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Laughing, I ducked under his arms and thwacked him with the grocery bag. “I’m a zombie too! Save it for the hunters. Besides, zombies don’t eat zombie brains. Ewww!”
Nick grinned and ceased his shambling. “All right, Miss Zombie-Expert. I need a bit of help with this.” He held up a realistic dangling latex eyeball.
“Niiiice,” I said with a nod of approval. It would look great hanging out the eyehole of one of the zombie Mardi Gras masks I bought, if he wanted to wear one. “But you have to do my makeup first.”
“What? You don’t want me slathering goop on you when I’m half blind?” He closed his eyes and groped toward my face.
I laughed and batted his hand away. “I want to look like a zombie, not a clown. And I don’t want you poking makeup brushes in my eyes!”
“Chicken.” He grinned. “I’ll grab my kit.”
I plunked down in the chair, still smiling. Nick returned, carrying a small plastic tackle box. He sat in the other chair and set the box on my thighs. “Let’s see what we can do to ugly you up.”
I let out a tragic sigh. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
He flipped open the lid of the box, and I blinked in surprise at the contents. Makeup and brushes and sponges galore, and all of it appearing well-used. He fished a black stick out of the bottom. “Start simple. Sunken eyes.”
“How do you have so much makeup?” I grinned. “Do you do drag on the side?”
His lips twitched. “I’m not that good. I used to do theater. Did tons of plays with Tucker Point Little Theater up until I was seventeen.”
“That’s so cool!” I breathed. That was the most Nick had ever told me about his background in all the time I’d worked with him. Other than his rub-it-in-your-face crowing about being pre-med and going to med school, he didn’t mention his personal life much. “A friend and her mom took me there to see Wizard of Oz for my tenth birthday. It was amazing.”
Nick grinned. “You liked it, huh?” He rubbed the stick under my eyes then used his thumb to expertly smudge the color.
“Sure did. The way they did the smoke for the wizard. And the costumes!” I smiled, shrugged. “It was probably crap for real, but back then it felt like magic. I’d never seen anything like it. Real people singing and dancing and performing a story.”
“It wasn’t crap.” He exchanged the black stick for a small pot of white goop. “That show won the Louisiana Community Theater award for best children’s production.”
“You remember that?” My phone beeped with a text message. A quick glance told me it wasn’t anyone in my contacts, which meant it could wait.
A smile played around his mouth as he dabbed goop along my cheekbones. “I sure do.”
My slow brain finally put two and two together. “Wait. Were you in it?”
“Yep.” He closed the pot then wrung his hands and screwed his face into a mask of worry.
“The cowardly lion!? That was you?” I stared at him in awe. “I loved the lion!”
Nick beamed as he brushed powder on my nose. “Really?”
“Yeah. You were great.” I sighed in happy memory. “Such a scaredy cat, then you found your courage.”
/>
Nick’s smile slipped a little. Had I said something wrong? But he seemed to be proud of the role. “How’d you get the tail to swish like that?” I asked. “It had a mind of its own.”
He perked up again. “A munchkin’s dad rigged it up with fishing line and—” His phone rang. He glanced at the ID and couldn’t hide a grimace. “Sorry, Angel. I have to take this.”
He hurried out, far enough to be out of human earshot. Of course, I wasn’t exactly human. I pulled a baggie out of my pocket and munched a few dehydrated brain chips. And then a few more. The stupid V12 in my system meant I needed more brains than usual to activate my zombie senses. But hey, I wasn’t spying. I was hungry.
Nick’s voice carried to me. I can’t believe you want to do this today.
Pause.
No. That’s not what I mean. I just don’t—
Pause.
