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1
Maybe this is a bad idea?
Owen Blackthorne scanned the rooftop courtyard filled with sexy vampires, sexy witches, sexy superheroes, and sexy just about everything else one could buy at a costume shop. Lot of sexy characters at this party, that was for certain.
Biting back a chuckle, he adjusted his grip on the cold beer someone had thrust into his hand a few minutes ago.
“Sorry it’s not Fosters,” the sexy zombie NASCAR driver had said as he lurched away before Owen could tell him real Aussies didn’t drink Fosters.
Having said that, the non-Fosters had helped Owen any time someone cast a judgmental eye on him, or rather, a judgmental eye on the costume he’d chosen to wear to the party. After every critical look, he’d taken a sip from the can. Which meant he’d taken a hell of a lot of fucking sips from the can by this stage.
Yeah, definitely a bad idea.
He plucked at the large, soft-toy stingray he’d pinned to his khaki shirt an hour ago, its tail “embedded” in his chest via some very dodgy stitching on his behalf, and wondered where his sister was. He’d flown all the way to San Diego from Australia to see her, and on his second night in the country, she’d dragged him to a Halloween party on the rooftop of her apartment complex. Of course, Tilly being Tilly, she had offered to help him with his costume. In fact, she’d had a few possible options already selected on her phone from somewhere called Costumes-R-Us when she’d collected him at the airport. As far as Tilly was concerned, her big brother was coming to the party as either Thor or a US Postal worker.
However, while she was at work today, he’d gotten his clever on and created his own costume: that of the expired Steve Irwin. Owen was a high-school mathematics teacher back in Sydney, after all. He was good at getting his clever on. Who knew people wouldn’t appreciate his sense of humor over here?
A sexy fairy sashayed past, eyeing him up. She smiled, biting her lip and playing with a glittering strand of purple hair, before her gaze fell on the stingray partially hidden by the non-Fosters can in his hand, and disgust filled her face.
“Yeah, very much a bad idea, Blackthorne,” he muttered to himself as she hurried away.
Maybe if he told everyone here he was the second cousin to one of the world’s biggest rock stars, they’d give him a break about his costume choices? Then again, cashing in on the Blackthorne fame had never been his thing. He’d traveled down that path once as a teenager, and it had only ended in… Well, self-contempt.
Taking another pull from his beer, he accepted he had no idea where Tilly was and decided maybe it was time to head back down to her apartment without her. She’d come to the party dressed as a sexy scientist. It was a little disturbing to see his little sister showing off way more flesh than a scientist normally would. Tilly’s IQ was off the scale, and the garb she normally wore to work at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies had way more fabric.
Seriously, mate, stop being a prude. She’s just turned twenty-six. You need to freaking relax.
True. He did.
He also needed to head back to her apartment and get some sleep. His body was still operating on Aussie time, and Tilly had five years of sightseeing planned for tomorrow.
He’d try for some shut-eye, and maybe his thirty-two-year-old body wouldn’t feel like it was 100 tomorrow.
Sculling the rest of his non-Fosters, he placed the empty can on the chest-high concrete bar table he stood next to, nodded at the sexy wizard—or was that a BDSM wizard?—looking at him and his stingray. He turned to go and bumped straight into a vision in fluffy brown and black.
“Steve Irwin!” the vision said before he could apologize, sweeping ice blue eyes over him, her lips stretching into a wide smile. “You’re a dead Steve Irwin, am I right?”
“I am.” He dipped his head in a quick nod. “Wait, I mean, crikey, mate. That’s fair dinkum.” She laughed. He grinned. “Thank you. You’re the first person here to approve of it.”
The vision laughed again, and a shot of liquid lust sank straight into Owen’s balls. Holy smokes, he liked the sound of that laugh: throaty and uninhibited.
She brushed at a strand of copper-red hair hanging over her eyes. “My sense of humor always tends to err on the weird side.”
“Weird is good,” he approved.
“I agree.”
Trying not to be obvious, he took her in. An hour into the party, and he still wasn’t sure of the Halloween-costume protocol. Was it okay to openly check out a person’s costume? Or was that considered unacceptable?
As if sensing his uncertainty, the vision held her arms wide and did a slow 360 in front of him, showing off the baggy, brown onesie with its long tail and black splotches, the brown dog-ears headband, and the blue dog collar around her neck. “Scooby-Doo,” she said. Damn it, even her American accent with its slight European lilt pushed his buttons. “From, well, Scooby-Doo.”
“Is there a Shaggy?” he asked and then internally winced. Shit, what kind of question was that? Now she’d be thinking he was hitting on her?
Aren’t you?
“God, I hope not,” she said, a devilish light glinting in her eyes. “And if there was, I’d knee him in the nuts.”
Owen blinked. And retreated a fraction of a step.
