“Fuck off!” he shouts, then laughs. “Now they’ll go away.”
“Excuse me?” the voice on the other side says. Definitely female. Definitely not going away.
Baz goes, “Oh, fuck.”
Yep. Definitely Carly.
He gets up, pulls on his jeans.
“Seriously?” I demand, crossing my arms over my bare chest.
“I need to deal with this. Just… just wait, okay? Don’t go.”
Like I’m going anywhere with that harpy outside the door.
Baz goes out into the hall, leaving me in here to stew. Quickly, I pull on my clothes. Through the door I hear their muffled arguing, Carly’s shrill voice, his deep one.
A few minutes later, he’s back, all the darkness seeping back into his energy.
“What was that about?”
“Stevie…” He shoves a hand through his hair, blows out a breath. “I can’t tell you. But it’s not—”
“Look,” I say firmly, trying my best to hold on to my anger. “I know we’re not, like, exclusive. And it’s none of my business who else you’re seeing. But if Carly thinks you guys are together, I can’t—”
“There’s no one else. Not Carly, not anyone. Only you. Okay?”
“I don’t want to do this if I’m going to have to fight off the Claires every time I want to see you. I’m still holding my breath, waiting for those pictures to turn up.”
“They won’t. I deleted them off Emory’s phone.”
“She might’ve made copies.”
“They won’t,” he says again, adamant. He crosses the room, reaching for my face, but I step back.
“Stevie, just… Trust me, please. Can you just trust me? Just a little bit longer?”
I offer a sad smile, plucking the devil horns form his head. “Sorry, Baz. That was the wrong favor to ask.”
Fifty
STEVIE
Despite the late hour, the campus is still crawling with revelers, all of them happy and laughing, an endless parade of drunk skeletons and hermits and devils, too.
I don’t want to go home. But I don’t feel like partying, either.
So at three in the morning, I find myself heading to a familiar place.
And there, on the steps of the library I’ve come to love, I run into a familiar face.
“Stevie? You’re out late,” Kirin says, swallowing hard as he takes in the sight of me. I’ve still got the dress and the horns, but my hair is pulled in to a careless bun, my makeup left behind, all over Baz’s pillowcase. “I mean, you look nice,” he says. “Are you… did you have a good Halloween?”
Oh, God, please don’t see it in my eyes. Please don’t ask me anything else about my night. Please just… just go.
“I was just… I felt like doing a little work,” I say.
“Me too. I mean, I came here to work. But now I’m going home.”
