Page 39 of Before Now

He grins, holding up a beak. “I’m a cock.”

I snort as he passes for the curtain.

“As for Adams, he’s going as what he always does,” Colton says.

I’m about to ask, but then Foster boards the bus, and I can’t breathe. A deep V cuts down the middle of his black shirt with laces undone at the bottom, fitted ripped jeans, and a play sword hanging off a belt slung low on his hips. I don’t need to see the black eye mask to know.

“A pirate,” I breathe out while looking at a memory.

“A fucking pirate,” the others echo.

Foster and I stare at each other for a beat too long before he swallows, turns around, and walks straight off the bus.

* * *

Turns out,a frat in Utah is not too bad of a place for three rock stars to blend in for Halloween. In no time at all, Felix and Dev—or Cowboy and Chicken, since I refuse to call DevCockall night—are fully integrated into the frat party with no one even batting an eye.

The names are a Colton—Vampire—demand. Rather than chance someone overhearing all of the band’s real ones and blowing their cover, everyone’s going by their costumes for the night.

I’m walking through the crowd recording neck-down on the bodies because Colton’s right. I never stop. But why waste a chance to catch these three merely existing? They can be a cowboy or a chicken or a pirate without the weight of who they are pressing down.

Cowboy ducks in close to my cam as I wander by him. He tugs down his bandana, revealing the Felix beneath, and then with a wink he pulls it back up and returns to the girls he’s accumulated. Even without their status, they’ve managed to find a fan club.

Chicken has on a pair of spy glasses above his beak. Given how he’s grinding on a bunny at the moment, I’ll have to skip through the cleavage shots he’s undoubtedly getting.

Students all play up the camera, too, but other than the overhead shot I managed from the stairs, I won’t use it. Asking them all to sign a release form draws a little too much attention.

Once I’ve wandered enough to scratch the itch, I find a vampire where I left him on the outskirts of the room. Foster was with him when I left, but now he’s alone and already shaking his head at me.

“Do I need to physically remove that from your person or are you going to fulfill the chilling requirement for the evening?”

“Hmm.” I cock my head at Colton, hand-cam falling to my side. “Can it truly be considered chilling if it’s required?”

He hands over my drink that he held like a gentleman. “One of these days, I’m forcing you to have fun, Catholic School Girl.”

“No,” I tell him. “You are not calling me Catholic School Girl. For one, it’s a mouthful. Two, just … no.”

“You have on a fucking plaid skirt and a button-up.” He points at my legs. “Andknee-highs. What do you expect me to call you?”

I’m about to say Remi because no one will tie me to shit, but before I can, a pirate materializes beside him.

“Call her Saint.” Foster hands Colton a red cup, lasering in on me. “She acts like one.”

“She’s a sinner pretending to be a saint,” Adams sings in “Haunted,” “crushing your soul while you kneel at her feet.”

A challenge lies in his eyes even beneath his mask. Except he’s not the only one who can stab with our past.

“I’ve been told I’m a beautiful liar,” I say to him while flashing a smile for Colton.

“Saint of the Beautiful Liars it is.” Colton taps his cup to Foster’s and then mine. “That should be a song.”

Our gazes remain locked over the rims as Foster and I drink. Maybe it’s the shots with Felix earlier that make me think his eyes heat when he looks down at my skirt. My school uniform was green instead of red and showed less thigh, but the way he lingers on the exposed skin above my black knee-highs, I don’t think the color matters.

A lot of things have changed in five years. Foster West’s preference for skirts and legs doesn’t seem to be one of them.

He has a bandana covering his disheveled hair now, the dark red tails long. Between it and the mask, he doesn’t look anything like Adams North tonight. But even disguised, I have no idea how I didn’t recognize him that night in their dressing room. His full lips and ocean eyes. I fell for his voice and words before the rest avalanched, but his eyes I worried I wouldn’t recover from months after I left him behind.

“Please tell me one of you has a joint,” a blonde nurse says. She stops beside me out of necessity, although I’m not sure she notices with Colton and Foster in front of us. The length of her skirt puts mine to shame, and one wrong move with her top threatens a nip-slip.

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