Page 18 of The Party Plot

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” Laurel said.

Casey pressed his lips together, studying a spot on the wall.

“It’s interesting to see where you live. And to see you out of that suit and bow tie. It was a little much, don’t you think?”

Suddenly too aware of the thin cotton of his t-shirt and the sweatpants he was wearing, Casey crossed his arms. “Oh, fuck off. Are you going to tell Denise about me, or not?”

Laurel smiled luxuriantly, leaning back. “There it is, that refreshing honesty I missed so much.”

Casey didn’t reply. His fingers played over the corner of the kitchen counter. There were no other chairs in the apartment besides the sofa, and he wasn’t about to sit down next to Laurel, who had apparently made himself at home, stretching his legs out, feet making a divot in the carpet. He looked expectant, like he was waiting for Casey to say something. To apologize, maybe, or beg for mercy.

That wasn’t going to happen. Casey had nothing to feel guilty about. He had done his time as a contributing member of society, after all. He’d worked since he was legally able to, dropping out of school to support his grandma. His grades had been shit, anyway. His early twenties had been a patchwork of seasonal jobs, temp jobs, retail and food service and catering. His longest position had been as a hotel front desk clerk, but he’d had to disappear after the manager had found out that someone was selling guests’ credit card information online. (Only the really rich ones. Or the ones who were assholes to the staff. Unsurprisingly, the Venn diagram between the two groups had been basically a circle.)

That was the thing. When you’d grown up outside of the system, it was easy to start slipping, just a little. Easy to disregard the rules. Casey’s dad was a dirtbag, a hypocrite, and an addict, but he’d taught him a few valuable lessons. Why stay on the straight and narrow, when it was impossible to get anywhere that way?

Besides, it wasn’t as if Denise didn’t have money to spare. He wasn’t hurting anyone vulnerable, wasn’t defrauding the elderly or stealing from the poor. (Or from cats and dogs. Hehadmade sure the two thousand dollars actually made it to the humane society.) Honestly, he was doing her a favor, teaching her to be less gullible. Knocking her down a peg.

“So, what happens now?” he asked, not really intending to listen. Whatever Laurel had to say didn’t matter. Casey could be packed and in the car in about fifteen minutes, and the state line was only an hour away.

“You’ll have to go through with the ball.”

“You’re not going to tell your mom?” Casey felt a little dizzy. Laurel had surprised him once again, and he didn’t like it.

“Not if you can still make this thing happen, no. I don’t see any reason to.”

“It’s too late. I haven’t done any work, and putting it all together in two and a half months would be impossible.” That was ridiculous. Why did Laurel even want him to go through with the party? He should hate him, after what Casey had said in the carriage. He should be delighted about getting to expose him. Instead, he was almost being—generous? It felt wrong, and Casey’s equilibrium was off. He needed something to do with his hands, or he was going to start picking at the edge of the counter, where the formica had begun to chip away. He opened the fridge, getting himself a drink. The can was glacier-cold, and he could feel the carbonation pinging against his palms through the aluminum, fizzling around just like his insides.

“Well, I could help.” Laurel sat up, pulling out his phone. “I’ve never planned a party before, but I do have connections in town. And money.”

“Look,” Casey said cautiously. Inside his head, he was screaming,Get out of my apartment. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up, his body tense with the need to run. “I guess I’m grateful to you for not turning me in, but I don’t understand—”

“You don’t need to. Regardless, you have a vested interest in making this work. Or you should. Otherwise, I tell my mom that you’ve been pocketing all the money she’s given you for the ball.”

There it was, the catch, the teeth behind Laurel’s generosity. Casey crossed his arms. “I can cash out my accounts and be out of town before you even have the chance.”

“Can you?” Laurel gave him an assessing look. His pupils were dilated, eyes looking nearly black in the low light in the apartment, and Casey could see the pulse pounding in his neck. He remembered what it had felt like under his tongue, the naked rawness of it. “I wrote down your license plate number, by the way.”

Casey crushed the Diet Coke can in his fist. His stomach felt too full; he had chugged the soda, and now it was sitting there in his gut like a balloon. He wanted to throw up, or scream, pressure building in his throat and pushing against the back of his teeth. What he really wanted was to jump into traffic, because if someone like Laurel could outsmart him, then there was obviously no hope for him as a human being. He should never have had an online presence to begin with, should have known it was a ticking time bomb to have his face on the internet. God, his own stupidity was pounding in his head, so loud that he hardly heard Laurel say, “It’s not that bad, Casey. I can sweeten the deal, you know.”

“There is no deal,” Casey said through gritted teeth. “And nothing about this is sweet, and I amnotgoing to fuck you again, if that’s what you’re offering—”

“I’m not, but I like the way you’re thinking,” Laurel said.

Casey bit down on the inside of his cheek, hard.

“How much were you going to make off of the ball?” Laurel asked. “A rough estimate.”

“A hundred and twenty thousand.”

“Okay.” Laurel swiped at his phone, checking something on the screen. “I can pay you. A hundred and twenty thousand to make sure the ball goes off without a hitch, plus whatever you’ve already gotten from my mom. It can’t be that hard to actually pull off, right? You already did the dog wedding, so it’s not like you’ve never done a successful event. And I can help you.”

Laurel didn’t understand. It was a classic bait-and-switch, like Casey’s dad had taught him. Deliver on something small, then float something bigger. There was no way he could actually pull together the Halloween ball, and the thought of trying made him feel sick. The weight of it dug into his shoulders, like someone had grabbed him there. All the hours of planning that he hadn’t done, all the moving parts and maddening little details. “No. The dog wedding was manageable, small. I can’t pull an event this big together in this amount of time.”

Laurel shrugged. “A hundred fifty thousand?”

It was obscene, the ease with which he said it, and Casey wanted to knock the phone out of his hand.

He could still get out of here. Agree to whatever Laurel said, just to get him out of the apartment. The license plate thing didn’t matter, not really. Those were easy enough to switch out. Hell, he could just buy another used car with the money he had siphoned off Denise.

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