When we walked up to the bar, Merritt gave one of the bartenders our names, and he popped open our bubbly. Seconds later, we each had a sparkling glass of Bottega Rose Gold and Merritt proposed a toast. “To the hottest date I’ve had in a while,” she quipped as we tapped our glasses together.
“I’m honored. Thanks for inviting me to come with you. Can I say I’m glad you didn’t have a date?”
“Honestly, I probably could’ve scared one up. But… I was thinking about you. I wondered what would happen if Cary wasn’t coming to the party. I know you’ve got Danica and about a million friends in this room. But I just thought I should do my part as a friend and offer.”
“Merritt… That’s so sweet.” I gave her a hug. “Now let’s go mingle and play spot-the-rock-star. I don’t see Zane Traynor or Dylan Cope anywhere. I’m kinda scared Zane’s gonna make good on that mask-only threat, but if he does, I don’t wanna miss it.”
“Agreed.”
“And I’m not sure if that’s Matt over there, or just some other really hot dude…”
Merritt looked over that way. “Obviously, further inspection is needed,” she remarked, taking my hand and pulling me off into the crowd.
As it turned out, the hot dude in the black leather pants and burgundy velvet blazer—with no shirt underneath—and the matching burgundy fox mask was Matt.
I made the requisite fox joke—You look foxy tonight. Luckily, he was enough of a gentleman not to return the favor with a pussy joke, despite my outfit practically begging for it. We chatted with him a bit, before we mingled on.
Then we found Dylan. Normally you really couldn’t miss him with his staggering height and the reddish hair, but it was the replica Iron Man costume with a full helmet that really threw it off. He flipped up the visor as we approached to say hi, but it was his girlfriend, Amber, dressed like his Pepper Potts that we recognized first. She wore a straight, strawberry-blond wig and a slim, white suit, buttoned at the breast with no blouse underneath, and a simple white eye mask.
I told them they looked fucking phenomenal, which they did. They returned the compliment. And when I casually asked them what was new, expecting either small talk or drunk talk—this was a party, after all—Amber showed us her left hand.
There was a ring on her ring finger.
“Fuck off,” I gushed. “What!!” I grabbed her hand and Amber laughed.
“Iron Man proposed to me last night. We’re just sort of telling people as we run into them. No biggie.”
“What is that?” I asked her, studying the ring. It had a bunch of little stones in it instead of one large one.
“Natural topaz stones. I asked for them because they’re amber colored,” Amber said. “I didn’t want a traditional diamond and I just think they’re pretty.”
“It’s gorgeous. Congratulations, both of you.” I gave them each a big hug, genuinely excited for them. Thankfully, I’d gotten over feeling too sorry for myself to be happy for other people.
Fuck that noise. Life was too short. And too good, really.
“This shit needs to be celebrated,” Merritt announced, and I totally agreed. We waved down one of the catering staff and plucked a couple of glasses of champagne from her tray, handing one to Amber and one to Dylan, to go with whatever else they were already drinking; now they were double fisting.
“That looks much better,” I said.
“Much,” Merritt concurred.
We toasted, at which point we drew the attention of Katie and Jesse, who wandered over—and took home the motherfucking prize for Most Adorable Couple Costume In The History Of All Couple Costumes. They were dressed to the fucking nines as Cinderella and a badass Prince Charming, and while it wasn’t the most unique costume theme ever, seeing Katie and Jesse Mayes dressed like that made my ovaries contract.
“Can you two please make more babies?” I said in greeting. “Like, get on that shit right now. You’re doing the world a major disservice by not fucking bareback, right the fuck now.” Yeah, I’d gotten a lot closer to Katie in recent months. And her husband. So now I could say that shit when it was on my mind.
She just laughed.
Jesse grinned.
“You look gorgeous, Taylor,” Katie said, giving me a hug. Then she asked me a little more quietly, “Where’s your date?” She gazed at me with knowing, sympathetic eyes.
“She’s right here,” I said, looping my arm through Merritt’s. “Have you met Merritt? She’s been kicking ass and taking names down at Little Black Hole.”
“Of course,” Katie said. “Nice to see you, Merritt. I love your dress…”
And as my friends got chatting around me, I took a fortifying swallow of my rose gold bubbly and looked around.
Where was my date, indeed.
I didn’t mean to keep looking for him like a sad puppy. I just couldn’t help it. Hoping he’d appear, slipping up behind me in his mask and making my night.
No, making my fucking life.
We chatted for a while, our little crowd growing, shifting, faces and outfits changing as people came and went, and then Merritt and I headed back to the bar for a refill. Before we made it there, she decided to hit the ladies’ room, so I decided to go get some air.
I headed out of the ballroom and back down the sweeping stairs, and out the front entrance of the hotel. I looked around at the masked people still arriving for the party, unloading from cars.
Okay, so I was totally looking for Cary.
And then… I saw him.
He was here.
Goosebumps erupted across my skin.
He made it. He made it to the party.
Well… almost.
I saw the familiar cut of his shoulders. The black dress shirt, sleeves rolled up below the elbow. The black dress pants. His tall, lean form like a shadow, just beyond the traffic loop. I darted between the limos and taxis and up the little path between the sculpted shrubbery—and there he stood, at the top of a few stairs leading down to the public sidewalk. Just standing next to a giant stone plant pot with shrubbery growing out of it, like he was part of the stonework or something. A handsome gargoyle.
He had his back to me, but I would know Cary Clarke anywhere. The soft waves of his blondish hair. That butt. He had his hands in the pockets of his pants and they were snug on his ass cheeks.
I smacked his ass as I came up beside him. “Where the hell have you been?”
He looked down at me from the shadowy eye slits of the coolest masquerade mask I’d ever seen. It was completely silver, covered most of his face except his beautiful mouth and jaw, and he half-smiled at me. The mask had exaggerated, sculpted features, with dramatic eyebrows, sharp cheekbones, and a beautiful scrolling design that made up the lines of the forehead. Even though there was no mouth, there was so much expression around the eyes that I could tell one side was laughing and one side was crying, like the comedy / tragedy masks of ancient theater.
“Wait, never mind that,” I amended in awe. “Where the hell did you get that mask?”
He shrugged. “Where do I get anything? Internet.”
“You came,” I gushed. “You look incredible. That is the coolest mask I’ve ever seen.”
“Sorry I’m late,” he said.
Before I could respond, I heard my best friend’s voice. “Taylor!” I turned to find Danica climbing out of a limo, wearing a gorgeous, fluttery dress in pastel layers, with glittering, pastel butterfly wings and a matching mask. She was with Haz, Ashley’s bodyguard. A man stepped out of the limo behind her… in black leather pants, no shirt, tattoos, and—
“I’m sorry, I have to take that back,” I told Cary. “That is the coolest mask I’ve ever seen.”
Ash’s mask was big, black-and-gold, demonic, and featured a set of massive, twisted horns. He stuck his tongue out through the mouth hole and waggled it in our direction.
“You guys coming in?” Danica called over, but none of them headed our way. Obviously, they recognized Cary, too.
I realized he hadn’t moved from his spot. He didn’t even turn to face the hotel.
“In a minute!” I told them. They were rallying up with Zane, Maggie, Elle and Seth, who had climbed out of the limo behind them. Both thankfully and regrettably, Zane wasn’t naked. He was fully dressed in a Viking get-up, including war paint and a bronze metal mask.
“We’ll see you inside!” Danica called out as they all headed up the steps into the hotel.
I turned back to Cary. “Where were we? Oh, yeah. I was freaking out over the fact that you’re here. And you look incredible.”
“Taylor,” he said, looking me over carefully, “you look fucking breathtaking.”
“Purrr-fect,” I said, playing up my cat theme in the cheesiest way possible, which won me a tiny smile. “Then you’ll come inside with me?”
“That was the idea. Actually… I wanted to walk in there alone. I wanted to surprise you.”
“Then what are you doing out here?” I asked him gently.
“Trying to find my balls?”
“Hmm.” I reached down and cupped his balls, giving them a gentle squeeze. Then I remembered what Dean had said about guys and their balls, and fondled them a little. “Well, I found them. Let’s go.” I hooked my arm through his.
But he didn’t budge.
“You’re not pissed that I’m late?”
“Nope.”
“You’re not pissed that you had to come alone?”
“I didn’t come alone. I came with friends.”
Actually, he seemed pissed. At himself. “You’re not pissed that I left you fucking dangling, wondering if I was coming at all?”
“Let me think.” I pretended to think about it. “Nope. Not mad about that.”
He sighed a little. Then he said, “I was afraid I’d be too late.”
“For what? The party’s just getting started.”
“For you.”
“Well, another hour or so and you would’ve been. This dress turns into rags at precisely midnight.”
“I’m serious. I feel like I let you down again.”
I considered that, along with the fact that he still wasn’t moving.
“How long have you been out here, Cary?”
“About forty minutes.” He took a breath and sighed again. “I really wanted to prove to myself that I could do it without leaning on you. But… I kinda got stuck.”
“Right here?”
“Yeah. Right here.”
I glanced around until I saw him; Liam. On the sidewalk, not far away. Waiting by. “It really doesn’t matter, Cary. Don’t you get that? What matters is you’re here.”
“But here isn’t there,” he said, finally turning a little to glance up at the hotel.
“Cary. Baby. You’re doing that thing. You’re stalling by cutting yourself down. To try to make an excuse to not go in there. By telling yourself that you’ve already failed, when you haven’t.”
“Yeah. I am,” he agreed. And I knew he was scared to walk into that party. How could he not be? It had been five years since he’d done anything like this.
And the last party he’d celebrated… basically ended with the death of his best friend.
“Look, I’m sure there would’ve come a time, eventually, when you would’ve been too late for me,” I said. “I mean, maybe if you walked up to me in my rocking chair when I’m eighty and said, ‘Hey babe, I’m ready. Let’s give it a go,’ I might be like, ‘Fuck you, buddy. You had your chance.’” That won a small smirk. “But you know what? We’re young. The night is young. And you’re not too late.” I laced my hand through his. “You made it this far. You can make it the rest of the way. There’s no difference between here and there.”
“There’s a huge difference, Taylor. Here, it’s just you and me. There, it’s hundreds of people.”
“But we’re still just you and me.” I squeezed his hand. “And nothing bad is going to happen. It’s a party. Zane even showed up fully clothed. There’s nothing to fear.”
A reluctant smile crept over his face.
“Good things happen at parties, Cary. Especially parties hosted by Summer Sorensen and Trey Jones.”
He looked up at the hotel behind me again. “I can imagine.”
“You don’t have to imagine. You can live.”
He met my eyes.
“It’s really dark in there,” I assured him. “We’ll find a dark corner and we can just sit down. And when a nice, slow song comes on, you can dance with me.”
“Okay,” he said, finally. His grip on my hand tightened. “Don’t let go of me.”
“I won’t,” I promised him. “Not ever.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Taylor
Stay in My Corner
This time when I walked into the party, I noticed how intense the whole scene was.
The noise. The crowd. The glitter.
The loud music.
The darkness.
I held Cary’s hand, and just like I promised, I didn’t let go of him.
He did amazingly well, considering. He stayed pretty glued to me, but I hardly minded. As long as it didn’t involve him puking or passing out or turning and hightailing it out of here without me, I’d be happy with however this played out.
I took him straight over to Xander and Courteney, and when they laid eyes on us, I silently willed them not to flip out on him too exuberantly.
“Cary!” Courteney gushed, immediately giving him a hug.
When she stepped back, he took a look up and down her sexy mermaid outfit. I met his eyes and grinned.
“You look great, CC,” he said.
“So glad you made it, brother,” Xander said, and he and Cary exchanged a manly hug and back slap.
And that was that.
We were in the door. We were among friends. And Cary was doing well.
We said hello to everyone in the band. Brody. Trey. Eventually, we said hello to probably a few dozen other people that Cary knew. I asked him if he wanted to find a corner to hide out, but he just said, “I’m here. I can hide out at home.”
He was calm, reserved, quiet. He was polite. He was warm, given that he was probably uncomfortable.
I was so proud of him I could’ve wept.
I kept wondering at what point I should whisk him out of here so as not to overdo it and ruin what we’d already achieved tonight.
The later into the night we got, I kept wondering if my time was running out.
But I didn’t ask him if he wanted to leave. If he wanted to leave, I was pretty sure he’d make that clear.
He didn’t say anything about it.
We were talking to Danica and Ash when the volume on the music lowered and Summer’s voice came over the sound system. “Hey everyone. We’re gonna slow things down for you for a couple of songs, so you can make out and stuff.” People whistled as “Stay in My Corner” by The Arcs started playing. “At twelve o’clock sharp,” she went on, “we’re gonna drop the first single from the Players’ debut album for your listening pleasure! Stay tuned!” Then the volume on the music went back up and people started coupling up on the dance floor.
“That’s our cue to go make out,” I told Cary, tugging him toward the disco balls.
He went with me, drew me into his arms in the middle of the dance floor, and we started dancing. I could’ve told him right there how proud I was of him. I could’ve gushed all over him about how much he was my hero and how amazing he was doing.
Instead, I decided to pretend like we did this all the time and just go with it.
“You know, your mask is very confusing,” I told him. “When you look to the right, you look like you’re crying, and when you look to the left, you look like you’re laughing your ass off.”
“Maybe I’m doing both.”
“How many of these people do you think are gonna fuck with their masks on tonight?”
Cary glanced around. “Fifty-percent?”
“Is that fifty-percent of the
people in this room, or fifty-percent of the people here who are actually going to have sex tonight?”
“Hmm. Sixty-five-percent of the people who are actually going to have sex tonight are gonna do it with their masks on.”
“Damn. Now I really wish we could get data on that later, see how right we were.”
“You’re trying to distract me. It’s working.”
“Good.”
He leaned in and kissed me, right there on the dance floor. I sighed with relief as my stomach tingled with joy. We melted together, masks bumping awkwardly, and I finally pulled away, laughing a little.
“Okay, I’m thinking one of the people having sex leaves their mask on at a time,” he said. “To avoid the awkward mask-on-mask collision.”
“I’m thinking you’re right. And maybe they take turns?”
“Sounds fun.”
I pushed my mask up onto my head, wondering if maybe I could get him to do the same a little later. Like maybe we could take turns?
But then he did the same, revealing his face.
I could only imagine how much courage it took for him to do that right now, in the middle of this party… and I fell so crazy in love with him on the spot, I knew that if he let me, I’d never let this man go.
“What is it you want, Cary? What do you see when you picture yourself happy?”
“I want my life back,” he said. “And I can’t see any life without you.” He didn’t look away, and I didn’t either. We stared at each other for a while, and then I put my head on his shoulder because I was feeling a little teary-eyed. We kept dancing, until we’d danced all the way through three slow songs.
And then the lights flickered. People whistled and started clapping.
“Well, look at that,” I remarked. “We both made it to midnight, and no one even turned into a pumpkin.”
Cary smiled.
And just then, “Panic Room” started to play, loud. “It’s live!” Summer shouted over the sound system, and everyone cheered.
Lovely Madness: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 4) Page 46