Page 65 of Level Up for Love

Chapter

Eighteen

The rest of the evening passes in bursts of color and sound. While I’m careful to have only another drink or two—I’m not about to get messy in Arthur’s house, despite the fact that he’s called rides for a couple of people, including one partygoer whose face was so green that it no longer matched the pasty bald cap of her Pitbull costume—I can’t remember the last time I felt this…drunk. There’s a warmth in my chest that feels new, and my limbs feel light and bubbly, like I could float away at any moment and disappear into the stars.

I’m happy.

Tonight’s the most fun I’ve had in ages. With my help, Mona does crush Arthur in that game of beer pong, though he has the last laugh. Later, feeling cocky, I challenge everyone to a test of strength: arm wrestling. I beat Mona, Colin, Wesley—who flushes a bright red when he loses—and Shay, who puts up a surprisingly good fight and lasts much longer than the others. But it turns out Arthur has hidden strength underneath his baggy shirts and jeans, and I’m only too happy to surrender my title to the High King. Colin gets the drunkest of us all, and Wesley has a hell of a time speaking to him in a cartoonishly high-pitched version of Vadrien’s Eastern European accent, which has Colin bent over as he releases laughter so loud and shrill that I can compare it only to a screeching eagle.

After a while, I disappear into the bathroom to fix my lipstick, but I have to pause for a few extra minutes when my eyes start to flood unexpectedly with tears.

“Shit,” I mutter. “Shit, shit, shit—”

I’d left the door cracked open, and at the worst possible time, Shrek materializes in the mirror behind me. Mona takes one look at my face, and her eyes go wide. “Oh my god, what happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I swear.”

“You’re fucking crying, Reagan, what’s—”

“I’m not, not really, I—” I stare up at the fluorescent lighting and blink rapidly. “God, this is embarrassing,” I say with a laugh. “I’m just—I’m having a lot of fun. Aren’t you having a lot of fun?”

“Oh, honey,” Mona says. She passes me some toilet paper, and I press it under my eyelashes, catching the tears before they fall. I won’t ruin my makeup for this.

“I hate it, but I miss them sometimes. I miss the friends we had,” I admit, and the admission makes the pressure build behind my eyes all over again. “Or at least, I miss when we got to do things like this. I know it’s new and that half of them probably still hate me, but it’s just…it’s nice. For tonight, it’s really nice.”

“Reagan!” Mona croons my name sympathetically and folds me into a tight hug. “I miss them sometimes, too. But tonight has been so fun, and honestly, nobody hates you. We just take a bit to warm up to, don’t we?” She laughs again, and then her eyes narrow playfully. “But speaking of warming up…I followed you in here to ask what you two were doing out there.”

I wince. “Colin was the one who challenged me to the chugging contest, I didn’t—”

“Not what I’m talking about.”

I coyly purse my lips and continue to dab on color. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“Are you trying to seduce the villain, Reagan?” Mona teases. “Is that how you’re going to defeat Vadrien?”

The door creaks open wider, and Colin, of all people, shoulders his way into the bathroom. “Oh my god, are we talking strategy in here?” His eyes are feverishly bright.

Mona dissolves into a fit of giggles as I grin and shake my head. “Well, not quite—”

“Because I have a really good idea,” Colin interrupts before pitching his voice in a dramatic whisper. “But you can’t tell Wes.”

“Didn’t your last idea involve filling a pit with blood?” I ask.

Colin scoffs. “This one’s different,” he insists. The slurring of his words makes them extra convincing. “Are you going to hear me out or not?”

“Please,” Mona says. “Do tell.”

“Oh, I will.” He sways a little as he locks eyes with Mona. “Because if this really works out, Moss is going to be the one to save us all. Here’s how it needs to go…”

We spend the rest of the night sitting cross-legged on the bathroom floor, drunkenly hatching a plan to save the kingdom. It will take effort on Mona’s part, but it may just work.

Even after Arthur kicks us out with a booming laugh, for the second time that night, I can’t remember when I last had this much fun.

As a tiny spear sinks into her thigh and draws blood, Sindra’s hand flashes to her side on instinct, where her sword would usually be. But the tailor just smiles up at her apologetically and continues making alterations, promising to be more careful with her needle.

Sindra clenches her fists at her sides, tail flicking irritably behind her. For the thousandth time, she has to remind herself that this was her idea.

For much of the week, the party had argued over their course of action, circling through the same ideas they’d had before the bats arrived. But when Sindra spoke up for the very first time, they had gone slack-jawed at her suggestion.