Page 61 of Masks and Mishaps

Lander tries to grab the money. “What the fuck—you don’t have to pay for us.”

“Neither of you have jobs,” I remind them before I head to the restaurant’s exit and into the November evening, ready to make a metric fuckton of chaos.

And maybe—if she’ll let me—I’m going to keep that chaos at bay.

Twenty-Three

ESSIE

Valerialinksherarmthrough mine and tugs me close, nearly sending me toppling in my heels. The air is thick with the sound of Saturday, and music pours out of open doors, growing and shrinking as we jog U Street’s damp sidewalks.

Up ahead, Cora is walking with purpose and fury—par for the course for her. Her black boots scuff the concrete until she stops in front of another bar and starts talking to the bouncer.

“I hate this,” Valeria murmurs, drawing me even closer. Despite our heavy coats, we’re not dressed to be outside longer than a few minutes. Frigid air bites at my legs, numbing my exposed skin now that my adrenaline is wearing off. “We should have stayed.”

I glance back. “Shit. They followed us.”

“What?” Valeria demands, whirling around so abruptly that her hair whips me in the face. Her brow knots when she sees them: the three obnoxiously drunk assholes who made us flee the last bar.

It started when we turned down the drinks they sent over and continued when they followed us onto the dance floor. Apparently, they’re not done.

Luckily, Cora says something persuasive to the bouncer (or she made a compelling case for her ability to curse him and everyone he loves), because she’s in—and she waves for us to follow her.

It’s dark, and the pulse of music vibrating off the brick walls would make me think of Dalton if I weren’t already. He used to love when we went to places like this: noisy and anonymous so he could touch me without our friends seeing. I used to let him, welcoming the delicious hum of his tipsy words when he’d dance behind me and whisper into my ear,I’ll make you mine one day, while his hands grazed any skin he could reach.

The ache I’ve been quashing grows bigger. Needier. The look on Dalton’s face when I got out of his car is going to stay with me for a long time. It wasn’t anger—it wasn’t even sadness. It was this indescribable look ofnothingness.

I want to text him.

No.

Absolutely not. I told him to go, and I have to bear the consequences of my choices.

I’m completely fine.

While Valeria checks our coats, Cora heads to the bar. I’d join her, but the three shots I did earlier remind me enough of Dalton as it is. I go straight to the dancefloor.

The tight press of bodies is sweltering in stark contrast to the biting winds outside, and my body eases when I’m in the center. Moments later, Valeria joins me. The tension still lives in her brow and the ever-vigilant way she side-eyes anyone in our periphery. I hug her, moving to the beat and trying to bear some of her residual frustration. When her grip loosens, I know she’s calmer.

I pull away, and she’s smiling now—and I wish I could find it in me to do the same.

I want to text him.

No.

But I’m wearing a dress he bought me. It’s skimpy and green and too expensive to be so little, but it does all the right things to my body. Unsurprising. Dalton would never give me a less than perfect gift.

When the song changes, Valeria curls her arms around me again, and this night feels salvageable for the first time. Then Cora is behind me, wrapping her hands around my waist and dragging her palm higher until it…cups my boob?

Alarmed, I spin around to find one of the guys from earlier: a blond wearing a button-down whose smirk cuts through his freckles and his fluffy hair. He’s the tallest one, the one who seemed to choose me at the last bar.

“Back off,” I snap.

“Did he touch you?” Valeria demands behind me.

But he’s laughing at us, staring down his nose and enjoying his considerable height and size, I can tell. His handsome face looks unaccustomed to rejection, and his smile is bright—pretty and tenuous like ice on a spring lake, bound to crack and reveal whatever slinks beneath its surface.

“You can’t even dance with me?” he asks as his hands go to my hips.

---