by JJ Knight
I narrow my eyes at him. “1920s, huh? Because I believe a lady of that era has a curfew, a chaperone, and never ever compromises her reputation.”
He flashes another one of those perfect smiles. “There’s already a curfew since the speakeasy has a closing time. And a doorman has to let you in. He’s like a chaperone.”
“And my reputation?”
He lifts a cherry from the dish by its stem and dangles it in front of his mouth. “I’ll let you decide if the pleasure is worth the risk.”
He pops the cherry into his mouth.
Chapter 12: Hudson
I have to stop by Colt and Jo’s house the next day to pick up the 1920s suit.
I wasn’t lying to Chloe when I said this speakeasy is an exclusive place. They don’t advertise, nor does it appear on Google maps. And forget social media. One of the strict rules is that nobody talks about Hobo Speakeasy.
Nobody knows how long it has existed, or the company that fronts it. All I know is that it’s stupidly expensive and once you’re there, you pay for things in 1920s or older currency at the prices that they would have been then. The drinks are a quarter or less. The cigarette girl will charge you a nickel. The tips to the valet and doorman are a dime.
Your fee to reserve the place is what actually covers the cost. There are no anachronisms once you arrive.
If it were simply up to me alone, I would never get in. But I tell Colt, who mentions it to his dad’s personal assistant. She has the reservations put in under The Cure’s name. He also pays for it. Turns out the cost for a couple for one evening is five figures. Dang.
A couple hours after she takes care of it, a small leather satchel arrives at my hotel. Inside is a handful of quarters, nickels, and dimes, all with dates ranging from 1915 to 1929. It’s what we’ll use to pay.
There’s no one home when I arrive at Jo’s house, so I should be able to sneak in and out without anyone being the wiser. And by anyone, I mean my sister. I assume that Colt has told her that Chloe was the one who busted the fight. But I don’t know.
Of course, I don’t have to admit that I’m going out with Chloe at all. Maybe I shouldn’t. But something about Jo, when she gets in my face, makes me feel like I’m the little kid brother again. I spill my guts every time.
I go through the closet in my old room. I didn’t take a lot to the hotel when I moved out. Mainly workout clothes, a few jeans and some dress shirts. Definitely not the suits. I only ever need them on Sunday nights for the fancy dinners. It’s easy enough to stop by their house and change on the way to The Cure’s mansion.
As I lock the front door and head to my Ferrari, I think I’m home free. But then the huge gate begins to open, and Jo’s black SUV eases up the drive.
The chicken in me wants to get in my car and hurry away. But I don’t. I stand by my door and wait for her to pull up beside me.
Bear is strapped into his car seat in the back, but he sees me and begins waving his arms up and down. Now I’m really stuck. I definitely don’t want to disappoint my nephew.
Jo gets out of her car and comes around to the side near me to spring Bear. Her eyes fall on my suit bag. “What do you have there?”
“Just moving another thing or two to the hotel,” I say.
She pauses by Bear’s door. “You don’t expect me to fall for that, do you?”
“Don’t you need to get him out of there before he suffocates or something?”
Jo crosses her arms for a moment and gives me a hard stare. But then Bear sends up a great howl, so she opens the car door to unstrap him.
“Hut hut hut!” Bear cries, reaching his arms out for me.
“Hold on, Bear,” I say, opening my door to hang the suit bag in the back of my car.
When I turn around, Bear is already trying to launch himself out of Jo’s arms to get to me.
“Up up up!” he says.
Always the same thing with this kid. I toss him in the air. He giggles his happy toddler laugh, and Jo leans against her SUV, watching us.
I think, not for the first time, that my mother missed these times with me. I don’t remember if my aunt tossed me in the air like this, or my uncle. Surely they did. I just have no memory of it.
I hold Bear against my side. He knows exactly how to wrap his legs around me securely. “You have some bags or anything?” I ask.
Joe pulls a diaper bag from the car. “No. We were at gymnastics.”
“Already?” I picture Bear sailing through the air to land on a vault.
“It’s designed for little kids. He’s a terror at it, though. He has no fear.”
I follow her into the house. It will take a few minutes to extricate myself.
Jo sets the bag down. “Can you stay a while?”
“Sure, a minute or two,” I say.
Bear wiggles and squirms to get down. I set him on the floor, and he takes off for the other room.
Jo sighs, heading after him. “You going to tell me what the suit is for?”
I follow her into the playroom, where Bear is already pulling down stacks of blocks.
“Probably not,” I say.
“Does it have to do with the reservations at Hobo Speakeasy?”
Dammit. “I guess Colt tells you everything?”
“Pretty much. So is this the girl who busted the fights?”
“She didn’t answer any of my texts,” I say. This is the truth.
“But…”
“Yeah, maybe I did track her down.”
“Well, I guess if she agreed to go out with you, technically you aren’t stalking her.”
Bear tries to stack some of the blocks, only to watch them tumble as soon as he gets three or four high. He howls with frustration.
I bend down to straighten the stack for him. He gleefully knocks the whole thing over. I’m much better off playing with him than trying to answer my sister’s questions.
“I guess you know what you’re doing,” Jo says. “Now that your illegal fighting days are over, I guess she can’t really hurt you.”
There’s no way I’m telling her about the rematch with Face Wrecker. I keep my eyes on Bear, because otherwise I swear my sister will read my mind.
“Here you go, Bear,” I say stacking more blocks for him to knock over. This is his favorite game.
“Be careful,” Jo says. “You know we’ll get you that legitimate fight. Anything else can wait.”
She’s killing me. “I know.”
Jo scrunches her nose. “I’ve got to go change this one’s diaper. It might be your best time for escape.”
“Advice taken,” I say.
Jo picks up Bear, who immediately protests being removed from his toys. As they walk to the other room, I head out the back door.
As I drive to the hotel, I have a terrible sense of foreboding. I’m not only disappointing Chloe by fighting next weekend, but also my family.
And I’m doing it anyway.
Chapter 13: Chloe
Zeba sits on my yellow bedspread and watches me try on dress after dress.
“Did you look that place up?” she asks.
“Not possible,” I say. “This place really is a hard-core secret. But Hudson said it’s generally twenties with maybe some affluent thirties mixed in.”
“Isn’t the thirties the Great Depression?”
“Sure, but there were plenty of people who were unaffected. Hollywood went on. There were starlets. I have several dresses that fit the timeframe though.” I spread them out on the bed.
The first is a traditional flapper dress, bright green, with long fringe that flows in a cascade of sparkle. I hold it up to my chest.
“I love that one with your blond hair,” Zeba says.
It is a good match for my coloring.
“It might be too costume-like,” I say. “I have a feeling the people who go to this place probably have really authentic outfits.”
“I don’t know,” Zeba says. “I can’t imagine even rich people have good vintage just
lying around.”
I pick up the second dress. It’s much more subtly vintage than the green one. It’s deep black with a drop waist covered in smoky silver sequins. You could probably get away with wearing it to a modern event without anyone thinking too much of it. But I know it’s definitely 1920s. It was my great-grandmother’s.
“That one sure is beautiful,” Zeba says. “How did you get it?”
“It’s one of the things that my dad kept from his family. When my grandmother died ten years ago, he found it in her closet. There’s a picture of my great-grandmother wearing it that he always liked. It hangs in the hall of my house.”
The third dress is dusty rose, and definitely brings to mind the era. It falls below the knee, with perfectly creased pleats at the bottom. It has a little sparkle to it, but isn’t as formal as the silver one of my great-grandmother’s.
“I say definitely no to the green one,” Zeba says. “These other two are classy. It depends on how formal he’ll be.”
I turn to the full-length mirror, holding up both dresses. “Hudson is wearing a suit,” I say.
“Then I would go with the family dress. It might bring you luck anyway.”
She’s right. And I definitely need luck. There’s nothing normal about this night. Not the location. Not the way we’ll dress. And certainly not my date. We shouldn’t be together. And yet, here we are.
“I guess you don’t have to worry about being seen with him if this place is so secret.”
“That’s true.”
“And it sounds like there won’t be people taking pictures and posting them either.”
“Good point.”
“How are you going to do your makeup?” Zeba asks. “That’s always my favorite part to watch.”
“Big innocent eyes.” I hang the green and rose dresses in the far corner of my closet. My hand brushes the cherry-red halter dress that’s my favorite fifties look. Too bad it isn’t appropriate for this date. It would knock his socks off.
I sit at my desk, wearing only a silky slip. My hair is already done. I twisted it into a soft fat chignon, just to the right of the nape of my neck. A few tendrils are free to frame my face. They have been tightly wound in pin curls since this morning to get an authentic spiral that’s impossible to replicate with a modern curling iron.
Zeba scoots to the edge of my bed, hugging one of my yellow smiley face pillows to her belly. I’ve already done her smoky eyes for her date tonight. She and Adeel are going to a late movie.
I use a foundation slightly lighter than my normal skin tone. I want a porcelain effect on my face. This will be the perfect canvas to get the right look for the twenties. I watched no less than six tutorials this afternoon to make sure I had it right.
My phone buzzes on the bed, and Zeba picks it up. “Should I look?”
“Sure.” I focus on the careful brush of contour on my cheek, hairline, and below my jaw.
“It’s fighter boy,” Zeba says. “He says, ‘Can’t wait to see you.’”
I switch to eyeshadow. “He’s a charmer, isn’t he?”
“Sounds like it.” She sets down my phone. “You’re not worried about how this will end?”
I spot her concerned expression in my mirror.
“I’m taking it one day at a time.”
“What would your boss do if she knew?” Zeba asks.
I pull out a very fine eyeliner and carefully apply a broad sweep across my lid. “Technically, my personal life should not impact my job.”
“Except I thought the whole fighter thing wasn’t just about the job.”
She has me there. “It isn’t. I don’t know.”
She lets it go. That’s what makes her a good friend.
“That looks amazing,” Zeba says, peering at me in the mirror. “I could never do that even with a thousand YouTube tutorials.”
“That’s about what it took,” I say. “I certainly didn’t learn anything from my mother or sister.”
“I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup while I lived with my parents.”
I pick up the eyelash curler and press it to my lashes. When I have a good upward sweep, I open a little clear box, pulling out two perfect fake eyelashes.
“You’re going all the way tonight,” Zeba says. Then she clasps her hand over her mouth. After a second, she removes it and says, “I meant with the makeup.”
I shake my head. Despite her hot and heavy weekend a week ago, and presumably last night, Zeba still has an innocent mind.
“I know what you meant.”
Zeba sits on the bed. “So that begs the question, what are your intentions with fighter boy tonight?”
I think about the time at the beach. We were completely ready to take everything to the next level then.
But now we each know who the other is. I apply a thin line of glue to the edge of the false eyelash. As I wave it to let it dry enough to be sticky, I say. “I don’t think I can plan any of this. Even a day ahead. Even an hour ahead.”
Zeba falls back, still clutching my pillow. Her dark hair spreads out around her as she stares up at my ceiling. “The heart wants what the heart wants.”
She’s lucky. She found a guy she really likes, her mother approves of, and seems like a perfect fit. And here I’m thinking nonstop about the worst possible person I could ever date.
I carefully align the lash with my upper lid. It goes on perfectly, which means the other one will not. That’s just the way it works. As I apply glue to the second eyelash, Zeba gets up to run her fingers down the silver sequins on my dress.
“Sometimes I wonder if old clothes like this hold the memory of the events from when they were worn before.”
“That’s a thought.” I attempt to put on the second eyelash, but as expected, it goes wild. I pull it off. Great, now I have to fix all the makeup on that eye.
“Wouldn’t that be cool? All her happy times could be stored in the dress.”
I work with the eyelash, concentrating as I lay it across my lid. This time it falls true, and I hold it in place to make sure it stays until it’s set.
“I always have a good time when I’m with Hudson. I guess I’ll be adding to the memories.”
Zeba leaves the dress and sits on the corner of my bed. “Always a good time? Even in the police car?”
I think about this. Before Hudson got the car, I had been pretty hysterical, lost in memories of my father. Worried about my situation.
But when he showed up, I got completely calm. And he’d been there to save me. He bailed me out when my boss didn’t.
“Yes,” I tell Zeba, “even in the cop car.”
I blink my eyes. The long lashes give me this wide-eyed look you might see in a magazine ad for the period. I really ought to use false eyelashes more often.
I pick up the eyeshadow. I quickly fix the color that rubbed off when my first eyelash attempt failed. The liquid eyeliner, however, has held up fine. I just need lipstick, and I’m done.
“What time is he supposed to get here?”
I glance over at my smiley face clock. “Five minutes.”
“I’m guessing he’s the sort who is absolutely on time.”
I quickly line my lips, adding about an eighth of an inch to the top lip to give me a sweetheart pout.
“Actually, I bet he’s already here and waiting in his car until it’s time.”
Zeba jumps up. “No way. I’m going to check.”
As she runs off, I fill in my lip liner. Then I pull out my bullet-proof lipstick. My skin is pale, and the dress is silver; I can go with any color I want. I think dark red. This definitely seems like a night for the dramatic.
“I think I see him!” Zeba calls out. “Wait until you see his car!” She pops back in the bedroom and surveys my vivid mouth. “He’s going to kiss that color right off you.”
I think about Hudson kissing me again, and my body responds instantly.
I have no idea how this night will end.
I turn to the mirror and che
ck my lips.
That’s a lie.
I know exactly how it’s going to end.
Chapter 14: Hudson
When the door to Chloe’s apartment opens, I don’t expect to see a tall dark-haired girl who glares at me like a suspicious father on prom night.
“Hello,” I say. “Is this Chloe’s apartment?”
All sorts of things flash through my mind. That Chloe gave me a fake address. That she never intended to go out with me at all. All the things we said on our ice cream date were just a ploy to humiliate me. For a couple of seconds, I’m that gangly teenager in Hawaii who has no idea how to feel comfortable in his own skin.
Then I hear a voice from farther in the apartment.
“I got this,” Chloe says. “You don’t have to give him a speech about his dishonorable intentions.”
The girl steps aside, and that’s when I see her.
I’m blown away.
Chloe is a vision. She wears this classic black dress covered with silver sequins. She’s like a star walking through the room, leaving bits of light on everything around her. Her hair is sleek and elegant in a little knot at the side of her neck. And her eyes. I’m knocked backward by her gorgeous unbelievable eyes.
“Hudson, are you okay?” she asks.
The friend laughs. “I think you have struck him dumb.”
“This is my roommate, Zeba,” Chloe says.
“Hi,” I manage to get out. My eyes are still on Chloe.
“This is kind of amusing,” Zeba says. “I wish I had thought to video him. This is the sort of thing that goes viral. People will say, ‘Find someone who looks at you the way fighter boy looks at Chloe.’”
“Go on, Zeba,” she says. “We’re good.”
Zeba takes off across the room. “I hope you get a little of what I’ve been getting,” she calls over her shoulder.
I finally manage to tear my eyes away from Chloe long enough to look at her roommate. “What does she mean by that?” I ask.
“You don’t want to know,” Chloe says. She picks up a tiny silver purse. “I’m ready to go.”
