Charming as Puck(76)

I start to say hi to him, but that’s when the screaming starts.

First, it’s a high-pitched scream from the doorway.

We all whip around and spot a 7-foot-tall clown screaming and pointing at me and Nick.

With at least seven clowns behind him.

All in full make-up.

Striped clown jumpsuits.

Big red noses.

Bigger red shoes.

Clowns.

The clowns are attacking. They’re invading and they’ll be pulling out their flower water squirters and their horns and they’re fucking attacking!

I scream.

Nick screams.

Three of the clowns point at us and scream.

“CLOWNS!” someone shrieks, and at least a dozen other people start screaming.

Security rushes the room.

“SPIDERS!” the clowns scream back.

Felicity shoves between Nick and me. She grabs me by the shoulders and forces me to the ground, and I realize Ares is doing the same to Nick.

“Clowns,” I whimper to her. I point, but all I can see are legs and blow-up costume legs, and I can’t see the clowns, and I don’t know where they are.

“It’s Zeus.” She pats my cheeks like she’s trying to wake me up. “Kami, it’s Zeus, and he’s not going to quit screaming until the spiders are gone. He’s terrified of spiders. Stay down. He can’t see you here.”

The screaming stops, and I stay there, huddled near the ground in a sea of people.

I fucking hate clowns.

“I fucking hate clowns,” Nick sputters.

Ares is gone, and Nick creeps closer to me, his face white as a ghost. “You okay?”

Felicity’s coughing like she’s trying not to laugh as she stands and backs away, because of course she’s not afraid of clowns. She’s a fucking ventriloquist. She probably has parties with clowns all the time.

“Fucking clowns,” I mutter.

He reaches around to hug me and gets a spider leg in his ear, then up his nose again, and we both end up on our backs, right there in the middle of the party, catching our breath and staring at the fake spiders in the webs hung from the ceiling.

“So, great plan,” I say.

“Fucking clowns.” Duncan squats to the ground next to us in a Ghostbusters costume and shoves his dark, curly head between his knees. “Berger’s going down.”

“I know a guy who can get a horse tranquilizer,” I hear myself say.

Both men look at me. Then at each other. Color’s coming back to Nick’s face, which is a huge relief, because until this very minute I would’ve sworn there wasn’t anything in the world that scared him.

I like my world better where Nick’s not afraid of anything.

“She’s on my team,” Nick tells Duncan. “So don’t even think of crossing to the Berger side.”

“I hear you, man, but spiders are all we’ve got on him. Dude has no shame.”

“He still deserves a dick in a box,” I mutter.

They look at me again.

Nick starts grinning.

Lavoie looks around like he’s making sure nobody walking around us is listening. “A dick in a box? Like…some dude’s actual dick?”

“Lavoie. Seriously?” Nick shakes his head. “Your prank game is weak, man. Weak. But you—” He points at me. “You are fucking awesome.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be Felicity’s sweet friend?” Duncan says to me.

“Not when clowns attack.”

“How about when spiders attack?” Nick asks.

“When—what?”

He grins.

And then he grabs me, pulls me to him, and kisses me.

Right there in the middle of the party.

With everyone watching.

Like I’m his entire universe.

I smile into kissing him back.

Clowns be damned. I’m pretty sure this man right here loves me.

Not friend-loves me. Loves me loves me.

Which is amazing.

Because I’m also pretty sure I’m going to love him forever.

Just like I always have.

But better, because this Nick truly is everything and more that I always hoped he could be.





Forty





Nick



The party picks up after Zeus and his posse leave and return without costumes, giving us a wide berth, but Kami and I still don’t stay late. Mostly because I can’t stop touching her, and there aren’t enough hours before she has to go to work and I have to go to practice tomorrow and Manning’s spare bedrooms are already occupied.

We climb into my Cherokee in the parking garage after shedding our spider costumes, and she settles a hand on my thigh while I drive us out of downtown and toward her house.

“I didn’t know you don’t like clowns,” she says while we wind through the streets lit with solar-powered streetlamps.

I suppress a shudder. “Gammy went through a clown doll phase when Felicity was just starting all the ventriloquist stuff when we were little. You?”

“I got lost at the arena when we went to see the circus when I was about ten. My mom let me go to the bathroom by myself, and I accidentally found my way into the room where all the clowns were getting into the car. Three of them yelled at me, because I wasn’t supposed to be there, and then two more with the angry faces painted on had to escort me to security, and it was basically the most terrifying fifteen minutes of my life.”