Maybe I’m just being paranoid or maybe this is what Jayla means when she says I’m afraid to take risks. Worse comes to worst, I could probably stab him with these shoes—which are killing my feet, by the way—plus there’s pepper spray in my clutch. Mom doesn’t let me leave home without it.
“One sec,” I say, holding up a finger. I pull out my phone and fire off a text to Jayla, letting her know I left and who I’m with, and reminding her that his sister is running the merch table.
She writes back almost immediately: OK, check in when you get where you’re going so I know.
“Ready?” I ask, sliding my phone back in my purse, and he nods, pushing off the wall he was leaning against, the one covered with a giant ad for The Geekery. I fight the urge to flip it off but can’t manage to hold back the scowl.
“Everything okay?” Bats asks, following my gaze.
“Yeah, sorry, I know that’s your boss or whatever. Gotta love our corporate overlords, right?” That’s about as polite as I can be about our enemy number one.
It was bad enough when The Geekery was just famous for running indie shops out of business, but now that they’re actively trying to take over comic lines like Vera’s too—just, yikes. I didn’t even know it was possible to hate something so much.
Plus, Vera and The Geekery’s owner-slash-CEO, Mark Everlasting—by the way, could his name be any more pretentious?—have been trading barbs every chance they get since they paneled together a few cons ago. The moderator made some comment about them repping both sides of the industry and asked if they would ever collaborate. Mark said he would definitely be open to bringing her on board, and she responded by literally laughing in his face . . . which he deserved. I mean, if Vera is the Princess Leia of the comics scene, then he’s Palpatine for sure. But yeah, her reaction went a little bit viral, and now their mutual dislike has ramped up to a full-on war.
“Come on,” Bats says, pulling me away from the sign and leading me down the hallway.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ridley
THE LOUNGE AREA is nice and empty, which is good considering we’re a peacock and apparently a middle-management bat. I found this place the other night when I was stress-pacing around the hotel and have been sporadically hiding out here ever since. Other than hotel employees or a few random stragglers, no one ever comes in.
I drop down into an oversized red velvet chair, and she sinks into the one beside me, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet up underneath her. She’s sort of half sitting on her knees thanks to the tightness of her dress, and I try not to stare at the way the slit on her thigh creeps up a little higher than it’s meant to. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to be a creeper.
dontstaredontstaredontstaredont
My hands are all sweaty, which is the only reason I let go of hers in the first place, and I rub them on my jeans, trying to be discreet. I’m trying to be as casual and seem the least freaked out as possible, but.
“Are you going to take that off?” She flicks my mask, dragging my attention back to her face.
“I don’t think so?” I say. I don’t mean it as a question, and yet. She kind of makes a face, and a fresh round of self-consciousness washes over me. “I can, if you need me to.”
“I don’t know if I need you to—”
“Okay, great,” I say, and she makes another kind-of-confused face that makes me feel like I missed something. And I probably have. I miss a lot when my head is spinning out with nerves like this.
“Are you ever going to answer me, though?”
I scrunch up my face; didn’t I just?
“How’d you end up at the prom if you hate crowds so much?”
Oh. That. I shrug. I could tell her the truth, that it’s my father’s event and my deep-seated insecurity about my place in my family has left me desperate for approval and validation that never comes, but that seems too heavy to drop on someone whose only real conversation with me so far has been when I said “Nice balloon” and she said “What?”
Time to deflect.
“Why’d you leave if you love it so much?” I don’t mean to be blunt, but I also really want to know.
“I wanted to talk to you more,” she says like it’s no big deal. Like she didn’t just dump a shit ton of dopamine right into my brain, making it hard to think.
“Same,” I lie, or half lie, really, because it seems like the right thing to say, but also because in this moment I can almost believe it’s that simple.
dontfuckthisupdontfuckthisup
I shake my head a little, and she leans forward to catch my eye.
“Are you okay?”
My leg is bouncing again, the urge to run nearly overwhelming, but this is fine, I’m fine, I got this. But man, it would be nice if my bullshit could come off a little more low-key.
“Yeah,” I say, but my voice sounds strange. She sets her hand on my knee, and I jerk it away, not because I want to, but because I have to. “I just get—I don’t know. Sorry.” I feel my cheeks heat furiously and pray my mask is hiding it.
“Hey,” she says, and I snap my eyes to hers. I should have just gone to my room. I should have never tried to pull this off. I— “Did you know that peacocks are omnivores?” she asks, and that shuts my brain up real quick.
“Huh?”
“They’re omnivores. Most people think they just eat seeds and vegetables and stuff, but they eat bugs and frogs and anything they can catch, really. And they roost in trees so that tigers don’t get them while they sleep.”
“Okay?” I sort of say-ask, narrowing my eyes.
“Did you also know that bats have belly buttons?”
“What are you talking about?” And it’s possible I found the one person on this earth who’s even weirder than I am, because what?
“They do; they have belly buttons because they’re mammals, not birds. In fact, not only that, but they’re the only mammals capable of powered flight. Pretty wild, eh?”
“They have belly buttons?” I ask, tilting my head. I have no idea what’s happening right now, but the idea of bats flying around with little bat belly buttons is somehow both cute and disturbing.
“Yep,” she says, and the smile is back, that goddamn smile. And that’s when I realize my leg has stopped bouncing and I can breathe again. This weird-ass girl and her random facts just talked me down from the mother of all panic attacks. That’s . . . new.
I take a long breath and catch her eye again. “Thanks,” I mumble. “Like, a lot.”