He mock winces. “Ow.”
I take a deep breath and glance at my little sister. She now sits on Ryke’s shoulders. He grabs her by the waist and lifts her off his body, dropping her on her feet—a lot less carefully than Lo usually does to me.
She lands perfectly fine, thankfully.
“She’s a girl,” Lo tells Ryke, motioning to Daisy who twirls her gun and searches the area for our older sisters.
“I didn’t notice,” Ryke says with thick sarcasm.
“Just don’t be rough with her,” Lo tells him, less defensively. He’s trying not to jump down his brother’s throat about Daisy.
“If she can’t handle me, then I wouldn’t have let her on my shoulders.”
“I can’t handle you, but you still hang around me. What do you call that?” Lo asks.
“Tough love.”
Lo nods a few times, and that conversation is cut off by loud bickering.
“You can’t just take my whip, Richard,” she says. “It’s part of my costume. You’re breaking the convention’s protocol.”
“And you’re making up rules. Are the fictional costume police going to jail me in their invisible prison?”
“Ugh! You are so…” She growls. They come into view, only about ten feet away. Rose stands with her hands perched on her hips, her black leather pants and leather jacket just as badass as her Catwoman eye-mask and ears. Her hair is sleeked back into a pony. Even in her stiletto boots, Connor stands four inches above her, appearing to have an advantage.
Batman and Catwoman are flirt-fighting.
The fangirl inside of me is singing right now.
“You love me,” Connor tells her, still holding her black whip, the source of their argument.
“The more you say it, the more untrue it becomes.”
“It’s just the opposite.” He takes a step nearer.
Rose raises her chin, not recoiling. She snaps, “So now it’s Opposite Day?”
I’m fairly certain that beneath his Batman mask, a single brow arches. He has that arrogant look in his eyes, the one he wears a lot better than most people. “I didn’t declare an unofficial, kind of pointless, holiday, but if you want to, go ahead. I doubt anyone will listen.”
She smacks his chest. “Don’t insult me, Richard.”
Ryke asks, “Are we going to keep watching them?” He stands right beside me.
Lo and I nod at the same time, fixated on the couple who provide too much entertainment. No one on this planet are like these two. “Maybe you’re right,” I whisper to Lo. “Maybe they are extraterrestrials.”
“It would explain a lot,” Lo agrees.
“Like why Connor never stutters.”
“Why Rose makes babies cry when she walks past them,” Lo adds.
I nod. “And why Connor never has a bad hair day.”
Lo laughs. “That’d be his hundred-dollar hair products.”
“Oh.” I pause. “Maybe his shampoo comes from space.”
Ryke shakes his head at us. “You two are so f**king weird.”
At that fact, Lo squeezes my hand. Today is definitely a good idea. I don’t think I’ve felt like this since Cancun—before the media hoopla.
I don’t want it to end.
I watch Rose point a threatening finger at Connor. “You’re just bitter because I beat you at chess four times in a row last night. Now you’re stealing my things out of spite.”
Connor raises her whip, half of the black leather wrapped around his hand. “I only stole this because you were minutes from snapping it at that guy, which would have sent you to real jail.”
“He smacked that girl’s ass! Just because she was dressed in spandex—it didn’t give him the right to touch her without her permission.”
“I agree, but you can’t whip every person that makes your blood boil.”
They’re only an inch or so apart now. “What if he did that to me?” she asks seriously.
He stares in her yellow-green piercing eyes for a long, long moment, reading her gaze. I still wish I had that superpower—or that smart person ability.
Finally he says, “I would’ve stepped in.” So far, Connor hasn’t really had the opportunity to protect Rose from a rude guy. Usually she does all the yelling and pushing herself before he even arrives.
“Even if you’re not her boyfriend, you should have stepped in like I did.”
“Clearly I’m not as moral as you, darling. You know this about me.”
Rose’s eyes narrow even more. Then she stomps forward, almost challengingly, and pauses for dramatic effect. With so much confidence, she grabs the back of his head and licks his face slowly, starting from his chin all the way to his nose—like a cat.
Connor stands poised, unmoving and unblinking. But his grin could shatter the world.
My smile grows. “Did she just…”
“Yeah,” Lo confirms, sounding impressed. She recreated a scene from Batman Returns where Michelle Pfieffer licks Michael Keaton’s face. I’m not sure if Rose has seen the movie or if it’s just a coincidence.
“Daisy?” Ryke suddenly glances around. “Fuck. She ran off…” He whips around to go find her, and as he rotates, a sharper piece of his bow hooks onto the strings of my corset. With Ryke’s haste (and strength), my costume rips right down the middle.
I gasp, my hands flying to my chest. Ohmygod.
I am naked! Nearly naked. Half-naked. Topless.
Shit.
I try to hold the costume together with just my fingers. “Lo!”
“Hey, it’s okay, Lil.” He spins me towards his chest and hides my body from view. Why is this happening? What Leprechaun did I piss off?
“Fuck…” Ryke says again, his hands on his head. “I’m sorry…”
“Can you go find Daisy?” Lo asks.
Ryke frowns and rocks back with shock. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’m going to help Lily, so…” He can’t go look for my sister himself. Neither can I now that I may have, sort of, flashed a crowd of superheroes.
“I’ll catch up with you once I’ve found her,” Ryke says before he disappears.
And then a couple Disney Princesses ask, “Hey…are you Lily Calloway?” Noooo.
I shake my head at Ariel, envious of her shell-bra that I could definitely use right about now.
“You called him Lo,” one girl says with a giddy smile, gesturing to my boyfriend / best friend / fiancé.
This is not happening.
I turn to look at Rose for more confidence. She points somewhere and mouths, Bathroom. Now.
“Lo…”
“I saw,” he says, already leading me to the bathroom. My knuckles whiten as I try to force this stupid corset together with just the strength of my fingers. The trek to the bathroom is surprisingly fast—maybe because I was thinking about side-boob the entire time.
The door breezes open, and Rose clears out the stalls with one shout: “Can you believe it?! Michael Fassbender is outside!”
I’ve never heard toilets flush that quickly in my life.
When the last girl exits, Connor and Lo enter.
I am praying upon every star in the universe and galactic, habitable planets that my genius sister has a plan.
8
0 years : 02 months
October
LOREN HALE
“Stop moving, Lil,” I order, trying to tie the strings together on her corset. Most of the hooks are torn apart, but I find one intact.