from his ex. It looks like you’re not as good at picking blossoms, or in your case bosoms as you thought.” She leans in tight with a vengeance. “You know what they say. You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose. But you can’t pick your friend’s nose. So get your finger out of mine!” Serena stalks off, and I’m left speechless.
I take a seat at the bar as if I were just beat down with a stick, and I think I was.
What the hell just happened? My ex blinks through my mind like a demon, and I blink her right back out. There’s no way I’m letting Carmella in tonight. Carm was all thorns, no flower. No wonder I’ve steered clear of the opposite sex as of late. But I think it’s time to get back in the game. That girl at the club blinks though my mind. Those long lashes, that pouty mouth, and something inside of me stirs to have her.
Maybe I will head back out that way.
Who knows? I might even get lucky.
Friday night arrives and I decide to do it. I shower, shave, put something decent on, and head to the sleaziest part of downtown Jepson looking for my Mrs. Right. A dark laugh brews in my chest. I seriously doubt she’s anyone’s Mrs. Right. Floating around Anonymous certainly doesn’t look too favorably as far as a matrimonial prospect is concerned. I try to picture it for a moment. The two of us falling in love. The two of us actually determined to tie the knot. How did you meet will be the question we’d have to invent an answer to. But I’m sure it will never get to that. In fact, I’m sure it will more or less end on a rather anonymous note just the way it began. That is, if she’s here at all.
Anonymous is pumping with a swell of bodies, each one cleverly disguised, most of them thoroughly intoxicated. The women are all cloaked in flamboyant eye masks that cover half their face, and the men are walking around with the same black hood as if we were about to lead them to the sexual guillotine.
The last time I was here it was a pretty peacock of a girl who caught my eye, and the thought occurs to me that I might be screwed because she might have switched up her costume. Crap. I wander off to the bar and pick up a drink, a near-beer in the event I let the liquor be my guide. No way. Not tonight. Not at this ball-buster of a place. I need to stay safe and sane and remain on high alert lest I end up tied up to some woman’s bedframe by the end of the night.
A healthy chuckle comes from me as I take a sip of my beer. The sound of the rap music blaring from the speakers is so loud my entire body vibrates to the rhythm as if it were an external heartbeat.
And then I spot her. A girl with a peacock feathered mask laughs as some dude dives his mouth over her ear. She lifts a knee and slaps it hard before staggering at the hilarity of his words, and my heart sinks. There. It wasn’t anything special between us after all. Just some momentary chemistry I was caught up in. That’s all. Show’s over. I can take off the mask and head on out. Nothing left to see here.
I turn abruptly, ready to land my beer back onto the bar, and a soft body bumps right into me. Bright eyes, wild long hair, bowtie lips twisted in a devious smile—that infamous feathered mask. The peacock princess has arrived after all. My adrenaline surges as she bites down on that sugared lip I’m determined to taste myself.
The music hikes up another ten decibels, which makes having a conversation an impossibility, but something about the way she’s smiling, gliding her body over mine in a rhythm all her own, lets me know a conversation of any kind won’t be necessary. There’s a girl in a pink feathered mask behind her, and she taps the peacock princess over the shoulder as she and a hooded man of her own head down the red hall of fame. The peacock princess takes up my hand and gives a firm squeeze, nodding down the hall before leading us right to the Panic Room.
And so it begins. It’s dark, but there’s