Page 7 of Beauty Sleep

At last, I’m stepping out of the bar and into the cool night. I’m heading home alone, like I’d planned to. I just didn’t expect to feel this disappointed about it.

I guess this is what it feels like to get what you want… and then realize you didn’t really want it after all.

And it’s nobody’s fault but my own.

Chapter

Three

PRINCE

People forgetthat the ugly duckling has feelings, too.

I’ve long since learned how to make up for my shortcomings. I can talk to anyone and get them to smile, even laugh. But the vibe changes when guys realize I’m interested in them—or, worse, their friends. Then it’s all cold shoulders and “you can do better” whispers. And life hasn’t yet taught the hot young guys how to say no kindly.

Tonight, rejection tastes more bitter than usual. I couldn’t quite shrug it off as I headed home to shower, shave, and change into my outfit. I just kept finding myself thinking about Beauty. And I don’t even know his real name—he never offered, and I never asked.

Maybe that’s just as well, considering how it ended.

I should just embrace the role I always get cast in.I work my jaw around as I stride down the street.They see me as a wicked old fairy? I can act like it. I could tell the door guy not to let them in…

I sigh and shake my head, pushing my hands into my pockets. I already know I won’t do that. Beauty’s friends had bad manners but good intentions. He’s obviously easy to pusharound. There’s a reason he called me Daddy right away—he’s so obviously the kind of boy who needs someone to call the shots.

If he doesn’t have a Daddy of his own, his friends are right to watch out for him. I meant what I said—he reallywillget torn apart if he goes out on the scene. And I don’t get any satisfaction from knowing that. It just aches.

And I can’t help wondering… before his friends arrived, what the hell was Beauty about to tell me?

“Hey, is that Prince? You on deck tonight?”

I glance around, and some guy wearing a leather hood catches my eye and waves from the other side of the street. He’s a regular at Vibes. He must recognize me, even behind my feathered mask, from the rest of my outfit: black velvet trousers and silk floral-patterned waistcoat.

Add a great sense of style to the list of things I’ve got going for me.

My DJ persona kicks in automatically. “Your Prince is coming for you, darling,” I answer, my voice just aloof enough, yet honeyed and suggestive. “As long as you come for me. Bottom floor, from twelve to two.”

The guy laughs, gives me a thumbs-up, and turns back to his friends. And despite myself, I can’t help smiling. More people know me by my DJ name than my legal one these days—and I like it that way.

I never tell people where it came from.

When I was Beauty’s age, I looked in the mirror and I hated what I saw. I used to hold myself back from even trying, because what was the point? My only hope was that I’d get hotter with age, like some fairy godmother would come along, wave her wand, and transform me into Prince Charming.

Then the years passed and I realized that if I have a fairy godmother, she has a Hitachi for a wand, and she lost the charger in another dimension.

Honestly, who can blame her? We’ve all been there. And I’ve found my own ways to stand out. In a dark room with the beat pumping, it doesn’t really matter what I look like—only how I perform.

So to speak.

Ugh. After my set, it’s my best chance to get laid, but I can’t even get excited about it tonight. That gorgeous, shy, maddeningly timid boy really has gotten into my head. And I won’t even see him at Vibes… unless he was too timid to tell his friends what he really wanted.

Again.

I work my jaw around, trying to push away the feeling of disappointment as I shove my hands into my pockets.

It isn’t even that Beauty didn’t stand up for me. Or that I’m older than him—that’s just a fact. I happen to know my extra years have blessed me with a deficit of fucks to give about what the infants call me.

I’m just upset because I’ve spent half my life being ashamed of wanting beautiful men when it’s so obvious that I’m not in their league. So I know exactly what it looks like when someone is too ashamed of their desire to stand up for what they want.

That Beauty boy has to smarten up.

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