Page 5 of Turnabout Is Fair Cosplay
Portia dons her sunglasses. “Every good show needs a character actor.”
“And a villain,” Julie says. “Doesn’t Adam have a Badpun?”
If I start blushing, my sisters will never let me live it down. “Yeah.” I guzzle my ginger ale.
“Which one is Badpun?” Portia demands. “I can never keep them straight.”
“He’s Nightbat’s archnemesis,” Julie says. “A very sinister yet strangely sexy mobster clown.”
Portia gives her a look.
Julie shrugs. “I’m a boy mom. I know these things now.”
“So Adam’s Badpun is going to be the sexiest eye candy here?” Portia lowers her sunglasses.
“The moststrangely sexy,” I correct. It’d be suspicious if I said nothing.
“Where is he?”
Now it’s my turn to shrug, even though I know for a fact that Badpun is not here. I know because I’ve been looking. Still, I crane my neck and make a show of scanning the party. “I don’t see him.”
“Adam.” Portia flags down our brother. “We want to meet your villains!”
“Come to my escape room tonight, and you can meet them all.” He grabs Portia’s drink and sniffs it before making a face. “Onsecond thought, maybe you should lie low tonight. Remind me never to let Drew fix me a drink.”
“First, I’m not drunk. Second, it’s not my fault you’re a lightweight. Besides, I’m celebrating.”
“Oh really?” His phone buzzes, and my brother excuses himself.
“Hey, no phones at the table!” Portia yells.
Adam waves her off before answering the call in his I’m-all-grown-up voice. “Adam West McKinney.” And then his face splits into the dopiest grin I’ve ever seen. “Catstrike?”
Adam doesn’t have a Catstrike cosplayer—his standards are impossible when it comes to this character. Trust the sister who took him to every Catstrike movie growing up under the pretense thatIwanted to see it when, in fact, Adam begged me to take him. He’s obsessed.
“Adam!” Portia yells. “Go get him. Bring him back.”
Julie rises.
“Not you,” Portia says, yanking Julie back down. “Bea. Go. Bring him back. I need to tell all of you I just made partner.”
Julie shrieks before Portia shushes her and waves me on.
I follow Adam into the house.
“May I call you Sabine?” I hear him say. I weave in and out of my parents’ guests and follow Adam up the stairs, tiptoeing past the nursery and lactation suite.
Adam wanders into my parents’ study, and I’m pressed to the wall, trying to eavesdrop, when I notice the door to my room is ajar—and a man I’d recognize anywhere is sitting on my bed, reading my copy ofAnna Karenina.
I push my bedroom door wide open. “Mike Benedick.”
Mike snaps the book closed. Color flushes his cheeks. He’s in my room on my bed, and I could just as easily turn red because this has been one of my fantasies for months now. But I’m going to keep that detail to myself, even if my knees feel genuinelyweak. I brace my hand against my doorjamb. It’s a power stance, but also the support I need until my knees start behaving.
“Bea McKinney.” He says my name like I’m a ghost, some unbelievable apparition who has the power to haunt him for the rest of his days, and I almost wobble.
“What are you doing?” For a heartbeat, I think I read panic in his honey eyes. I’m bracing for a stammered apology, followed by a hasty retreat.
Instead, Mike’s full lips press into a smirk. “I got lost.” He crooks a hand behind his head and leans back against my pillows. His bicep bulges as he does so, and my knees will give out if I keep staring. “It’s such a big house.”
