Love Interest(59)

His words pummel me to pieces just as much as they bind me back together. I don’t know how to process the emotions battling for dominance inside me.

For the time being, you’re it.

I want all of you until the day I don’t want any of you.

“What’s the theme?” I ask.

“I am obviously not going to tell you that.”

“Please?”

“I already might get murdered by your best friend for saying what I have so far.”

“Exactly. What’s the harm now?”

Alex walks backward, shaking his head. “No chance.”

He pushes the button for the elevator, and I gape. “Did you follow me up here?”

“Yes.” He arches an eyebrow. “You were trying to telepathically communicate with me in that meeting, but I haven’t learned all your faces yet, so I had to inquire in person. But now I’ve got jealousy down, so that’s progress.”

“Screw you,” I say, but the words lose their bite when I laugh.

He grins, rubs his jaw with a palm, and shakes his head at the floor. Quietly he says, more to himself than to me, “You really scared me for a second there.”

He’s gone before I can utter a word.

I walk toward the Hive in a daze, my inner chaos from the past few hours simmering down. Benny is leaning over Fari’s desk when I approach.

“Oh, Casey!” He straightens. “Perfect timing. Fari and I are scouring Amazon for costumes. Can you clarify—since it’s a murder mystery party but, like, only a few days before Halloween—are we supposed to be dead-looking seventies icons, or just seventies icons who happen to be dead?”





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


Half the people didn’t know it was a surprise, and half the people didn’t know it was a birthday, and well more than half thought Miriam meant the Halloweeny kind of murder, with fake blood and zombie eyes and gashes in your flare jeans. Brijesh swears he never heard her say “surprise” over the phone, but it all works out when everyone shows up to Sasha’s swanky Upper West Side apartment in their disco best.

By everyone, read: exactly fourteen people, because that’s the number of character cards in the murder mystery party kit Miriam ordered. Even after all the plus-ones she gave out (Benny brought his boyfriend and Fari brought a thirty-three-year-old insurance agent she’s seeing), Miriam still had to invite three nursing friends to meet the quota.

When I walk in the door, the first thing I spot is a bowl of sherbet fizz, plus a pitcher of a premixed Tom Collins cocktail. A sign hanging over the front entryway reads THE NIGHT DISCO DIED. Star confetti pieces are strewn all over the floor. An electric disco ball is projecting colored lights onto each wall and, incongruously, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is blasting from a soundbar.

“John Lennon, I must apologize,” I mutter under my breath.

“Surprise!” Ellie 1 shouts at me as I walk in.

Ellie 2 hisses at her, “It’s not a surprise anymore, dumbass.”

Miriam has two nursing friends named Ellie. One has red hair and green eyes. The other is so petite, half the hospital must think she’s a runaway sick kid who found scrubs in the bathroom. They’re matching tonight, dressed up alongside Miriam as Charlie’s Angels, but the Ellies also have fake blood splattered on their skin. At least, I hope it’s fake. They work in a hospital, but … I really hope it’s fake.

The third nurse, Hector, is dressed as a cop. (He scored that character card because he has a real mustache.)

All three of them greet me at the door while Miriam rushes off to change. We just came from dinner as planned but gave up on the surprise element days ago.

Sasha is leaning against her kitchen counter in flares and platforms. “What a shock to see you’re in town after all,” I deadpan.

She rolls her eyes. “I told Mir you hate surprises.”

“And I told Casey that sometimes she doesn’t know what’s good for her!” Miriam shouts from the half bath. She emerges seconds later in full costume—black crop top, shiny leggings, finger pistols to boot.

“How was that going to work, anyway?” Miguel asks. “You guys coming to our place when we were supposedly out of town?”

“What the fuck do you mean, our place?” Sasha asks him.

Miguel, dressed as some ambiguous movie star, blushes and grumbles something before he walks into the living room.

“I admit, the plan could have used some fine-tuning,” Miriam says. “Problem is, Casey’s always the one who does that shit.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” I say cheerily.

Sasha pulls me into her bedroom so I can change into my outfit: a chrome-white dress, flower crown, and sash that says BIRTHDAY BITCH.

“Can I talk to you?” Benny asks when I make it back to the living room. “Tracy asked for a copy of my résumé today. Completely out of the blue, zero context given. I was scared to ask, and now I’m freaking out about why she’d want—”

“Casey!” Jude says, hugging me. Saving me. My stomach bottoms out when I spot Alex over Jude’s shoulder. He smiles, but every atom in my body has stuttered to a standstill. Is Tracy already job hunting for Benny?

I’ve met Jude, Benny’s boyfriend, exactly once, at a brunch drag show Benny invited me to before he banned me from coming to any more. (He said it gave him cross-pollination career panic.) “Can you please tell Benny to chill, and that Tracy loves him, and she’s probably just putting him up for a pay raise or something?” I am spared from lying through my teeth when Jude turns to Sasha, eyeing her drink. “Are you drinking Fireball out of a Healthy Habits water bottle?”