Page 35 of My Cosplay Escape
Hello, Adam.
I stare him down as I strut toward him. I know my costume photographs well, but it also moves well. The shine of the vinyl catches in the dim light with each of my steps and exaggerates the modest curves of my runner’s body. Time for a game of cat and mouse. “Look, I’m flattered, but I don’t need a stalker. Thanks.”
A sea breeze, cool and pensive, catches his cape for a moment. “It doesn’t seem very safe, does it? Back alleys.”
“They’re better than front doors.”
“You could get hurt.”
His words don’t feel like a threat. Then again, they feel dangerous in a very different way. A hit-a-speed-bump kind of way. “You’re the only man I’ve met out here so far, and you don’t scare me. Now…” I turn sharply and start my two-block walk to the gym. “What do you want?”
“Why do you do it?” he asks. And he is really nailing the Nightbat voice. There is an edge—and a whole lot of that yummy sexy growl too.
The marine layer has already rolled in, obscuring the moon, making the streetlamp the only light in the alley.
I stop and stare hard under the yellow halo of the halogen bulb. Adam usually sports scruff, but tonight his chin is shaved clean. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s been this easygoing, chill kinda guy. The confidence is still there, but tonight… Ooh. Tonight, there is something else, something a little frantic in his eyes, something that makes me super aware of my beating heart.
The sea breeze gusts again, and my sweat-soaked body shivers. He wants to know why I do it. Why I’m dressed up like a freak and sneak out the back door. Because let’s face it, there are easier hustles. I saunter closer. “If I tell you, do you promise you’ll walk back inside? You won’t follow me?”
“If you tell me,” he says.
He stands close, but I step closer. Black cat boot to black bat boot. I slide my clawed hands up his arms. I wrap them around his neck and press my lips to the corner of his mouth. I feel his arms wrap around me, confidently, comfortably. He pulls me off the ground, and my boots skid for a moment against the pavement that is perpetually dusted with beach sand. He holds me tighter as I kiss his chin. And then, because of temporary insanity and the fact that he smells yummy, like cardamom or anise, I full-on Catstrike-lick his face. And right when he is ready to open his mouth and come unglued, I let go and walk away. No turning back. I can’t concede an inch of confidence.
I hear the creak of the emergency exit door at Superhero Escapes as it opens and shuts. Well, how about that? Nightbat kept his word. But if I’m being real, Adam has just as much reason for pretending this never happened as I do. The thought makes me feel… sad.
I walk the two blocks to the back of the gym, take out my whip, loop it around the branch of the tree on the yoga patio, and scamper up the block wall. I sit on that wall long enough to make sure no one is watching before I pull off my cowl and my gloves and toss them down. I unlace my boots and unzip my corset and toss them down to the pile below. Black vinyl is certainly a strange getup for yoga, but if you were tired and bleary-eyed, I just might pass as a late-night yogi at the twenty-four-hour gym. At least this is what I tell myself as I collect my effects and dart toward the women’s locker room.
I strip, shove my costume into my bag, don my flip-flops, and jump into my steaming-hot shower. The water skids over me, and I hiss in both pain and embarrassment.
What the fudge kind of answer did I give Nightbat Adam? I dress up as Catstrike so I can duck into dark alleyways for furtive make-out sessions with similarly costumed men where the majority of the kisses involve tongue baths?
My skin turns lobster shades of red. Adam is probably right now disinfecting his face. I grab my face and moan at the idiocy of my life choices.
But wait a hot second. Adam is just as guilty of gut-wrenching embarrassment. He wanted me. He was waiting for me.
I pump the dispenser on the wall until pink soap pools in my hands. I’m out of shampoo, and this will have to do.
Nightbat Adam wanted me. What does that even mean? He wanted the vinyl and claws? Or does he have some sort of fetish over the secret-identity angle? I lather the soap into my hair. I wish the water ran hotter.
Maybe Adam just wanted a no-strings, tonight-only make-out session with the craziest, hottest of hot messes at the party?
He said I was what he was looking for.
Well, not in so many words.
I stare at the water pooling down the drain. An awful thought hits me. Maybe it wasn’t Adam in the bat suit. He can’t say anything even close to what Nightbat said to me while I’m his employee, right? Not if he doesn’t want to be sued. Besides, Adam isn’t the cosplaying type. The nights he’s managing the escape room, he never wears a costume. He sports an ID badge that says Deputy Chief Eden, when he remembers, but wearing a lanyard doesn’t count as cosplay.
But I wouldn’t have kissed Nightbat if I wasn’t sure he was Adam. Oh goldfish. I grab my head and groan as water beats against my back. I didn’t kiss. I licked. What kind of insane person licks another person’s face?
Fudge, I wish this gym had a pool. I towel off, wrestle into my workout clothes, and grab my hoodie. I’ll row for the rest of my life if it means I can live this down.
Chapter Ten
It’s Tuesday night, and I am at Gwen’s place in Bird Rock, telling her everything. Well, almost everything.
Gwen blows her mint-green nails dry. “What I want to know is, is Nightbat a good kisser?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t really give him a chance.” I pick through Gwen’s collection of nail polish and settle on an elegant light pink. “He was certainly a willing kisser.” I wince. I can’t bring myself to tell Gwen about the feline nature of my Nightbat encounter. “I walked away before it escalated.”
