Page 61 of Eye Candy

Fishing my phone out of my bra, I tried to find a rideshare. Maybe I could find a cheap hotel, or sleep on the airport floor, or freeze to death in the parking lot. All were better options than going back inside.

When my cold fingers finally got the app open, there was no service.

I stuffed it back in my bra and stared into the dark night, weighing my options. Clouds of my breath danced in front of my face, carbon dioxide doing the bump and grind with Jack Frost’s pheromones.

Eventually I decided not to freeze to death and become a bear’s lollipop.

“Thank fuck,” Chase said when I walked back through the door he held for me. “Caroline, I’m sorry.”

And he was. I knew he was. But just because someone believed their own apology, it didn’t mean they understood their cruelty. And it definitely didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen again. My brother, for example, was a master of apologizing for his assholery, but it never slowed him down the next time. Chase was upset, and he had a right to be, but those were some honest words that had fallen out of his mouth.

“Go back to your stepbrother’s party. I’m going to wait upstairs. Don’t follow me.”

I left him standing in the foyer.

Unfortunately, the place was so huge I couldn’t remember where my room was. I tried three doors until one opened. Like I was a homing pigeon trained for sequins and tit tape, the room I entered was a suite the party entertainers were using as a dressing room.

There were costumes sprawled out on the bed and people lounging on sofas with towels wrapped around their bodies and hair. A few people were snacking, others were drinkingchampagne with shining clean faces, like they’d just done a day at the spa. Someone was shouting for hair spray.

“Look, it’s Little Miss Champagne!” Thor waved. “Come to spill something else?”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated miserably.

A six-foot deity with cheekbones that could cut glass glared at him. “Don’t listen to Thor, he dropped a tray all by himself an hour ago. He’s just trying to alpha you.”

This was the kind of backstage banter I knew. Everyone hated baby performers who stepped on toes and took their tips and guests who messed up their shit. But I was not a baby burly.

Or a guest.

“ ’Scuse!” a person in a pink silk pajama set careened past me into the room, carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres. “If Elena sent you to get me,” they called over their shoulder, “tell her my shift is over! I’m a free woman!”

An idea was occurring. A ballsy, maybe brilliant, definitely unorthodox idea.

“I’m Summer Holliday,” I told the drag queen with the gorgeous cheekbones who was dressed as a mirror image of Cher. Maybe it was the artist, maybe it was Cher, but she had in-charge vibes. “I’m a burlesque artist. But I pissed off Gerard—you know, the guy who runs the Dragonfly clubs? And now I’m worried he’s going to blacklist me. I need to show him why he’s wrong.”

Cher studied me. Any performer who knew their worth and asked for it, or who established clear boundaries with club financiers, had, at some point, been unfairly blacklisted by a dickhead club owner. Cher knew what that was like. We all did.

“Come in,” Cher said.

The performers in the room were busy and didn’t have time to pause their lives for a stray, but I earned my spot at their dressing-room mirror by putting on Jessica’s lashes (she was in the pink pj’s) and fixing Cher’s busted zip. My white lingerie was ruined, but I had a black set in my bag back in the room, and I grabbedthat. Jessica loaned me a dress, and I shucked the champagne-stained gift from Chase.

Slipping Jessica’s gold gown over my head, I felt confident again, more in my element. As I painted, Caroline-the-human’s stress and hurt melted away, and Caroline-the-performer took over.

People thought all stage performers built alter egos, like Sasha Fierce or Ziggy Stardust. It was kind of true. My friend in Edinburgh was Amy when she took her kids to soccer, and Sugar Tits when she was onstage with dildos strapped down her spine like a phallic stegosaurus.

For me, it was a shades-of-gray thing. Summer Holliday was the most confident, most outrageous version of me, but she was still a character. And sometimes a shield.

Chase had seen me as Teddy, falling on tables, and he’d seen me as Caroline, breaking champagne glasses. But he’d never seen me as Summer, doing what I excelled at. Not properly anyway. The chess game had been a half-hearted attempt under subpar circumstances. Chase had no idea what this scam had cost me. Not to mention he was under the wrongheaded impression I’d worked my professional seduction skills on him back in New York.

If Chase thought that I was performing when I seduced him?

He had no idea.

I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

CHAPTER 24

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