Page 59 of Blue Moon

“Wrapped it,” Tulsa said. “I wasn’t gonna drive a pink car all the way from Vegas.”

“What’s wrong with pink?”

“Nothing, if you enjoy drawing attention to yourself. I don’t.” She smirked at Ryder. “Good luck.”

I decided I didn’t like her much, even if she had brought my car here. I took another look at the inside, noting the black seat covers and the black sleeve over the steering wheel. What was she, the angel of death?

“You can peel the wrap off the outside whenever you want,” Ryder said. “It’s just plastic film.”

Priest took a step back. “I’ll leave you to it. Bathroom’s over there in the corner, kitchen’s next to it. Have fun, kids.”

“What is this place?” I asked again once they’d gone.

“Honestly? I’m not sure. I just told Emmy that I needed somewhere quiet so you could try driving, and this was where she sent me. Are you ready to get behind the wheel?”

“No?”

He just laughed. “You’ll be fine. There’s nothing for you to hit out here.”

And for that, I was truly grateful. By lunchtime, I could go forward and backward and drive circles along the airstrip. We had to take a break when Priest wanted to fly somewhere in his plane, but I spent a couple of hours learning the basics with no pressure, something I’d never have been able to do in Vegas with the camera-wielding hordes watching my every move.

Returning to reality was depressing.

“I totally picked the wrong career,” I told Ryder as we whizzed through the air above the desert. “If I had to start over, I’d do whatever Shani does.”

“Manage an office?”

“She eats cake all day, plus she gets to bring her dog to work.”

“When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound like a bad job.”

And Shani always seemed so happy. She was positively beaming when she welcomed us into a huge meeting room set up with tables and snacks. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was until I saw the food. Rocky was with her again, her shadow, but when I picked up a cheese stick, he sat in front of me and stared up with doleful eyes.

“Is he allowed cheese?” I asked her.

“Yes, but not too much. I put you on a team with Dusk and Tulsa, you know, like a guest team since they don’t work here either.”

Tulsa? Great. Suddenly, the evening didn’t seem like quite so much fun. But Dusk was sweet, a cute brunette with perfect skin and a ready smile. Marcel was there too, and he gave an exuberant wave from across the room. I’d waved to him at the show last Thursday as well, and he’d fanned himself and blown me kisses from the front row.

“Didn’t think this was your kind of thing,” Ryder said to Tulsa.

“It isn’t, but someone has to stop Marcel from irritating the shit out of everyone.”

“She came for the food,” Dusk fake-whispered. “All the divine smells coming out of the kitchen today, and Marcel wouldn’t let us eat any of it.”

“You work together? At a catering business?” I asked, and that was the first time I’d seen Tulsa laugh.

“We share a house,” Dusk explained. “Marcel is our assistant, officially. He mostly does whatever he pleases, but nobody’s going to fire him when he cooks the way he does.”

“So, what do you do for work?”

She shrugged. “This and that. Is the dog yours? What’s his name?”

“Shani’s fostering him, but he likes cheese.”

“Don’t we all? C’mon, let’s grab a table.”

Tulsa might have been prickly, but she was smart. Not as smart as their roommate Sin, according to Dusk, but Sin had been banned from the quizzes for winning too much. And I had to grudgingly admit that we made a good team. Tulsa, Dusk, and Ryder knew loads about science and history and geography, but when it came to the music round, my teammates stared blankly at each other, and then they turned to me. People thought I didn’t know classical music? Think again.

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