There’s an anxious quiver in my belly for hours after my talk with Manning.
I watched all of his away games last week and listened to the game last night. He scored three goals on the road, got in two fights, was checked into the boards more times than I cared to count, and he smiled through all of it. All of it.
Even the fights.
In the post-game interviews, he smiled. When he was photographed getting off the bus, walking into a hotel, or leaving an arena, he was smiling. A teammate posted a photo to Instagram, with Manning and Duncan and Nick deep in conversation on a plane, and Manning was smiling.
The man I left up in his room was not smiling.
That man was haunted.
I don’t know much about royalty aside from what I’ve learned through cartoon movies and sighing over the People cover pictures of the British royals. But I’ve been studying Stölland since the Great Hiccup Incident, and I’ve discovered it’s a pretty cool country.
There’s free public education from preschool through college. An average of three sheep per person, which is apparently worth mentioning, since every article cites the statistic. The most gorgeous green cliffs along the eastern coastline, aurora borealis shows every winter, and ancient stone castles and palaces that have been renovated or turned into museums to showcase the rich heritage and Viking history.
Dog, I’d love to see that someday.
Joey and Peach had a big discussion about the country’s economy and unemployment rates and environmental policies, but I was too busy looking at pictures of the king’s wedding to an American woman a few years back to pay much attention.
Everyone looked so happy. The king, his sons—Manning clearly favors his father with the warm blue eyes and distinguished nose and even in his very build—and the citizens of Stölland who all lined the streets and waved at the royal wedding party’s procession through the city.
For all I know, the photos and videos were all staged.
But I can’t convince myself anyone would’ve gone to that amount of trouble to doctor photos and videos just to give off the appearance of being popular. Maybe I’m naïve. Maybe I’m too optimistic or too gullible.
Or maybe running a kingdom is fucking hard work with sacrifices that the average person can never understand.
Unfamiliar voices outside the bedroom suggest party guests are arriving. I’ve checked in with Tammy and Nancy again and confirmed life in Goat’s Tit is still normal, though Tammy said she took my cat to the shop since he seemed lonely.
Poor Mister Beans.
I miss him too.
I’m waiting for a text back from Joey asking if she knows anyone who can find out why Manning’s betrothed, and also waiting for my turn in the bathroom. The door swings open, and Ares steps out in a matching costume to my own.
Tattered jeans, a fake belly—his beer-based to my baby-based—a stained T-shirt advertising alcohol, though I’ve never heard of Milter Flight, which I have to squint at and read six times to make sure I’m understanding it correctly, and a couple blacked-out teeth. He’s somehow managed to give his short dark hair a case of bedhead over the red bandana tied around his head, whereas my locks are wrapped around empty beer cans like old-fashioned rollers that the fancy ladies in a salon down the street gushed and oohed over because apparently, they don’t get many requests for Halloween hair this fun very often.
Ares grabs his rubber shotgun and grunts at me, which I’m pretty sure means You ready?
I glance at the closed bedroom door, then look back to him. The bedroom is honestly the size of my entire house, which gives me a feeling of security—false or otherwise. Still, I gesture him to come closer to the window near the sitting area, far from the door.
One blue eye squints at me while the other sports a lifted brow.
He and Manning are teammates. Maybe they talk. I’ve barely seen Ares more than I’ve seen Manning since I got here, since he’s been tied up with team stuff too.
“Do you know why Manning and Elin are engaged?” I whisper.
He shakes his head no.
“Does he ever talk about it?”
Another head shake. No.
The monkey dashes out of the bathroom with a roll of toilet paper, looks at us, gives us a big toothy monkey smile, and punches the door to the hall.
“What do you know?” I ask Ares.
He looks at the monkey, then back at me. “Scary girl. Not happy. Bad plan.”
“Do you ever talk in full sentences?”
“Soap on a rope.”
“Fine. Go let your monkey out.”
He studies me for half a second before he hefts me into his arms.
“Hey!” I shriek.
“Costume. Play the part.”
He carries me across the room, opens the door without letting me down, and follows Loki down the hall to the sound of voices.
The open living area has been transformed into a spooky wonderland. The couches and end tables are gone. Black crepe covers the walls with skeletons and spider webs and large framed photos of creepy old people that morph into photos of monsters and witches and zombies when you move your head to look at them from another angle.
Food tables covered in black linen line every available wall, a wet bar is in the corner behind the dining room table, spooky music comes from somewhere, and at least twenty people are already here. The women are all stick-thin, dressed as Cleopatra or Catwoman and other costumes that show off equal amounts of cleavage and toned belly skin.
Ginny Jo would be completely scandalized. There might be more skin showing here than her husband has seen in his entire life.
The men—at least four of them for every woman—are all gangsters or pimps or lawyers or whatever it is that men need to dress in fancy suits and smoke cigars for. One’s in a tuxedo decorated entirely with the logo for Copper Valley’s baseball team. Another sports dark sunglasses and a black feather boa over his suit.
And here Ares and I are, redneck hicks on our way to a shotgun wedding.
I’ve never in my life apologized for where I’m from, but there’s no mistaking just how outclassed I am in this room.
Doesn’t help that I know money and class aren’t the measure of a human being. Even the long-haired mime is carrying himself like he could afford to use silk shirts as toilet paper every day for the rest of his life.
The monkey screeches, tosses the toilet paper so it unravels in a giant white ribbon that’s just as classy as Ares and I are, then scrambles up Ares to perch on his shoulder while Ares is still carrying me into the room.
I hiccup once. Then a second time. The third one comes out so loud four of Manning’s guests turn to stare at me.
Dammit.
“Oh, fuck, Zeus, you are dead,” the mime says. I’m pretty sure he’s a man, but his voice came out higher than a kite. It’s like squealing tires. “Does Joey know you knocked up her kid sister?”
Ares grunts and nods.
The mime sucks on a balloon. “I’ll say nice things about you at your funeral,” he says.
“Ohmydog, Panther?” I say. I know Panther. Joey introduced us at that golf tournament. He’s a rock god addicted to sucking helium, and he’s possibly the only person in the room other than Ares who doesn’t intimidate me even a little, even if he’s probably the only one here rich enough to buy all of us and has more talent in his pinky than I have in my entire body.
He’s just fun.
Case in point?
When I recognize him, he goes silent and pretends he’s in a box, except he’s a horrible mime and he just partitioned out something that apparently has curvy walls and finishes his performance with a toss of his long brown hair that makes his gold necklaces all clank together.
Loki shakes his head and hits his own forehead as if he’s embarrassed on Panther’s behalf.
“Ares, put me down,” I tell him.
“Lava floor,” he says.
I hold up an imaginary can like I’m going to pour it on his head. “Turpentine.”
His brow furrows as though he doesn’t understand the word, but I catch a gleam of amusement before his eyes go blank.
He doesn’t put me down.
“Spiders in a box?”
He smirks.
I sigh.
He nods, taking that as defeat, looks over at Panther, and I hit him in the ear with a wet willy.
What do you know?
My feet are suddenly on the ground.
“Gracie, right?” Catwoman approaches me, violet eyes smiling behind her black leather mask. “Liv Daniels.”
“Holy shit, no way. Ohmydog, I loved you in Crimson is the Sun.”
She grimaces. “Word of advice. Never take a role in a movie based on a book written by a man and billed as a romance where all the main characters die. Hate mail for years. And I don’t blame them. Who fucking kills the main characters in a romance? Sadistic patriarchal bastards who don’t believe in happy endings for women, if you catch my drift.”
I just gape at her.
She sips off her drink, pulling it away with a nod. “Mm. How do I know you, right? Just wrapped a movie set in space. Your sister is my fucking hero. She made Rex Montgomery puke six times. He’s such an asshole when the cameras are off. But aren’t they all?”
I straighten, grin, and dodge the wet willy Ares tries to retaliate with. Joey flies a plane she affectionately calls the vomit comet, which is capable of simulating zero gravity, so sometimes she gets to meet incredibly cool people.
Like when Hollywood needs to shoot scenes that look like they’re set in space. “Ohmydog, she said she had an entire week blocked off for a movie, but she didn’t say you were in it. Not that I’m surprised. She could make Dog himself puke and she probably wouldn’t mention it.”
“I got that vibe off her. Asked her if she’d talk to a screenwriter about her experiences as a woman in aviation, and she stared at me like I’d asked her to translate alien hieroglyphics into a musical.”
Ares clamps a hand around my shoulder and tugs me closer to his side, which basically puts me in his armpit.
“Oh! My manners. Do you know Ares Berger?” I say.
She winks at him. “We’re acquainted.”
He grunts.
It’s a mildly embarrassed grunt.
“Although I haven’t met this monkey,” Liv adds with a pointed look that goes from Ares’s crotch to where Loki is perched on his shoulder.
“That’s Loki,” I say. “He’s visiting.”
“With the fiancée?” she murmurs.
“I’m not sure what term they use in Stölland for her,” I reply, because I can’t force the yes.
“Nothing complimentary, from what I’ve been hearing,” Liv says over her glass.
More bodies bustle into the penthouse. More rich clothing, more class, more breeding and importance.
Still no Manning.
I wonder if royal protocol dictates he arrive last, even to his own party.
And then I wonder why I don’t see Elin either.
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen her all day. I thought I heard her an hour or so ago, but it could’ve been the caterers.
Liv introduces us around the group. I rest a hand on my fake belly. Duncan and Nick join us—they’re dressed as superheroes—but no Felicity tonight. Which is really too bad. I liked her, and I got the impression she’s getting over a breakup and could use more female friends.
I meet more of the Thrusters, who all seem to have some kind of unique hand signal or greeting with Ares. Some of them are dressed almost as goofy as we are, thank dog. One’s in a giant blow-up penis that makes me wish I’d gone for my dinosaur costume instead. Mostly because it’s easier to be anonymous in a dinosaur costume. Except anonymous is the last thing I need to be tonight to make my point.
Which is to show Manning what he’ll be missing, and why he needs to let me help him.
If we were in Goat’s Tit, surrounded by people whose faces aren’t plastered on celebrity magazines and gossip sites every day, I wouldn’t be nervous.
I wouldn’t worry I’d accidentally tell people I actually am pregnant.
I wouldn’t worry about spilling punch.
And I wouldn’t worry about backing up into someone and making him smother an entire plate of barbeque wienies to the crisp linen shirt beneath his suit.
Exactly as I do to a giant Russian hockey player a split second before the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, my nipples leap to attention, and my pulse ricochets into Manning Frey just stepped into the room territory.
I should be apologizing and trying to clean up my mess.
Instead, I’m standing there, transfixed, my cheeks erupting in flames, as Manning steps down the spiral staircase dressed as a gladiator, his broad, bare chest glistening, biceps rippling, solid thighs flexing beneath the leather-armor skirt thingie that does nothing to detract from his utter and complete masculinity.
His gaze lifts, our eyes lock, and he stops cold on the stairs.
Which is also a problem.
Because Elin, in a skimpy toga, gold tiara, and lace-up heels, is coming down the steps behind him. And she keeps walking.
They’re both going to fall off the steps.
