Marcela got an invite last year and I actually went to this party dressed as a slutty mermaid, and it was pretty amazing. They turn the place into a haunted house—complete with spiked punch with fake eyeballs and rubber spiders frozen in ice cubes—and only “real” costumes are allowed to enter, no writing “book” on your forehead and trying to convince people you’re Facebook.
“Oh, thanks,” I say, trying to hide my interest the way a junkie, three days clean, might pretend she’s not craving meth. “But I have to work that night.” That’s not true at all; Beans closes early on Halloween to prevent drunk college kids from coming in and wreaking havoc, which has happened in the past. Costumes make people daring; I should know. After my sorta-boyfriend and I broke up last year, the Halloween party was where I had my first one night stand with a guy dressed as a plastic army man. I had green paint in too many crevices to count for a full week afterward. Lesson learned.
Sort of.
“Call in sick,” Crosbie suggests, and for a moment, it feels like the whole room falls silent, the simple suggestion hanging in the air like a challenge.
One of the guys pipes up before I can respond. “He’ll make it worth your while,” he adds, jerking a thumb in Crosbie’s direction. “Last year he went as an underwear model.”
Because he’s an obnoxious attention whore, I’d noticed Crosbie last year but immediately dismissed him. Now that it’s pointed out, however, I recall him wearing a pair of Calvin Klein underwear and strutting around, drunkenly shouting, “Where are you now, Mark Wahlberg? Huh?”
I smile as I recall it. “What about this year?” I ask him.
“I’m going as Clark Kent,” Kellan interrupts. “Crosbie’s going to be Superman.” He grins at me, his eyes lighting up. “You should be Lois Lane!”
The room explodes in approving cheers and applause, and I laugh dryly. A woman torn between two men? Not part of the “better Nora” agenda. “We’ll see,” I say, though we most definitely will not be seeing this.
“She’s in!” someone cries.
I wave and head down the stairs. “I have to go.”
Kellan leans over the rail to watch me put on my coat. “You look hot,” he says, nodding at my dress. “Big date?”
“Something like that,” I tell him. At the last second I spot Crosbie behind Kellan, listening.
“Have fun,” Crosbie says, holding my stare just a little too long.
chapter nine
Nothing about enduring a forty-five minute sex talk—with Dean Ripley’s ninety-year-old secretary called in to “witness” the lecture—is fun. I stop reliving that horror, however, the moment I hurry into Beans for my evening shift and feel like I’ve walked right into a freezer.
I toss my coat into the storage closet and pull on an apron over my prim blue dress, but the second I step foot behind the counter I can almost see my breath fog in the air. “What the…?” I look around, perplexed. It doesn’t take long to find the source: the shop’s large front window is missing, several sheets of wood resting against the wall. Despite the damage and the cold, the business is still open, patrons sitting at tables with jackets on, steaming cups in hand. When people want coffee, they want coffee.
“What’s going on?” I exclaim when Nate hustles through the front door, coat zipped to his chin, wool hat tugged low over his ears.
“Freak accident. They had a couple of guys working on the power lines out front when one of their ladders fell over and smashed through the window.”
“Was anybody hurt?”
“Nope. It was just Marcela and I at the time, and we were both in the back.”
“That’s lucky.”
“Yeah.” But his face is grim and his jaw is set, and Nate’s just not a guy who really looks angry a lot. It’s worrisome.
“Isn’t it?” I try. “I mean, despite the damage.”
He sighs. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine.”
“Where’s Marcela?”
“I sent her to the hardware store to pick up a couple of space heaters.”
I glance around. The ladder’s gone and the glass has already been swept up. “How long ago did this happen?”
“Almost two hours.”
“And she’s still gone?”
A curt nod.
“Did you look for her?”
“I don’t need to look for her.”
I frown. “Are you sure? The hardware store is three blocks down. I know Marcela likes to shop, but two hours is a lot, even for her.”
Nate sighs and runs a hand over his head, knocking the hat askew. “We had a…disagreement.”
“About what?”
“I’m dating someone.”
I do a double-take. He could have admitted to smashing out the window in a drug-fueled rage and I wouldn’t have been so surprised. “Come again?”
“You heard me.”
“You—I—But—Who?”
“Thanks, Nora. That’s really great.”
“Well, I’m sorry, I’m just surprised. I thought you…”
The look he gives me warns me not to say “loved Marcela,” so I bite my tongue. “I don’t,” he says tersely. “Not anymore. I’m dating Celestia, and it’s going well. And how Marcela feels about it doesn’t factor in.”
“Celestia?”
“Yeah. You know her, actually. She comes in from time to time. Blond hair, really pretty…fur coat.” He mumbles the last words into the crook of his arm, pretending to fix his hat.
I gape. “Did you just say fur coat?”
He clears his throat. “Maybe?”
“As in mink?”
“I don’t know what animal it is.”
“You’re dating Mink Coat.”