Page 67 of Unleashing Mayhem
Matty turned his head to the right, then to the left. He wrinkled his nose. Pursed his lips. Stuck out his tongue.
“What do you think?” Sascha asked.
They were in Sascha and Kai’s bedroom, and Matty was sitting on a little padded stool in front of Sascha’s vanity, taking stock of what the mirror showed him.
Matty kind of thought a lot of product had been used to make his hair do what it always did—fall messily wherever it wanted—but Sascha had spent a lot of time on it, so Matty settled on, “It’s nice.”
Sascha frowned at him in the vanity mirror, then sighed. “I’ll take it.” He held up a small dark pencil. “How do you feel about eyeliner?”
“I have no feelings about eyeliner whatsoever,” Matty answered truthfully.
Sascha put his hands on his hips, which kind of made Matty think it had been the wrong answer. “We don’t have to do this, you know. Doll you up.”
“I don’t mind,” Matty told him. After a moment, he shifted in his seat. “But, um, whyarewe doing this? Dolling me up?”
Matty had been coming out of his room with Nightmare in tow when Sascha had basically dragged Matty into his bedroom, declaring they only had a few hours to get ready and needed to get “straight to work.”
Matty had planned to go to the Lighthouse just as he was, so he hadn’t realized there was work to be done in the first place.
Sascha adjusted a few of Matty’s wayward strands. “Because you’ve never really come out with us before, and I thought we could make the night a little fun and not just all doom and gloom. Plus, Seth’s shown me some makeup stuff and I’ve never gotten to practice on anyone else.”
Mattyhadgone out with Sascha and Kai the one time, but in his fearful state, he’d convinced himself he’d seen a familiar face dancing in the crowd, and he’d run right out of the Lighthouse and basically sprinted home, hiding under his covers for the rest of the night.
Apparently Sascha didn’t count that time.
“Oh.” Matty smiled at his friend. “That’s really nice.” He nodded to the pencil Sascha still held. “I’ll try it.”
Sascha bent low and started swiping the pencil along Matty’s lash line. After a few minutes, he leaned back, narrowing his eyes to assess his work. He nodded once, seemingly satisfied, then leaned back to let Matty take a look.
Matty blinked at his reflection in the mirror. His big eyes seemed…even bigger. And maybe a little sultry?
He turned on his stool to face Nightmare, who was sitting silently in the corner, wreathed in shadow. Sascha had sent himwary glances every few seconds in the beginning, but he seemed to have gotten used to the demon’s presence by now.
“What do you think?” Matty asked.
“Pretty,” Nightmare rasped.
Sascha clapped his hands. “So! For clothes. Our styles are…not aligned, you could say.”
That was true enough. Sascha had once told Matty that he was detoxing from all the whites, blacks, and grays he’d been made to wear as a representative of his Mafia family. Now he favored bright colors and—when the weather permitted—as little clothing as possible.
But Matty didn’t mind whites, blacks, and grays. And he didn’t mind being covered head to toe either. He supposed his style could be defined as both cozy and boring.
“But,” Sascha mused, wandering over to his closet, “I do have this black mesh thingy I wore to one of the Lighthouse’s themed parties.” He held up what seemed to be a very small scrap of fabric, one with tons of tiny little holes. “What do you think?”
“Oh.” Matty considered. “Um…”
He looked to Nightmare, who remained expressionless in the corner. Then Matty raised the bottom of his shirt enough that Sascha could see some of the crisscrossed white lines that ran along his skin. “I usually prefer to keep these covered. My chest and my back. Mesh might not work.”
Sascha blinked. He blinked again. Then suddenly his pale-blue eyes were swimming with tears. “Oh, Matty.”
Matty had never heard his name sound so sad.
“It’s okay,” Matty reassured his friend, lowering his shirt back down. “They don’t hurt or anything.”
Sascha wiped at his eyes. Luckily he’d done Matty’s makeup first—if he’d been wearing the same eyeliner, it would have smeared everywhere.
When he’d scrubbed the tears away, Sascha’s face twisted into a surprisingly fierce look. “You know, I was annoyed at the time, having to do Ivan’s dirty work. But I’m glad Kai killed Luca. He should have made it last longer.” He sniffed once, then turned back to his closet. “Okay. So what are you comfortable showing? Do you want long-sleeved?”
