Dark Wild Night

I put the last roll of tape away and almost swallow my tongue when I stand and finally see the rest of her. Lola wearing leather pants should be illegal. Couple that with shoes I would happily die impaled on and a top that hints at everything underneath but shows nothing? I have zero chance of not making a fool of myself in one way or another tonight.

“You look amazing,” I tell her, and without thinking, walk around the counter, lean in, and press a kiss to her cheek.

She doesn’t react as if what I’ve done is out of the ordinary, just smiles and says a quiet, “Thank you.”

Her eyes slide to where my wallet and keys rest on the counter, but I’m not done taking her in yet. Her hair is up in a high ponytail, sleek and black. Her bangs cut straight across her forehead, and her makeup isn’t heavy, but I can tell she’s wearing it. Soft black lines her eyes, pink flushes her cheeks, and her lips are an unholy, nearly sinful red.

“Oliver?”

My words come out sort of shaky: “You look really pretty.”

This time she laughs. “Thanks,” she says, adding, “again. London helped. I swear giving the two of us makeup is like giving a monkey a hammer.”

When I step away to grab my things, she makes a show of slowly looking me up and down. I follow her eyes as they linger on what I’m wearing: slim trousers, simple, dark button-down shirt. I even polished my boots for this woman.

“Damn,” she says. There’s appreciation in her voice and I realize that we’ve always done this—flirted, dropped subtle innuendo—but it’s never felt this loaded before.

“I’m glad you approve,” I say. “I’m parked around the corner.”

She follows me out, saying goodbye to Joe. And then she takes my arm and smiles up at me. “I definitely approve.”

Yep. I am fucked.



* * *




I’VE ALWAYS KNOWN Lola to grow quiet when she’s thinking about something that’s troubling her. I assumed that the reason she doesn’t tend to talk out her problems the way Harlow and even Ansel do is that she wants to take the time to sort through it on her own first. But when she brings up the conversation with Austin in the car, and wants me to list some of the pros of his ideas, I lock up, wondering whether the reason she likes to take so long before talking about things is that she doesn’t always trust her own judgment.

“I’m not sure I could argue the merits of either suggestion,” I hedge, merging onto the 5 North freeway.

“Just for the exercise,” she says. “Why might it be better for Razor to be from another planet?”

I sit quietly, thinking on the question. But my mind reflexively fights it; they’re both shit ideas. Quinn shouldn’t be made into a sexual creature. Razor isn’t an alien. There’s no reason to change it.

The tires trip easily over the road and Lola stares out her window while she also thinks about it. It’s these easy moments where I seem to plummet deeper in love with her.

“I guess it could allow them to do something cooler visually?” she muses after a few minutes of silence. “Some more creative way to flash back to his life before without just a panel shift.”

Shrugging, I say, “I guess, but Razor’s alternate time in the book is just as visually different in flashbacks as another planet would be. I mean, the way you do it is unique, but time shifts are done elsewhere, too. The Multiversity collapses all parallel timelines into the Hypertime.”

“I know, but maybe that argues Austin’s case. Multiversity collapses all of the DC timelines to explain how they all could exist. Maybe the idea of parallel time is easier to grasp there because people want a way to reconcile all the various takes on the same characters.”

“I think yours is simpler,” I say, adding, “more elegant, I mean. It starts with the idea of a parallel time loop. It doesn’t use it to explain things in hindsight.”

She hums, nodding at this. “I guess I’ll just need to hear what they say. It’s so easy to do something when it’s just me and a book and my ideas. It’s different when I expose it all to this larger collective consciousness.”