I gave her a look in the mirror.
“I’m just saying that you’re loyal and your heart is huge, which is why it’s always getting bruised. Assholes are always bumping into it.”
I chuckled while Z brushed my hair. “Last week, you two were practically shoving me into Levi’s lap, and now you don’t want me to see him?”
“That’s because we thought it’d be a one-time thing,” Z explained as we were swallowed up by a cloud of hair spray. “And anyway, we don’t care if you see him. Just don’t fall in love until you’re sure he’s not a scumbag. ’Kay?”
“You act like I fall in love every Wednesday.”
Z backcombed my hair with what I could only describe as aggression. “No, it’s that when it comes to you, what you see is what you get. You don’t count on the other eighty-nine percent of people who only show you what they want you to see.”
“We’re just saying to watch out, that’s all.” Betty stood, cupping my shoulder and meeting my eyes in the mirror. “If you don’t, we’re afraid you’ll keep getting hurt.”
“Honestly, I don’t want to fall in love. I just want to be happy, enjoy the company of someone without complications, and I think Levi might be that guy. I mean, assuming he shows up tonight.”
But Z smirked. “If he doesn’t, he’s the dumbest motherfucker breathing air.”
“Amen,” Betty said with a praise hand in the air.
And with my heart afloat, I put all my faith behind that happy thought.
7
Cirque du Freak
STELLA
Music bumped so loudly, the air in my lungs reverberated as it passed through me.
The circus tent was huge inside the warehouse, gathered to the point in the top in a convergence of broad red and white stripes.
I’d wanted an exhibition, and I’d gotten one.
Strings of bulbs followed the upward curve of the tent and ran around the circumference, illuminating the scene with quiet golden light. From nearly invisible framework hung trapeze bars and tightropes, hoops and ropes for aerial dancers, strewn among sparkling stars and white crescent moons. The performers—secured via off-season Cirque du Soleil staff—rotated their talents, swinging and flying and dancing forty feet above the crowd, which was a sea of top hats and fascinators and velvet and black and white stripes. A spinning wheel stood where one could have knives thrown at them, if they were so inclined, and the crowd was interrupted by swirls of motion around performers, everything from stilt walkers to hoop dancers to fire-breathing jugglers. A fortune teller’s tent stood in deep purple and gold and mystery near the back, and I made a plan to find out what was inside. I salivated at the scent of roasted peanuts and popcorn hanging in the air, and in the center of the tent, in the black-and-white checkered ring, was the bouncing dance floor.
It was happiness and hedonism, an escape into another world, another time. One where things were uncomplicated, simple. If only for tonight, we would all live in a moment we’d never get again.
I glanced at the entrance again to the jump of my heart, making excuses. Checking for a glimpse of Genie to give me a sense of how things were going behind the scenes. Or scanning for Dex, my nerves unready to see him for the first time since our split. He’d stayed away out of deference, I supposed, but I’d heard a rumor he would be here tonight and felt unprepared. Who knew if I’d ever feel prepared.
But the truth was, they were all excuses, nothing more. Because I was looking for Levi, no bones about it.
When I forced myself to tear my eyes away from the entrance, I wondered how I’d been so thoroughly distracted by Levi that I barely thought about Dex until today. I didn’t even know Levi, didn’t know his last name, hadn’t exchanged more than a few minutes of conversation with him. But then I remembered That Kiss, and everything made sense again.
The anticipation of seeing him had been almost unbearable, my thoughts consumed with imaginings of him showing up, musings over what would happen if he did. I’d maintained my cool and refrained from texting Ash, but now that I was here—and had been here for well over an hour—my confidence waned with every minute that passed. Ash had probably turned him down in favor of Lily James. Or Levi wasn’t interested and hadn’t even considered coming.
“If you stare at that door any longer, you’re going to set it on fire.” Z handed me a whiskey and smirked.
I should have heard her coming with all the jingling chains and coins she wore in her headdress, circling her hips, and draped from the bra top she wore. Her arms were cuffed in gold, wrists and biceps, and her skirt flowed brilliantly, topped off by a tasseled sash and leather belt trimmed with—you guessed it—more jingly metal. Her snake draped around her neck and arms and watched me with what I was convinced was menace.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I answered lightly.
“You should go see the fortune teller. She can look into her crystal ball and tell you if you’re going to get laid tonight.”
“How’d you know she has a crystal ball?”
“What self-respecting fortune teller doesn’t?”
I gave her a look.
She rolled her eyes, her insane black lashes brushing her carefully manicured eyebrows. “Obviously I went there first. You’re not the only one who wants to know if they’re getting laid tonight.”
“Who said I’m hoping to get laid?”
“That look on your face.”
That face flattened.
She looked me over. “I can’t believe you went with ringmaster. Little on the nose, don’t you think?”
I looked down at my costume—black vest with nothing beneath, red velvet coat with tails, bustled black hi-low petticoat, fishnets, black T-strap shoes. With a glance back at the crowd, I spotted a dozen more ringmasters in shouting distance.
“Take a look around, Z. I’m unoriginal tonight.”
“Well, you’re the hottest one, indisputably.”
Betty bounded up the steps to the platform where we stood, one of many placed around the room—a perch from which to admire my work. She was dressed as the sexiest, least creepy clown I’d ever seen—black-and-white harlequin corset, black bloomers trimmed with stripes, her hair teased into a coiffure that was going to take her three days to untangle, her tiny top hat nestled in her black locks. Her face was painted with starburst eyes and bowed lips that stretched into a smile.
“Ash just got here,” she said, a little out of breath. She stole a sip of Z’s drink.
And my heart and stomach swapped places when I looked to the door.
Levi was scanning the crowd, his profile cut against red velvet. His costume was mellow, which I’d somehow expected, not pegging him for one to go over the top, particularly not for a costume party. He wore a black vest and pants, his white tailored shirt cuffed to the elbows and unbuttoned at the neck—basically what he’d worn last week. Tucked under his arm were three bowling pins.
A laugh shot out of me, my hand moving to my lips as if to erase it. And though he was too far away to have heard me, he paused, turned his face toward me, and looked me dead in the eye.