Chapter 17
JULES
The rooftop club is a modern mixture of glass, polished metal, and wretched excess. It’s the kind of event where the bubbly beverages alone cost more than I spend in a year on coffee. And it’s the last place I expect to be on a Friday night with my boss.
With all the oddball glitz and glam, it’s evident nearly everyone in attendance is trying very hard to look like they’re not trying at all. Take, for example, the person wearing purple plastic panel pants, a denim suit jacket, and cowboy boot sandals.
Not my scene, not that I have one. Libraries? Book stores? Art galleries? Coffee shops? Those are my common habitats and I am happy to wear a cardigan and stretch pants.
If I hadn’t used my blow dryer to remove the glitter from Linc’s face and shirt, he’d fit right in.
He pauses just outside the elevator and takes stock of the space at large.
He wears a pair of worn-in jeans and a cotton t-shirt.
Underneath that, I can tell he’s built of solid engineering.
Like God took the blueprints and said, “Let’s make this one massive, towering above the rest. Nothing but the highest quality materials.
Fortify him. Reinforced with the strong bedrock of the earth.
We take pride in our work and he is no exception! ”
Hesitating because I’m counting my blessings and cursing myself for thinking this way about my boss, he raises his eyebrow sharply as if sensing my candy-eyed weakness or issuing a dare. I can’t be sure.
Then his hand lands on the slope of my spine. My pulse rattles like I just drove over a speed bump. A shiver ripples through me like a breeze in the fir trees. I tell myself the gesture is so I don’t get lost in the throbbing throng of people drinking and dancing.
I freeze, then look at him briefly over my shoulder, wondering if this is how it starts.
Out of the corner of his eye, he looks me up and down and his mouth twitches.
It’s the same hint of a smile as when I answered my door in a robe, only now I’m wearing my one and only little black dress that is more understated than it is elegant.
After running my brush through my hair, I quickly blew it dry, letting it loose around my shoulders.
Through the crack in my bathroom door, Linc watched me and for a moment, he wore a reverent look on his face that made me think of romantic scenes on balconies, open train windows and hankies, couples rushing toward each other in the airport.
How someone’s beloved is both the artist and the masterpiece—beautiful just by being themselves.
Just kidding, I saw the amusement on his lips as if I’d hired a clown to point their makeup gun at me and turn it up to maximum.
No doubt, I’m wide-eyed as we pass two people making out on top of a table.
“Are these your friends?” I murmur, watching a group of scantily clad influencers pose for photos against the city skyline backdrop. It’s warm out, but I happen to know where you can get textiles cheaply.
He laughs through his nose. “Friends? Certainly not.”
I can’t wrap my head around what we’re doing here.
As if reading my mind, Linc leans into my ear and whispers, “We have some investigating to do.”
I’d like to focus on his proximity and how my hair momentarily got adhered to his stubble like Velcro, but he pulls a penny from his pocket and flips it.
“Lucky penny?” I watch the copper glint like it’s winking at me as it tumbles in the air.
“Something like that.”
“I once heard a statistic that Americans think about Honest Abe on average once per day.”
“I should hope so,” he says, then goes still.
His hand slides from my back, which had skillfully guided me through the crowd, to cup my own.
Linc is holding my hand.
His skin is cool, but mine burns like I just touched a hot stovetop. I should know better than to allow this, but it’s like our palms are glued together.
I’m so far out of my element that I welcome Linc’s presence. That’s the story I tell myself, anyway.
“I’m only allowing this so I don’t get lost. It’s a safety issue,” I call, but I don’t know if he hears me when a cackling laugh cuts through the music.
His grip tightens.
The actress Iva Katz swans over with a spindly man. He wears a satin baroque suit, has stringy dyed orange hair, and his eyes, lined with black kohl, are bloodshot. She wears designer everything, artfully messy hair, and the kind of smile that’s been practiced in front of mirrors.
“Linc-y baby!” Iva exclaims, though her eyes flit from him to our joined hands, to me as though she’s trying to solve an advanced calculus problem. “You came after all. And you brought a friend?” It’s more of a question than a statement.
“This is Juliana,” he says, getting my name right for the first time. Ever.
I lengthen my spine and extend my free hand for her to shake. “Nice to meet you.”
She doesn’t take it. “I’m sure.”
“Iva Babe, who do we have here?” asks her Unhinged Circus Person companion.
She looks at me, apparently decides that I’m no one, and says, “This is my ex, Linc-y.”
I turn to Linc and, like a political adversary who’s about to mount a teasing campaign, mouth, Linc-y?
Nostrils flared, as if reading my mind once more, he mutters, “Don’t you dare.”
The desire to use this silly nickname against him, especially after the corporate power move to intentionally get my name wrong, is almost too tasty to pass up.
Unhinged Circus Person spreads his arms wide like a king, declaring, “I’m Aiken D, but you know that.”
I do?
With a spin, he adds, “Welcome to my kingdom of chaos.”
He is indeed wearing a velvet mantel with a thick fur ruff.
“Are you royalty?” I curtsy.
Linc laughs but hides it with a cough.
Iva lets out a hollow titter. “In our world, of course. He’s the Demo King.”
“The King of demolition entertainment.” Unhinged Circus Person, aka Aiken, wheezes a laugh.
Iva narrows her eyes in my direction. “So, how do you two know each other? You make such an interesting couple.”
Linc and I exchange a quick glance, both starting to speak at the same time.
“We’re not—” I begin.
“We are—” he says.
“Friends?” Iva repeats as if hopeful.
I tip my head back with lunatic laughter, matching the vibe of the party. “No, we hate each other.”
Linc gives me a lengthy side eye.
Iva and Aiken don’t seem to register my comment as he slings an arm around her waist. “We used to be ‘just friends’ too, didn’t we, babe?”
Linc looks at me for a long moment as if measuring something—the barometric pressure of our environment? How these fluctuations might affect weather patterns and predict an incoming storm? Did our conversation in the car make us pals?
He tenses as if he wants to end this conversation. “We should mingle, Jules.”
Aiken, the ring master monarch of this side show, interrupts, “Oh, don’t leave so soon!
I was just about to show everyone my latest acquisition—a boring old painting I picked up at an estate sale.
I’m featuring it in my next destruction video, and as a grand finale to our festivities tonight, I’m going to have everyone graffiti the wall it’s mounted on. ”
Linc goes still. “What kind of painting?”
He leans in like he has a secret too juicy to keep private and says, “A Civil War battle scene. We’re going to blow it up with a cannon.” Aiken laughs again. “Who cares about fusty, dusty history when you can create new art by destroying the old?”
Linc flips the penny again, expression unreadable.
Iva’s eyes gleam. “We have connections, don’t we, Aike-y?”
“Sure do.”
“What kinds of—?” Linc starts to ask and then stops himself, likely because he doesn’t want to talk to them any longer than necessary.
As if she just entered meh-mode, Iva tugs on Aiken. “This is bore-ring. Let’s go. We have important guests to greet.”
They drift away, leaving us standing in the middle of the three-ring circus castle. I feel both relieved and deserted. Now what?
Linc surveys the room as if looking for something … or someone?
Likely not the person wearing a neon gorilla suit and tossing water balloons while on stilts who barges through us, breaking our linked hands.
Rude!
Now separated from Linc as partygoers fill in the space, I turn in a circle looking for the exit to this rooftop. I lament forgetting my parachute at home when a guy with a man-bun and paint-splattered jeans materializes next to me.
Leaning in close, he says. “You are magnetic. I could sense your depth from across the room.”
Man Bun smells faintly like Limburger. My gaze flits away, seeking Linc.
He goes on, “Most people are shallow, but you’re like a bird of paradise. A toucan, colorful and melodious. I want to see it. Hear it. Be part of it.”
A toucan? Not at all interested in his odd overture, I start, “I’m here with—” But I’m not sure what to call Linc after just telling Iva we hate each other.
The guy continues, “I’m a performance artist and I want you to be part of my next piece. It involves body paint.” He smolders.
The sea of Avant Garde fashion victims parts just long enough for me to catch sight of Linc, watching Man Bun and me while slowly clenching a fist before uncurling it finger by finger.
I give a full, plot-twist stare. Did Linc just pull a Mr. Darcy or does he get carpal tunnel from typing and needs to stretch his hand?
What would it mean if he did the finger flex?
I rush over to him like a distressed damsel. Shouting above the music, I ask, “Okay, so why are we really here? Because my fragile nerves cannot handle much more of that.”
Glancing at Stinky Cheese Artist, the sucker has the nerve to smirk.
“And I don’t see any evidence of lost manuscripts or priceless pieces of art hidden in the floorboards.”
Unless it’s the one Aiken was talking about.
Gripping my elbow, Linc ushers me toward a hallway as I watch new money and old money intermingling—confirming my assumptions about the kind of party the son of a billionaire would attend.
The hallway is mercifully, relatively quiet.
“You should’ve told me to wear my feather-covered bell-bottoms and non-coordinating glow-in-the-dark shirt made out of tissue paper.”
“Do you own those?”
“Absolutely not. But really, why are we here?” I demand.
He opens and then closes a door, shielding his eyes as if he saw something that he can never unsee and is desperate for a packet of bleach wipes. “Because this is the kind of thing that requires two people.”
I only briefly saw what was behind the door and cannot imagine a world in which Linc would entertain doing that with me, especially after he dated Iva.
Iva Katz, the famous actress, to be clear.
She started as an adorable child star with a cutesy catch phrase, developed into a beautiful young woman featured with the hottest heartthrobs, and then, perhaps gripped firmly in the clutches of fame, decided that playing the Baroness in the saga titled “Mutant Harems of Love Mountain” was a good idea.
But who am I to judge? I’m a self-avowed “The Sweetheart Report” addict.
Even underneath all that makeup, she’s undeniably gorgeous.
“We need two people, how? Why?” I ask when we reach the door at the end of the corridor.
“Please be the lookout.”
I’m torn, unable to easily say no to his polite use of the word please. “That’s the third time in our entire relationship—”
He tilts his head in question.
“I meant that’s the third time in our hate-tionship that you’ve said please, so, sure. I’ll be the lookout. I like polite Linc.”
Whether I’ll get a polite Mr. Sullivan on Monday is TBD.
Giving me a nod like we’re two commandos in enemy territory, he slips through the door. I stand with my back to it, keeping time to the beat of the music and running through scenarios.
If a team of security guards approaches and questions me, I’ll plead the Fifth.
Should the neon gorilla on stilts try to stampede, I’ll trip him.
If Aiken appears, I’m running. I’ll bust through the wall if I have to. I don’t care if that foils Linc’s plans. Our host is an unhinged circus person whose brain seems to be broken, given what I heard about his viral demo channel.
Only a few women, looking for the bathroom, make their way toward me, and must decide that one person, me, doesn’t form a substantial line, so the loo must be elsewhere.
It’s been almost three minutes and I fear Linc abandoned me when the door opens. He gives his head a shake. “That wasn’t it.”
“It might be helpful to know what it is.”
“You’re clever, what’s the one piece missing from the Fairfax Collection?”
I frown, itemizing the art in my mind, but don’t reach an answer before Iva calls out, “Thanks for stopping by, Linc-y. Always a pleasure. Bring your girlfriend again next time.”
She wouldn’t get an award for that performance, because the way she said girlfriend tells me she knows that’s not who I am to Linc. Not that I’d want to be.
Ew. Gross.
Not that he’d ever think of me that way. Obviously. Not when he’s dated the likes of Iva Katz. But still. There’s no need to point it out so passive-aggressively… and with so much panache.
The elevator doors close on her laughter. Descending, Linc and I stand in separate corners as if we’re recalibrating to the baseline of not being blasted with noise pollution that some people call music.
When we reach the ground floor, it takes me a moment to come up with the right words. “That was illuminating.”
“Jules—”
That’s the second consecutive time he’s used that new variation of my name.
“I know I shouldn’t let it get to me, but her comment hurts like a paper cut, reminding me of girls in high school.” It’s immature of me, but I want him to make the raw, tender hurt his problem.
“Ignore her.”
“I get it now. This is your world, right? The excess, the wild waste, the people who destroy art for entertainment.” I dig deeper, partly because I need him to say I’m wrong.
Pathetic, I know.
“It’s not my world,” he says firmly. “I don’t want anything to do with people like Iva or Aiken.”
“But you know them. You dated her.” I flip my hand dismissively as if, on second thought, it doesn’t matter.
He puffs his cheeks. “Yeah. I did and learned a lot.”
“About how to apply guy-liner? Aiken seems like a pro.”
“Like eyeliner?” The chucklechump’s laughter echoes off the walls of the basement parking garage. “Definitely not that. The only art I’m interested in is the real thing.” He pauses and looks at me for a long moment.
Long enough for color to rise to my cheeks.
“The painting in the room was a reproduction and …” He trails off as his eyes drop to my mouth and then back up as if he’s looking at a piece of art.
The same silly, immature part of me who spent lunch break in the library for all four years of high school and was always passed over by the hot guys wants to believe him. The part of me who felt invisible, who was rejected, wants to trust him.