Dark Wild Night

by Christina Lauren

  “Well, to be fair, it’s not like you and I really talk about those kinds of things.”

  He doesn’t reply to this, and I quickly add, “I mean, it’s fine. We don’t need to. I just—that’s why I left. Because it felt like I was being sort of intrusive. I don’t want to get into your personal business, Oliver. I totally respect that space.”

  When he looks down at me, he seems confused. “I feel . . .” he says, and then shakes his head. “Fuck. I feel like maybe we need to talk.”

  Something sharp wiggles in my stomach. That is never the way a good conversation starts. “Aren’t we talking right now?”

  “I mean,” he says, pacing, “last night was sort of . . . different for us. Was it just me?”

  I look down at my shoe and poke at the carpet with my toe, awkwardness pushing its way into my posture. “No, I think I know what you mean. I’m sorry about that.”

  Stepping closer, he says, “No.” And then more quietly, “Don’t be. That isn’t what I mean.”

  His hand comes up, slowly cupping the side of my jaw. I feel the sweep of his middle finger against my pulse point and he stares at his own hand, lips parted as if he can’t quite believe what he’s just done.

  Like trying to see through thick fog, I’m trying to remember why I thought kissing Oliver might not be a good idea. Because right now I know without a doubt he’s thinking about it, too.

  My phone blares in my back pocket, so loud it startles us both. I step back and reach for it. “Sorry, I forgot I’ve been turning the ringer on lately. . . .” When I pull it out, we look down in unison and see the name Austin Adams on the screen.

  “Jesus, how often does he call?” Oliver asks in a thick whisper.

  “Sorry, just . . . one sec.” I hold up a finger as I answer. “Hi, Austin.”

  “Loles!” he yells. Oliver turns to face the window, but I’m sure he can hear everything Austin says because I have to hold it away from my ear it’s so loud. I can hear wind in the background and imagine him zipping through the Hollywood Hills in a convertible. “Wanted to see if you were going to be up in L.A. this week? Langdon is chomping at the bit to start. I’d love for you two to meet ASAP.”

  “I can come up anytime,” I say. Oliver turns back to me, and I smile up at him, but he seems too distracted to return it.

  “Great,” Austin says. “There’s a small studio party tomorrow night at the Soho House in West Hollywood. He’ll be there, and I’d love if you could come. We could do the introductions, maybe start to hash out some of the bigger questions: What is Razor’s origin story? How old is Quinn? If she’s eighteen in the opening—”

  “Wait. Quinn is fifteen,” I cut in. “What do you mean?”

  I can practically imagine him waving a hand. “Don’t worry about it now. There are just a lot of angles to consider in the film adaptation. Questions of strength, sexuality, balancing normal life and the desire to continue her work as a vigilante.”

  Sexuality?

  I look up at Oliver, whose brows are now drawn.

  “So,” Austin continues and the background noise decreases, as if he’s just pulled into a garage. “I’ll make sure you’re on the list. Eight. Tomorrow. You can make it?”

  “Yes,” I say, quickly adding, “I think so.”

  “Great,” he says. A door slams and a car alarm chirps in the background. “I’ll try not to hog you all to myself.”

  “Sounds good,” I say.

  “Until then!”

  The line goes dead.

  I slide my phone onto the coffee table and look up at Oliver, giving him a wide-eyed what the fuck just happened face. A tiny smile flicks up the corners of his mouth, but it quickly melts away, and then he just studies me in the ringing silence.

  “You all right?” he asks quietly.

  I feel the cold prick of panic spread across my neck, nausea bubbles in my belly. The two conversations—with Oliver, with Austin—are oil and vinegar, splashing around in my thoughts.

  I blink, trying to figure out which one to tackle first. My brain trips on the idea of Quinn as an eighteen-year-old at the start of the story, and I feel my breaths grow shallow and tight. It doesn’t work; she’s young for her age even at fifteen; she’s immature and innocent. Making her older would completely change her journey.

  I blink harder, sliding my thoughts toward Oliver, but instead of being able to relish the idea of touching him, feeling him, being his, my brain snags on the instinctive fear of losing what we have now, the inevitable changes to us, the possibility of a life without him.

  “Lola.” Oliver says it so quietly, so free of emotion that I’m not sure if he’s checking in on me after what Austin just dropped, or trying to return to what we were discussing when he first got here.

  The panel shows a girl, hunched over, scribbling on a page so furiously the pencil snaps.

  “Can we take one thing at a time?” I ask, finally looking up at him. “I’m sort of frazzled all of a sudden, and this is a big conversation.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to be able to talk about last night after . . . that.” He nods to my phone, smiling a little.

  “I’m not saying we shouldn’t have the conversation. I just . . .” I sigh. “I’m inarticulate at the moment.”

  Oliver nods. His face is calm, eyes warm and engaged. He really does seem to understand. Even so—and maybe it resides only in me—but there’s a residue, some film left between us, like I took this perfect glossy moment of potential and smeared a greasy hand over it.

  “I get it.” He digs his hands into his pocket and his jeans dip, exposing the top of his boxers. I look over his shoulder, out the window, and he adds, “One thing at a time.”

  I walk over to the couch, collapse on the seat, and throw an arm over my face. Sometimes the fantasy of getting everything you ever wanted is so much easier than the reality pressing up against the glass.

  “Do you want to talk through it?” he asks. “Quinn as an eighteen-year-old, that is,” he adds quickly. “The idea really fucks with me. I feel like they might be setting up Razor and Quinn as love interests.”

  The cool stab of panic returns. “I know. I know. Fuck.” I rub my hands over my face, feeling too overwhelmed to think about it right now. Tilting my head I ask, “And maybe we can talk about it on the drive to L.A. tomorrow?”

  His brow furrows. “You want me to come?”

  I hesitate for just a moment. The rational part of my brain is holding up warning signs while the emotional part insists I need him by my side. “Of course I want you there,” I tell him. “Who else will help me remember all the names and elbow me when I start doodling on a napkin? Unless you don’t want to co—”

  “I do. Just wondered if you’d rather go with one of the girls.”

  I feel my gaze narrow slightly. “No . . . I want to go with you.”

  He swallows, nodding as he looks to the side. “Well, then . . . sure.”

  “I’ll meet you at the store at six?”

  “Sounds good,” he says. He’s blushing. I’ve never seen Oliver blush before. “Anything specific I need to wear?”

  My heart is beating way too fast and I’m reminded of the time Harlow convinced me to go bungee jumping, and those terrifying, thrilling seconds before we took the leap. I push my palm against my chest and struggle to sound casual when I say, “Just look pretty for me.”

  Chapter SIX

  Oliver

  I RARELY TAKE A day off—in fact, I haven’t taken an entire day away since the store opened four months ago—but I need it today.

  I sleep in, have coffee on the back porch, and watch a mourning dove build a nest in my eaves.

  I run a few miles along the water, to Cove Beach and back.

  I get the car serviced and washed.

  I clean the house, shower. Eat and dress.

  And I give myself the entire day to think about what’s happening with me and Lola.

  I want it to be conscious—intentional—between u
s. I don’t want to slide into something with her without thought, not only because our friendship is one of the best and most important of my life, but because even though we don’t talk about it much, I know her relationship history isn’t particularly positive.

  Harlow has hinted that Lola’s few relationships have ended after only the briefest life spans, that Lola tends to keep men at an emotional arm’s length, and that she spooks easily. Even if I hadn’t seen the spooking with my own eyes two days in a row—at my house, at the store yesterday—I could have figured it out after a single conversation with her father where I learned the most telling detail of Lola’s life: her mother left when she was twelve, without even saying goodbye. It’s like a bruise that sits just under her skin, one that darkens whenever she lets herself get too close.

  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.

  “I’m glad you approve,” I say. “I’m parked around the corner.”

  She follows me out, saying goodbye to Joe. And then she takes my arm and smiles up at me. “I definitely approve.”

  Yep. I am fucked.

  * * *

  I’VE ALWAYS KNOWN Lola to grow quiet when she’s thinking about something that’s troubling her. I assumed that the reason she doesn’t tend to talk out her problems the way Harlow and even Ansel do is that she wants to take the time to sort through it on her own first. But when she brings up the conversation with Austin in the car, and wants me to list some of the pros of his ideas, I lock up, wondering whether the reason she likes to take so long before talking about things is that she doesn’t always trust her own judgment.

  “I’m not sure I could argue the merits of either suggestion,” I hedge, merging onto the 5 North freeway.

  “Just for the exercise,” she says. “Why might it be better for Razor to be from another planet?”

  I sit quietly, thinking on the question. But my mind reflexively fights it; they’re both shit ideas. Quinn shouldn’t be made into a sexual creature. Razor isn’t an alien. There’s no reason to change it.

  The tires trip easily over the road and Lola stares out her window while she also thinks about it. It’s these easy moments where I seem to plummet deeper in love with her.

  “I guess it could allow them to do something cooler visually?” she muses after a few minutes of silence. “Some more creative way to flash back to his life before without just a panel shift.”

  Shrugging, I say, “I guess, but Razor’s alternate time in the book is just as visually different in flashbacks as another planet would be. I mean, the way you do it is unique, but time shifts are done elsewhere, too. The Multiversity collapses all parallel timelines into the Hypertime.”

  “I know, but maybe that argues Austin’s case. Multiversity collapses all of the DC timelines to explain how they all could exist. Maybe the idea of parallel time is easier to grasp there because people want a way to reconcile all the various takes on the same characters.”

  “I think yours is simpler,” I say, adding, “more elegant, I mean. It starts with the idea of a parallel time loop. It doesn’t use it to explain things in hindsight.”

  She hums, nodding at this. “I guess I’ll just need to hear what they say. It’s so easy to do something when it’s just me and a book and my ideas. It’s different when I expose it all to this larger collective consciousness.”

  This thought lands heavily between us. She’s going to let Austin and the scree
nwriter try to convince her? And maybe she should. But I can’t help but feel like I wouldn’t. Like a man in her position maybe wouldn’t.

  “It’s not because you feel cowed by him?” I ask her.

  Lola tilts her head. “It’s not my expertise,” she says, adding, “Film, I mean.”

  “But the story is. Razor is. Quinn is.” Quinn is you, I want to say. Don’t let him change you. Don’t let him sexualize your journey from ruin to triumph.

  Nodding, she looks back out the window. “I know. I’m just thinking about how I want to handle it.”

  “What if he insists Quinn be eighteen?” I ask her. “What if he says without a romance angle in the story, it won’t float in Hollywood?”

  Lola turns and looks at me, and I catch a flash of fury in her eyes before I have to look back at the road. “He might be right,” she says. “That’s what sucks. It might need romance to work as a commercial film. We didn’t sell this to an art-house indie. We sold it to a major studio. Profit is the key. And I knew that going in.”

  I see what she’s saying but it twists me, tightly. “You wouldn’t push back?”

  “Of course I would,” she says. “And I know what you’re saying, but I guess I want to make sure I do it right. You should have seen the meeting. Angela and Roya got maybe three words in, and they’re the executive producers here. And contractually, I only have so much input.”

  “Really?” I’m aware of the comic community’s ongoing discussion about feminine representation on the page and in creative staffing, but I still find myself surprised that Lola’s film might not be hers after all.

  She nods. “I’m twenty-three. I’m the first female comic creator to have a major motion picture, and I’m one of the few people out there writing and illustrating it all. If I was Stan Lee or Geoff Johns walking in there—or even just some nobody guy with my age and experience—I could tell them what the fuck to do and they would listen. A man having strong opinions and pushing back right away is someone with sound business sense. If I walk in there as Lola Castle and push back, I’m pushy and hard to work with. Maybe someone will even use the word bitch.”