Page 16 of Moonlit Nights & Northern Lights
“I’m driving!” I shouted back, but he was already weaving through the crowd, that messy blond hair bouncing as he practically skipped away.
I slumped back in my seat.Fucking hell.A night at Undertone with Rory Thorne. I’d rather face a pack of feral wolves.
…can’t wait to see you in your clubbing clothes, Detective Dickface…
His final thought drifted back to me, clear as a bell despite the distance. I groaned, reaching for the emergency cigarettes in my glove compartment.
Clearly, this was going to be a cigarette kind of day.
3
Rory
The pile of discarded clothes around my feet grew higher as I dug through my wardrobe. A sequined crop top sailed across the room, followed by three pairs of ripped jeans and my favourite mesh shirt.
I’d started this process forty-five minutes ago with a simple goal: find something professional.
Now I had three distinct piles: the “definitely not” mountain by the window that included the glittery monstrosity I’d worn to Pride, the “maybe if I was desperate” heap by my dresser, and the “actually quite promising but missing something crucial” collection on my bed. The black shirts had been circling between piles two and three for the last twenty minutes while I spiralled about whether “professional investigator” meant “boring” or “competent but approachable.”
A soft knock preceded Kit’s massive frame filling my doorway. “What died in here?”
“My fashion sense, apparently.” I held up two nearly identical black T-shirts. The left one was cotton—safe, boring. The right one had just enough texture to suggest I actually gave a shit about how I looked. “Which one says ‘I’m a professional investigator who definitely knows what he’s doing?’”
“Neither.” Kit’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to go to Undertone with Maxwell?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” I shot daggers at him whilst internally cataloguing whether I could get away with the burgundy shirt if I found my black blazer, except the blazer was somewhere in the laundry piledownstairs and I’d definitely need the specific silver chain that would balance the whole look, but that chain was tangled with three others and— “We’re interviewing potential witnesses slash leads. Being professional. Following proper procedure. All that boring stuff he loves so much.”
“Uh-huh.” Kit leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. His cardigan stretched tight across his shoulders—the soft grey one he pretended wasn’t his favourite. “And the outfit crisis is because…?”
“Because I want to look competent, okay?” I threw both shirts onto the reject pile, immediately regretting it because now I’d have to start over completely and maybe the left one wasn’t that boring after all. “And also hot. Because it’s a nightclub.”
My phone screen caught my eye: 7:15.
Fuck.When had that happened? I’d been debating those two black shirts since quarter to seven, which meant I’d lost thirty minutes to a clothing paralysis spiral while Maxwell was probably already checking his watch and composing mental lectures about punctuality.
“Rory—”
“I know, I know. And I’d feel better if you came with us.” I yanked the burgundy button-down from its hanger—sod the blazer, sod the chain, this would have to work. “But Seb’s got you in Brixton tonight, right?”
“Yeah. Watching Marcus Vale’s clan.” Kit’s expression softened. “I’d come if I could.”
“I’ll be fine.” I shrugged into the shirt, checking my reflection. Actually, the burgundy worked—made my eyes pop, suggested confidence without trying too hard. “Maxwell might be a dick, but he’s a sensible, reliable dick. And I can handle myself.”
“That’s what worries me.”
“Oh, shut up. I promise not to start any bar fights or accidentally set anything on fire.”
Kit’s deep chuckle echoed down the hallway as his heavy footsteps faded away.
Wait. The burgundy was too formal, wasn’t it? Made me look like I was trying to impress him, which I absolutely wasn’t, except maybe I was a little bit, but not in that way, just professionally, but—
“Fuck it.” I yanked the mesh shirt back off the floor, paired it with my tightest black jeans and threw the burgundy over it as an overshirt. Layers. Versatile. I could ditch the overshirt if the club was too warm, keep it if Maxwell’s disapproving stare got too frosty.
My phone blazed again: 7:18. Shit. Maxwell lived thirty minutes away, and I refused to give him another excuse to be a condescending prick about my timekeeping.
I hastily swiped eyeliner across my lids before bolting for the door. My fingers flew across the phone screen as I half jogged to my car.
Are you sure you and Emma don’t want to come to Undertone for your date night tonight?
