room. But I just thought I should do my part as a friend and offer.”
“Merritt… That’s so sweet.” I gave her a hug. “Now let’s go mingle and play spot-the-rock-star. I don’t see Zane Traynor or Dylan Cope anywhere. I’m kinda scared Zane’s gonna make good on that mask-only threat, but if he does, I don’t wanna miss it.”
“Agreed.”
“And I’m not sure if that’s Matt over there, or just some other really hot dude…”
Merritt looked over that way. “Obviously, further inspection is needed,” she remarked, taking my hand and pulling me off into the crowd.
As it turned out, the hot dude in the black leather pants and burgundy velvet blazer—with no shirt underneath—and the matching burgundy fox mask was Matt.
I made the requisite fox joke—You look foxy tonight. Luckily, he was enough of a gentleman not to return the favor with a pussy joke, despite my outfit practically begging for it. We chatted with him a bit, before we mingled on.
Then we found Dylan. Normally you really couldn’t miss him with his staggering height and the reddish hair, but it was the replica Iron Man costume with a full helmet that really threw it off. He flipped up the visor as we approached to say hi, but it was his girlfriend, Amber, dressed like his Pepper Potts that we recognized first. She wore a straight, strawberry-blond wig and a slim, white suit, buttoned at the breast with no blouse underneath, and a simple white eye mask.
I told them they looked fucking phenomenal, which they did. They returned the compliment. And when I casually asked them what was new, expecting either small talk or drunk talk—this was a party, after all—Amber showed us her left hand.
There was a ring on her ring finger.
“Fuck off,” I gushed. “What!!” I grabbed her hand and Amber laughed.
“Iron Man proposed to me last night. We’re just sort of telling people as we run into them. No biggie.”
“What is that?” I asked her, studying the ring. It had a bunch of little stones in it instead of one large one.
“Natural topaz stones. I asked for them because they’re amber colored,” Amber said. “I didn’t want a traditional diamond and I just think they’re pretty.”
“It’s gorgeous. Congratulations, both of you.” I gave them each a big hug, genuinely excited for them. Thankfully, I’d gotten over feeling too sorry for myself to be happy for other people.
Fuck that noise. Life was too short. And too good, really.
“This shit needs to be celebrated,” Merritt announced, and I totally agreed. We waved down one of the catering staff and plucked a couple of glasses of champagne from her tray, handing one to Amber and one to Dylan, to go with whatever else they were already drinking; now they were double fisting.
“That looks much better,” I said.
“Much,” Merritt concurred.
We toasted, at which point we drew the attention of Katie and Jesse, who wandered over—and took home the motherfucking prize for Most Adorable Couple Costume In The History Of All Couple Costumes. They were dressed to the fucking nines as Cinderella and a badass Prince Charming, and while it wasn’t the most unique costume theme ever, seeing Katie and Jesse Mayes dressed like that made my ovaries contract.
“Can you two please make more babies?” I said in greeting. “Like, get on that shit right now. You’re doing the world a major disservice by not fucking bareback, right the fuck now.” Yeah, I’d gotten a lot closer to Katie in recent months. And her husband. So now I could say that shit when it was on my mind.
She just laughed.
Jesse grinned.
“You look gorgeous, Taylor,” Katie said, giving me a hug. Then she asked me a little more quietly, “Where’s your date?” She gazed at me with knowing, sympathetic eyes.
“She’s right here,” I said, looping my arm through Merritt’s. “Have you met Merritt? She’s been kicking ass and taking names down at Little Black Hole.”
“Of course,” Katie said. “Nice to see you, Merritt. I love your dress…”
And as my friends got chatting around me, I took a fortifying swallow of my rose gold bubbly and looked around.
Where was my date, indeed.
I didn’t mean to keep looking for him like a sad puppy. I just couldn’t help it. Hoping he’d appear, slipping up behind me in his mask and making my night.
No, making my fucking life.
We chatted for a while, our little crowd growing, shifting, faces and outfits changing as people came and went, and then Merritt and I headed back to the bar for