The store is pretty dead when I stop by just before I’m supposed to meet Lola. Joe is a great employee, but instinct tells me to not let a full workday go with him alone here.
“You missed a dude with a huge box of Tortured Souls figures about an hour ago.” Joe watches me drop my keys onto the counter, adding, “I feel unclean. I’ve seen some crazy shit in my day, but that stuff scares me.”
“Says the man who pierced his own cock.”
He laughs, stepping aside as I log in to the computer system. “I know,” he says. “But have you seen those figures? They’re babies in bottles of liquid and tortured people gestating their own murderer.”
“So what did you tell him?” A good deal of our business is the buying and selling of collector’s items: action figures, comics, graphic art. Joe has a good eye for stuff but doesn’t really have the same background in the scene that I do. The official rule is that if Joe isn’t sure whether he should buy something, he tells the person to come back when I’m here. In the first few weeks, he rarely knew what to buy and what to leave, but he’s a quick learner and I no longer panic that he’ll let something unbelievable slip through our hands.
“I told him we get a lot of kids in here and it’s not our thing.” He shudders visibly and then does a slight double take. “Why are you so dressed up?”
“I have a thing,” I say.
I can practically hear his eyebrows go up. “ ‘A thing’?”
Sliding my eyes over to him to give him a mild glare, I squat down, and cut open a box of office supplies. To be fair, I don’t ever have things.
Joe steps into my peripheral vision and then bends down until his face is about five inches from mine. “A thing?” he repeats.
“For fuck’s sake,” I grumble, handing him a few boxes of pens. “A thing up in L.A. tonight with Lola.”
The three seconds of silence that follow communicate a good deal of incredulity. “Is it a date?”
I shake my head.
“Are you sure it’s not a date?”
I reach up, sliding a new box of business cards onto the counter. “Pretty sure.”
“Because lately she’s been looking at you like she might want—”
I cut him off. “It’s not a date, Joe.”
The bell rings and I hear someone walk in, heels clicking on the linoleum floor.
“This is the last time I’m going to ask you,” Joe whispers. “Are you sure it’s not a date?”
I open my mouth to say something sharp, but stop when I hear Lola ask, “Where’s Oliver?”
“On his knees under the counter,” Joe says breathily, and I look up to see him smiling widely down at me.
Her unsure speechlessness fills the room.
I shoot Joe an annoyed look. “Down here,” I tell her, and wave a roll of receipt tape over my head. “Just putting some stuff away.”
“Uh-huh,” she says, leaning over the counter so I can only see her face. I realize how utterly fucked I am if I think I can play it cool tonight. She looks bloody gorgeous. “Hi.”
I put the last roll of tape away and almost swallow my tongue when I stand and finally see the rest of her. Lola wearing leather pants should be illegal. Couple that with shoes I would happily die impaled on and a top that hints at everything underneath but shows nothing? I have zero chance of not making a fool of myself in one way or another tonight.
“You look amazing,” I tell her, and without thinking, walk around the counter, lean in, and press a kiss to her cheek.
She doesn’t react as if what I’ve done is out of the ordinary, just smiles and says a quiet, “Thank you.”
Her eyes slide to where my wallet and keys rest on the counter, but I’m not done taking her in yet. Her hair is up in a high ponytail, sleek and black. Her bangs cut straight across her forehead, and her makeup isn’t heavy, but I can tell she’s wearing it. Soft black lines her eyes, pink flushes her cheeks, and her lips are an unholy, nearly sinful red.
“Oliver?”
My words come out sort of shaky: “You look really pretty.”
This time she laughs. “Thanks,” she says, adding, “again. London helped. I swear giving the two of us makeup is like giving a monkey a hammer.”
When I step away to grab my things, she makes a show of slowly looking me up and down. I follow her eyes as they linger on what I’m wearing: slim trousers, simple, dark button-down shirt. I even polished my boots for this woman.
“Damn,” she says. There’s appreciation in her voice and I realize that we’ve always done this—flirted, dropped subtle innuendo—but it’s never felt this loaded before.