Page 60 of Sharkbait
“No.” She laughs and places a hand on my arm. “We’ve mostly stuck to party business.”
“Of course, yeah. Okay, catch ya later, sister friend.”
I start walking.
She calls after me, “You’ve got it so bad for that guy!”
“Do not!” I toss back.
I hear her giggle, but to her credit, she doesn’t say the obvious.
She doesn’t have to, though, because the voice in my head is saying it loud and clear.Do too, do too, do too.
Chapter Fourteen
James
This is already proving to be quite an interesting night, and it hasn‘t even officially begun.
For the past half hour, I‘ve been treated to an odd but delightful parade of scantily-clad, heavily made-up people sauntering into the back room of Adventure Bar with sequined wardrobe bags slung over their shoulders with the initials “BBB” printed in bright-blue bubble letters.
Several of them have invited me to “help them warm up” before the show. One woman gave me a literal wink wink, nudge nudge when she extended her invite.
Hm.
I politely declined.
I may be a guy with many skills and interests, but acting or...burlesque-ing—that’s what Calliope called it, right?—is not one of my talents, so I’m not exactly sure how I can “help.” Besides, I’ve been plenty busy making sure the food and drinks are ready.
I want everything to be perfect for Louise.
I mean her brother.
Whatever. I just want it to be perfect.
After the most recent arrival—a man smeared in what appears to be head-to-toe metallic body paint—I start hearing some surprising sounds from the back room.
What the hell are they doing back there?
I consider going in to check on them, but then I rememberwhen I did stage crew junior year of high school to get close to Sabrina Waltrich. The vocal warm-ups they did were pretty damn weird, so I’m not going to worry about it.
A light knock sounds.
“You with BBB?” I shout in the direction of the door.
“Uh, no. I’m—Calliope asked me to come early?”
Louise peeks around the doorframe with a shy smile.
Since when is this woman shy about anything?
“Hey! Of course, come on in!” I say. “Pull up a stool.”
She doesn’t take a seat. “No, I’m here to help. What can I do?” She bounces on her toes.
“Nothing, really. Everything’s done, so seriously, you can relax. Cake was delivered about an hour ago. Weird cake, by the way. Have you seen it?”
She shakes her head. “No. Weird How?”
