“Well…” drawled Erik as he came into view. He had his open—and unpaid for—bag of chips in one hand. In his other was an ugly brown M&M costume that was three sizes too big in the other. “You could always go as this.”
CHAPTER 9
“I hate them both,” I complained a few hours later. I was talking to myself, but it didn’t matter. The thought of slapping both my brother and his harebrained friend was awfully tempting. I now felt stupid and overdressed considering I did not go with the oversized candy costume. Given there were no other options, I chose to go with Simon’s plan. My homecoming dress had been a sleeveless, knee-length red dress with a sweetheart neckline. Sky-high red pumps completed the look. Overall, I looked good. It was a very pretty ensemble but probably way too much for the occasion. I felt it was far too revealing for my liking. I had only bought it for homecoming senior year of high school because I had a boyfriend I had wanted to impress. That relationship unfortunately ended two days before the dance, so the dress had been sitting in my closet ever since. It had moved with me when I moved out of my parents’ houses and into college before back home again, but it was never worn.
It didn’t fit any differently than it did when I was in high school, but I still felt the need to cross my arms so my cape covered my sweetheart neckline. I was never one to think I looked attractive in any way, shape, or form, but I wasn’t bad looking tonight. If it weren’t for Darren, I wouldn’t even be going. I would have made an overabundance of excuses in order to avoid the nonsense that was Simon’s logic. Touch Matt with silver, he insisted. Not only was there no absolute solid guarantee Matt was a werewolf, but I wasn’t too sure all my mother’s rings were silver anyhow.
Getting into The Marina was easy. At the door, the bouncer required my name on a checklist for me to prove I was an employee. When I entered the building, the world turned darker. Neon strobe lights filtered the area and danced around the dimly lit club. Decorations consisted of blues, greens, and corals to represent the ocean and coral reefs. Cheesy colorful shark and fish decorations hung from different panels of the ceiling. The fish theme correlated with Halloween themes. Orange and black streamers and balloons decorated parts of the club as paper witch, mummy, and to my dismay, werewolf decorations floated above the crowd on strings strung from the ceiling. I mused that the club seemed unsure what decorations to commit to. Everything was either ocean themed for adults or sea creatures that looked elementary school themed. The Halloween declarations were just overkill for the already too decorated club. But no one seemed to notice the decorations. Everyone’s attention was absorbed in the party and who was there. It was a roaring event for employees. The lights were going crazy flickering bright before dimming. The DJ blared popular music from the large speakers next to his table. The club was half the size of a football field and completely packed with people. There was an upper deck that one could get to via two separate staircases across the room from each other. Upstairs, there were rooms or large sea-themed benches to sit at. I walked around the building to see if I recognized anyone. I saw cooks from the kitchen, some servers, and mainly people who worked at the front desk. Two of the cooks I now knew named Tom and Nick either smiled at me or gave a friendly wave. It made me relax a bit. Even spotting Brian the friendly maintenance man calmed me. Seeing familiar characters from the hotel made me feel not so alone.
Randomly, I found a woman was glaring at me. I ducked my head and retreated to the bar as I recognized the person as my old supervisor. Laurel Reed wasn’t a friendly person. Leaving her department made the already tense relationship between us even more awkward. She was still glaring at me, but I carefully avoided eye contact. Laurel wasn’t a pretty girl to begin with. Her lips were paper thin and her eyes were spaced far apart. She had bushy brows constantly furrowed while her lips were always tightly pursed. She constantly looked to be sucking on a lemon, which made her facial expression even stranger. I knew that was what Laurel currently looked like without bothering to look back at her. She had worn that sourpuss look one too many times when I had worked with her and Jonna.
Next, I saw banquet servers and people from housekeeping. The overly bubbly but fake bar manager named Carrie smiled and waved as she walked past me.
“You look amazing,” breathed a nearby stranger as I approached the bar. I winced as I saw who made the comment. I couldn’t quite recall the man’s name, but I liked to avoid him as much as I could. Granted, he wasn’t wrong; I did look nicer than I usually did. My dark hair was styled to perfection, curling at the napes and kept in place with hairspray and styling gel. I wore black eyeliner and eyeshadow to enhance my green eyes while red lipliner and lipstick enhanced my lips. I wasn’t fond of how much cleavage was shown, but I knew I looked pretty cute. Still, I didn’t care to have the middle-aged maintenance man from the hotel comment on my looks or stare at my chest.
“Thank you,” I replied quietly. The bartender took my order of a ginger ale. The guy got distracted by someone across the bar shouting his own order. By the time the bartender came back with my ginger ale, I was surprised the maintenance guy was still by me. I was still working on remembering names of people from neighboring departments, but I believed his name was Marlon.
“And how are you today?” Marlon was still staring at my chest as if he expected the answer to come from there.
“Fine,” I said curtly. The man was so close I could smell the beer on him. The party had commenced an hour before. I had been late. I spent close to an hour and a half wallowing in self-pity about my costume and waiting for Darren to text me when he was coming. Marlon had obviously been on time to have consumed a great amount of alcohol. Then again, the only other times I had seen him around the resort he had smelled of beer as well.
“Aren’t ya gonna ask how I am?” I almost winced. I couldn’t honestly care less about how the man was. I only silently hoped he walked away. Before there was a moment to answer, Marlon was prattling off again. He had noticed my nonalcoholic drink. “That’s not a good drink for a party. You should have a beer,” he said, motioning for the bartender to return.
“No thank you—”
“I insist!”
Before I could object, Marlon placed a hand on the small of my back to bring me closer to him. I cringed from the sudden closeness, but I had nothing to worry about. A new arrival swiftly intervened to separate the contact. Matt was there, arriving out of nowhere. One of his hands gently pushed my shoulder away from Marlon while his other hand was on the burly man’s shoulder. He tightened his hand on Marlon, his expression unreadable.
“I believe she said no thank you,” said Matt briskly, his hand tightening once more. Marlon was barely two inches shorter than Matt, but he was a lot broader in the chest. If it came down to a fight, it was debatable as to who would win. Marlon had body weight advantage. But it was strange what happened next. Matt didn’t do anything other than provide a blanketed stare and squeeze of his shoulder. But it was still enough to strike instant fear in Marlon. He gave a curt nod and a muttered apology my way before hurrying off. An awkward silence soon ensued that I didn’t know how to break. It took me looking at Matt’s pale hand still on my shoulder before he removed it. “You’re better off staying away from men like him while looking like that,” said Matt without looking at me. I blinked away, confused. Did he think I looked bad? Slutty?