Page 10 of Fall into Place

And okay, so maybe Oscar had been trying to flirt, and that made her feel more than a little uneasy. Sometimes she wondered if waiting so long to try dating again would put an outsized burden on whomever she dated next—a burden so large there was no possible way for a stranger to carry it. Then again, Oscar wasn’t a stranger. She could have a beer with him, and relax, and see what happened. She’d tell him when she had to leave for work, and maybe he’d offer to walk her to the subway, and they’d kiss softly, briefly, on a well-lit corner where nothing more could happen.

No—she shook off the image. That would be too much; she wasn’t ready. But still, it was nice to think that someday she could be.

She reapplied her red lipstick in the bathroom mirror, then blotted it carefully so it wouldn’t smudge across her face when she took a sip of beer. She smiled at her reflection, took a deep breath, and opened the door to go back to the party.

“Rosie? Oh my god, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

Tess stopped short. This wasn’t happening. He couldn’t be here. Why would he be here? Joni and Rick had written one article together, but they were never friends. What the hell was he doing here?

“I…I’m still friends with Joni,” Tess choked out. He was standing right here, with his easy rich-guy clothes, khaki shorts and a soft linen button-down, not even bothering to pretend to dress on-theme, with his full lips and crooked nose and floppy curls. But he was also in his apartment on Valentine’s Day, snow falling over the Hudson. Rocks glasses made of cut crystal, the whiskey his dad brought back from Japan. Their clothes piled on the floor. Her foggy memories.

“Oh yeah? That’s so great.” He smiled. “Joni’s the coolest, who else could get our whole department to dress up as vampires?”

“Right, totally.” Tess mumbled her agreement, and she felt crazy, like she was choking on poison fog, because he was acting like this was a normal conversation and she could still feel his hands covering her mouth.

“So how have you been, Rosie? Is everything good? It’s really nice to see you.”

He called her Rosie because of her last name, Rosenbloom. She mentioned once in class that she loved blue roses because of The Glass Menagerie, how the gentleman caller always called Laura “blue roses” because he’d misheard the word “pleurosis.” Rick said it was funny, because a person could mishear Tess’s last name as “rose in bloom.” He only ever called her Rosie after that. She used to love it. She used to live for hours, days, on the memory of the last time he said it. The hope for the next time he’d say it.

“I have to go to work.” The words fell out of her mouth in a torrent, the syllables eliding like she was drunk and slurring, her brain lacking the control to make the sounds into cogent speech. All her energy in that moment was focused on her feet, because she had to leave, she couldn’t wait another second, she had to fucking go.

She walked away from Rick and shoved through the mess of partygoers, not looking back to see who was pissed at being jostled or having their drink spilled. They probably thought she was an asshole, same as Joni did, and it didn’t matter, and she didn’t care, because all of it was fine as long as she could not be here anymore. She saw Oscar craning his neck to look for her, two beers in hand, but she turned away before he could see her face. She barely knew him, she was already a disappointment.

She pushed through the front door into the hall and stumbled into the street. The air was thick and hot, the sun had only just gone down. Tess paused to lean against the stone banister that led up to the rest of the building, breathing hard. She was out of there—and the idea that she could come back to this world, to Columbia, to a campus and meetings and parties that included Rick, was laughably out of the question.

But as she took deep breaths and her heartbeat steadied, she decided she wasn’t going to wallow in her panic either, not again. This wasn’t three years ago. She could get on the train and cross the river and not look back. Better yet—she’d go even farther: quit her job, leave New York. She had a marketable skill now; she could go work at some other hotel in some other country, anywhere in the world. Five years was long enough to be trapped in the same city as a monster like Rick. It was time for Tess to make her escape.

“Tess?”

Tess looked back—Joni was there, shadowed in the doorway, hurt and confusion clearly legible across her expressive face. “You’re leaving?”

“I—yeah, I’m sorry, I’m working tonight, so…” Tess could feel sweat beading at her hairline. “I’m sorry to leave so early.”

“Without saying goodbye?” Joni stepped out of the doorway and into the light. “Tess, it’s my birthday.”

“I know!” Tess sputtered lamely. “It’s just—work.”

“I don’t understand.” Joni’s voice broke.

Tess felt her lungs contracting in pain—she couldn’t get a clean breath. Everything felt ragged.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I have to go.”

Chapter 2

Excerpt from Blood Feud

(book three, chapter nine)

by August Lirio

Callum grinned at Octavia, blood dripping from his fangs. He was soaked from the fight, his shirt gleaming crimson, a look of savage wildness in his eyes.

“Oh my god,” Octavia sputtered. “You liked that, didn’t you?”

“ ’Course I did.” Callum slicked back his hair with bravado. “Spot of violence, adrenaline going, what’s not to like?”

“Aren’t you sick of fighting Felix after all this time?” Octavia pleaded. “Konstantin is long dead, what does it matter anymore which of you was his favorite? We’re all trapped on this stupid island—”