Page 89 of Turnabout Is Fair Cosplay
Miraculously, I manage to lose Mike after my third trip around La Jolla High School. It must have been the back alley that I took.
It’s only when I turn onto Neptune that I realize what a colossal idiot I am. I can’t go home. Mike lives there.
What the freak am I supposed to do now? Park on the street and sneak into my cottage like a thief? Spend the night camped in my sports car? Drive up to Del Mar and crash at my parents’ house?
I can see it now.
Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. Yeah, I’m sleeping here tonight because my landlord, whom I fell hard for in the margins of Shakespeare’s sonnets but cannot abide in real life, kissed another woman.
Yes, I am scantily dressed like a supervillain. What of it?
No, we are not dating.
No, he doesn’t know how I feel.
No, telling him would only make me hate him more than I already do.
Which is a lot right now.
What does red-haired Catstrike have that I don’t?
Never mind, I don’t want to compare body types or personalities. But my brain is already doing it and landing on the wordperkyover and over.
I groan and kill my lights before I open the garage and pull in.
Mike is standing there, arms folded across his rumpled white shirt and suspenders. Leaning against the motorcycle. His dark hair is windblown. His jaw is set in a hard line, a scowl really, that makes him look sinister.
He opens my car door before I can. “She kissed me.”
“You kissed back.”
“That doesn’t make me a villain.”
I find that statement incredibly ironic considering how Mike is still in resplendent Badpun cosplay. Guess someone was too excited to even stop and wash his face. “You flirted with her the entire night.”
“I’m glad you noticed,” he says dryly. “Did you see when she ran out?”
“What?”
“Right before you did. She ran. You ran.”
“So?”
“So I borrowed Vlad’s bike and…”
“And what?” I demand.
His exquisite brows draw up before they furrow together. “Never mind. Forget it.” He leaves the garage.
I follow. “Tell me what you were going to say, Mike.” I catch his wrist when we get to the top of the stairs. The Pacific is peacefully crashing, and the surf is high tonight. We have to shout to be heard above the waves.
Mike rounds and takes a step closer to me. “And I chased you.”
“And you’re going to tell me now that you flirted with Catstrike—”
“Gwen.”
Don’t tell me her name! “—to make me jealous?”
