and not just party-tired. The music feels louder now, the room feels hotter, my costume feels itchier, and someone in a skeleton costume trips over the coffee table and collapses onto the couch beside me with a dramatic groan.
For me, that’s the final straw. Me, my sanity and my glowing ears have all had enough.
Yeah. I’m done here.
I pick my way carefully across the room, weaving between a pirate, a zombie bride, and someone dressed as a sexy nun. I grab my coat from the back of a chair and turn to get my sister’s attention.
My sister. The angel. Who is now very enthusiastically making out with the devil across the room, both her mop and her wings lying abandoned on the floor.
It’s Paradise Lost, but make it drunk and twenty-something.
I watch for another second, just to confirm that yes, that is absolutely what’s happening. It doesn’t take me long to decide I’ll just text her when I get home. Better that than interrupt her while she’s tongue deep in poor life choices.
I glance around the room one more time, just in case Steve Jobs is still here. He’s not though, and a small, irritating wave of disappointment rises in my chest as I press the lift button. The doors slide open almost immediately and I step inside, leaning back against the wall as the doors close.
It’s probably for the best, I tell myself, shrugging my coat onto my shoulders and readjusting my crooked cat ears in the mirrored panel.
We probably wouldn’t have had anything in common anyway.
I mean, he looks like the kind of man who owns multiple spreadsheets, while I once made gingerbread and forgot to add the ginger.
The lift hums softly as it descends and my ears flash pink again when the music upstairs thumps through the ceiling. When the doors finally slide open, I push myself upright and step forward—
—and immediately catch the heel of my shoe on the edge of the lift.
My ankle twists and for a dangerous moment, everything drops. Instead of gracefully exiting the lift like a functional adult, I stumble forward and straight into someone solid. Two hands catch my arms before I can hit the floor.
Strong hands. Warm hands. For a moment I’m half pressed against a black turtleneck.
A very familiar black turtleneck.