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My heart falls. Normally, I’d take it as a sign that late-night revelry is not in the cards, and my pajamas are waiting, but tonight, I have a handsome stranger on my arm, and a new determination in my veins.
I want an adventure, dammit.
So, I don’t break stride. I steer us past the house – veering to avoid a drunk kid dressed in a Minion suit falling face-first onto the sidewalk – and look around, thinking fast.
I need a plan B.
Then I spot a swanky hotel down the block, lit up with gorgeous art-deco details. There’s a doorman out front, greeting guests arriving in costume: classy ones, with elegant masquerade masks.
Now, that’s more Lola’s style …
“Here we are!” I say breezily, as I pull him down the street. Reeve follows, and soon, we’re strolling through the front doors of the hotel lobby. It’s a gorgeous restoration: chandeliers glittering above marble floors. There’s a long oak-paneled bar to one side, low velvet couches clustered around a crackling fireplace, and through the open doors of the grand ballroom I can see, to my utter delight, what looks like an honest-to-goodness masquerade ball, everyone in spangled gowns and feathered masks.
“Is this anEyes Wide Shutsituation?” Reeve murmurs beside me. “Because I told you, I’m game for anything tonight, a man just needs a little warning if he’s going to be performing for an audience …”
I laugh and flash him a wicked smile, “Only one way to find out.”
We head in the direction of the party, but when we reach the ballroom, a security guy smoothly moves to block our path. “Sorry,” he says. “We’re closed for a private event.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Reeve says.
The doorman looks over our costumes, dubious. “Invitations?”
Shit.
Reeve is looking to me expectantly, so I flash a big smile and start patting down my catsuit, which has exactly zero room in it for so much as a stick of gum. “Gee, I must have forgotten it. Silly me. Any chance you can let us in anyway?”
I flutter my eyelashes, but the doorman isn’t biting. “Nope.”
More guests arrive – these ones, with invitations – so we move away from the door to let them through.
I look around, feeling stubborn now. Ivy Fortune would give up and slink away right about now, be polite and follow the rules, but what did polite rule-following ever get me?
A mountain of divorce lawyer and therapy bills, that’s what.
“When you said, ‘come to a party’, did you by any chance really mean, ‘crash one without an invite?’” Reeve murmurs, but he’s still looking charmed rather than annoyed.
Lola really can get away with anything.
“What’s life without a little challenge?” I quip, still scanning the room for options. “Just walking in would be so boring. Think of it as our Temple of Doom: are you going to let a few snakes stand in your way?”
Reeve laughs. “I could take him,” he offers with a teasing grin. “I have this whip, after all.”
I watch one of the waitstaff disappear down a back hallway, and narrow my eyes. “You know … I think I have an idea.”
I take Reeves hand, and lead him back out to the street. I check around to make sure nobody’s watching us – then quickly duck down a side alleyway. Sure enough, there’s a service entrance around the back of the hotel, for deliveries and staff. This one isn’t half as grand, next to a dumpster and a stack of recycling. The door is shut, and when I grab the handle, I find it’s locked too, but I’m not about to give up so easily.
“Hold this,” I tell Reeve, passing him the small leather pouch I’ve been wearing slung across my shoulder. I unzip it, and pull out some supplies. “You’re not the only one who packed some gizmos and doodads,” I add, producing a couple of hairpins, and my credit card.
I turn back to the door, kneel down, and start picking the lock.
“Wait, are you actually a super spy?” Reeve asks, sounding impressed.
“Let’s just say, I read a lot of Nancy Drew, the summer of seventh grade …” I narrow my eyes in concentration, straightening out the wire of one pin, and angling it in the lock. I rummage one way, and then the other, and–
Nothing happens.
I try again, hoping to strike it lucky so I won’t have to come clean to Reeve that this rarely – if ever – works, and I’m not the glamorous woman of mystery he thinks I am.
