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“Oh,” Silas put his hands on his hips. “Is Nathan playing the zombie who gets his nails painted?”
Nathan and the others started chuckling. I did, too.
“Wait,” I said. “You’re not with Victor, Silas?”
Silas shook his head. “Haven’t seen him all day.”
This struck me as odd. With all the distractions, I couldn’t put my finger on it. “Do you want your nails painted, Silas?” I asked, looking for something to do so I could think.
“Yes,” he said without hesitating.
Nathan leaned away from me, and he blew out the second candle. “You’re going to get wax on all of these,” Nathan said.
“She’s got to blow out at least one,” Luke said.
“Light them all,” Gabriel said. “Let her get it done now.”
“Should we wait for Victor?” I asked. “Is he coming?”
Gazes were exchanged over my head. I got the feeling they were checking with each other to see who knew where Victor was.
Kota sucked in a deep breath, hauling himself off the couch. “I’ll go call his house. This lack of cell phones is really getting to be a hassle.”
I finished up Nathan’s other pinkie with the red polish.
“Scoot over,” Silas told Nathan.
Nathan grunted but picked himself up, crumbling the cupcake wrapper in his hand. Luke was just lighting another candle on top of a cupcake when Nathan bent over and blew it out the moment it was lit.
“This cupcake is going up your nose,” Luke said.
Nathan laughed and moved around the couch. “I’ll go get napkins and a bin to throw away these wrappers.”
Silas sat down on the floor. He scooted close like Nathan had done. He bent his knees as he put his legs on either side of me, and it was almost like I had disappeared in Silas as he surrounded me.
I was twisting slightly to accommodate Silas, when Gabriel smacked my calf. “Oy! Don’t move.” But he lifted my foot up so he could look at it more closely, and started blowing across my toes. “This has to dry before I add the next color.”
“I get more colors?” I asked, checking out the neon green.
“You’ll see.”
“Aggele mou.” Silas held up a hand, fingers spread. “What are we doing?”
“I need a new color,” I said, twisting the top on the red polish until it was closed tight.
Gabriel went through the collection of bottles and found a dark blue one. He tossed it over to me.
“Si,” North said, “I can’t believe you’re letting her do that to you.”
“Sang can do whatever she wants to me,” Silas said, and he wriggled his fingers on his knee.
“Do you want the pinkies done, too?”
“Do them all. I don’t care.”
North tilted his head back on the couch and laughed. “I never thought I’d see Silas excited to be prettied up.”
“I wouldn’t be talking, if I were you,” Silas said.
I blushed, trying to twist the top of the polish from the bottle, but it was pretty stuck. Silas took it from my hands, opened the bottle and passed me the brush.
“Like hell if you think I’m getting my nails done,” North said.
“Sang wants you to,” Silas said. “Don’t you?”
I concentrated on hitting Silas’s pinkie nail with the dark blue polish. “Maybe.”
“Baby, tell Silas you wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Silas said. “He wants his nails done, and he wants them in pink.”
“Silas.”
“Trust me,” he said. “Look him in the eyes. He totally wants pink.”
I lifted the brush, twisting myself around a little and gazing back at the couch. North was smirking, but the vibe I got was you better not dare.
Silas leaned in to whisper by my ear. “Do that lip pout and ask.”
“I can hear you,” North said. “And pouting doesn’t work on me.”
“Oy, oy!” Gabriel dropped a hand smack on my calf. “Don’t you fucking dare start that shit. North, you’re getting your nails done.”
“I’m not getting shit.”
“You’re getting it because it’s for Trouble’s birthday and she gets to do what she wants and what she wants right now is to paint nails and I’ll kick your fucking ass if she even thinks of starting to pout that lip.”
Silas chuckled behind me, his body shaking. It made it hard to focus on painting his nails. The other fingers were easier to paint when the fingernails were broader. I was going to stop with just the pinkies, but Silas encouraged me to paint all of them. So he ended up with all dark blue fingernails.
“Your turn, North,” Silas said when his had dried enough that he could get up.
North was replacing Silas on the floor when Kota and Nathan came back. The look on Kota’s face was grim.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He tried to perk up. “Nothing. Was trying to get a hold of Victor. He’s at home but the maid kept insisting he wasn’t available and she wouldn’t interrupt him. She said she’d inform him of the call.”
“Did they get a new maid?” Luke asked. “She doesn’t know?”
Kota shook his head.
“Know what?” I asked.
“Our calls take priority,” Kota said. His eyes focused on mine, and for once I got a dash of that silent communication. There was an Academy regulation in there somewhere, I might not be able to get any more answers.
The thought that had been hovering in my brain earlier finally settled in. “When Victor left me at the hospital, he promised he was going to find one of you and get you to go with him to look for security tapes near the spa and to check out stuff at home.”
Kota lifted an eyebrow. “He could have done it himself. We’ve all been running around.”
I rolled the bottle of nail polish in my hands. This didn’t feel right. Was it just because Victor wasn’t there and the others were? Was it because I missed him? No, it was more than that. I was worried. “So no one’s heard from him since I saw him last?”
“He’s fine,” Kota said. “He’s at home. The maid said he was there.”
That still didn’t seem right. He went home and he’s staying there? He didn’t call? He didn’t tell anyone what happened? “Is he okay?”
“Baby,” North said, and he popped me on the thigh with his palm. “Stop it. You’re worrying too much.”
“But ...”
“Victor’s a big boy. The maid said he was home. He can take care of himself. If he’s at home and he’s locked
himself up, there’s a reason.” He wrapped an arm around my stomach, his palm met my side, his fingers spread out. He held up one knee and with the opposite hand, positioned it to be steady. “Now are you going to make me do this or not?”
I didn’t understand why he wasn’t more worried. It’s not like Victor had his regular cell phone on him. He had three on him now, and the one I had was manipulated by the masked man guy. Did Victor know about that?
Gabriel passed a bottle of black polish to me. I drew quiet as the others ate cupcakes and talked around me about things going on in the movie.
I finished up North’s pinkies with black, and held up one of his hands, putting my lips close and blowing at the polish to dry it.
North pressed his nose to my hair. “Sang Baby,” he said softly. “What did you really want for your birthday?”
“I wanted to go do things you wanted to do,” I said quietly. “Can we go do something together?”
I sensed North’s mouth against my head, his lips curled up. “Is that what you really want?”
I realized the way I said it came out probably sounding very personal and forward. “I ... well, I mean, when we can ...”
“I’ve been promising you the beach, and now it’s almost too late in the season to go.”
“I don’t mind,” I said, unsure what I was suggesting. It was almost like he felt bad he hadn’t taken me yet. I knew more than anyone how busy and crazy things had gotten. “I’ll go when you want me to.”
He dipped his head, inhaling sharply at my neck. “Tell me to go now, and we’ll walk out of here.”
“Trouble,” Gabriel finished with a pink polish. He picked my foot up, blowing on it. He passed the hot pink color to me. “Here. Put this on his nails, too.”
“Don’t give me any pink,” North said. He had one hand on my side, and smoothed out the shirt I was wearing against my body in a comforting motion.
“Let her if she wants,” Gabriel said. He picked my foot up closer, hovering his lips over and blowing at the toenails. He held up my foot a little. “Look, Sang.”
Gabriel managed to draw tiny pink cherry blossom flowers in a pattern across my toes on top of the green.
“You want this on the other foot?” he asked.
