Sabrina

Since I’ve had so many interviews with other people, it’s only natural that I need to talk to Flynn after I speak with the others.

To check for his reaction.

To glean his response.

Or, really, to spend more time with him.

Flynn is a pattern I want to make over and over. He’s a word I never tire of using. He’s a song I can blast in my earbuds all night long.

All day too.

With Flynn, it’s like we have an endless well of topics for conversation. Dip a hand in it, pick another item, and chat, chat, chat.

The next evening, when we leave the café where we’ve been talking, we wander past a store window display that catches my eye.

A zombie mask. A gangster suit. A cheerleader. Dorothy, complete with her blue gingham dress and ruby-red slippers.

I point to the glittery shoes. “I want the slippers. I’ll click my heels.”

“Where will you go?”

“I would go back to the costume party.”

His eyes lock with mine. His aren’t green now. Longing is their shade, and I want to capture the way he looks. He stares at me like I’m worth everything. Like I’m emeralds and rubies. God, how I want that. How I wish I could have it with him—everything in his eyes.

He tips his chin toward the door. “We should see what masks are in the store, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely.”

We say hello to the shopkeeper who glances up from the counter and smiles, letting us know she’s here if we need anything. She’s dressed as Rita Hayworth, with a bust-exposing dress and a red wig.

We head toward the masks.

“Now that you’ve seen me, would you recognize me in, say, this?” He covers his face with a fox mask.

“You’re foxy, but yes, I can tell it’s you.”

“Good.” He reaches for a dog. “As Fido?”

I smile. “Absolutely.”

“What about this?” He tries to sound silky and sultry as he slides a pink pig mask over his face, adding a most unsexy oink, oink.

“Still you.”

He locates a mask of a clown with a tear sliding down its face and a big red ball for a nose. He positions it over my eyes then peers at me, studying me. “Yup, it’s you.”

He holds the mask to his face. “And now? Can you tell it’s me?”

I slug his arm. “Yes, yes, yes. Of course, I’d recognize you.”

“Just like you ‘recognized’ me at The Dollhouse?” His tone is somewhat challenging.

“I told you, I recognized you, but I didn’t want it to be you,” I say wistfully.

He wraps a hand around my arm, and flames lick my body. “Sometimes I still feel that way. Sometimes I see you, and I wish you were someone else.”

“Me too,” I admit.

“Do you want me to be the duke?”

I nod. “Yes, and we’ll go to costume parties. Maybe I’ll dress as Marilyn Monroe at one.”

He groans and steps closer to me. It’s dark here in the corner of the shop—we’re out of sight of the windows. Red velvet lines the wall, and masks, swords, and shields hang from it. “You’d look so hot as Marilyn Monroe.”

“I’d get a mask just for my eyes. You could cup my cheek while you kissed me.”

“Fuck,” he says in a long, low rumble. “And what would I be?” He rests his hand on a rack of poodle skirts.

“You’d be Joe DiMaggio, of course.”

He pumps a fist. “I always wanted to be a star athlete.”

I lift my hand and run it up his arm, grateful he’s wearing a T-shirt today. I trace a path to his bicep. His breath hisses as I travel higher then squeeze his muscle. “You’d wear your Yankees uniform, and I’d admire how it fits you. I’d admire your arms too. I’d touch them.”

He swallows harshly. His eyes are fire. His voice is sandpaper as he whispers, “And I’d slide in for a dance and wrap my arm around your waist while you had on that white satin dress. And nobody would know who we were because we’d wear masks.”

“We’d know.”

“But we’d pretend.”

“Can we pretend now? That we’re at a costume party?”

He glances over his shoulder. Rita is on the phone. She’s looking the other way, and we’re partially hidden behind the racks. “Let’s pretend. If we pretend, it’s not really happening.”

Permission. We’re giving each other the permission we both so desperately want.

“We’re at a make-believe party,” I say, as we move closer to each other, and he glides his hand around my waist.

I want to melt into him. My bones dissolve into honey as I raise my hands to his shoulders, sliding over them, looping around his neck, then drawing him near. “You never know what might happen at a costume party,” I whisper as we glide closer. Inches separate us. Inches and air and restraint that’s frayed so thin it’s unraveling at breakneck speed.

“One dance, maybe more.”

Music plays softly in the background, and I swear it’s Linda Ronstadt crooning the opening notes to “Someone to Watch Over Me.” Or maybe that’s how my body feels. Like it’s become a torch song. Like I’m living inside the lyrics to a smoky, sexy tune of desperation and wanting.

My eyes flutter closed for a second, and warmth spreads from the center of my chest all the way to the tips of my fingers. A shiver runs through me as his hands tighten around my hips.

Once again, we exist on two planes. We seem to slip back and forth in time like we did when we visited the subway station. Like we exist here as Flynn and Sabrina, and we exist in the past as Angel and Duke.

I dance, though I shouldn’t.

I sway, though it’s risky.

I look into his eyes, though that only makes me want him more. Wanting is such a painful emotion. It aches and throbs and hurts even as it asks for more of the torture. More of the things that I can’t have. A real chance with this man. A real date. A real love.

“Sometimes you look at me like you did the other night,” I whisper.

“How did I look at you the other night?”

“As if you liked being kind of dominant.”

“I think you liked it when I was kind of dominant.”

“I liked it when you raised my hands over my head.”

“And you liked it when I hiked your legs around my waist.”

“I did,” I say breathily.

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t have to think. I didn’t have to worry. I could get lost in the moment.”

“Do you want to get lost again?” he asks, in a voice that betrays his want for me. It makes me dizzy. It makes me high.

I’m swallowed whole by a new kind of desire that floods my body. I want to lose myself in him. I don’t want to be found.

“I do,” I whisper as my skin prickles with the clawing need to get closer to him. My pulse spikes. “I wish we didn’t have to pretend.”

“So do I.”

I stop pretending. I lean in, part my lips, and give in.

He brushes his lips across mine and hums as he kisses me.

It’s a soft, aching kiss. Like the song. Like my need for him.

It’s sad and it’s intoxicating at the same time. It’s the way we kiss when we’re saying goodbye, when we’re borrowing time, when we know we can’t be.

The kiss is born of longing, forged in a wish that can’t come true.

I want it too much. I want to forget all the reasons why he’s a mistake. I want to be his Marilyn right now, and his Angel, and his Sabrina.

“Say my name,” I whisper, breaking the kiss. “I want to hear you say my name.”

“Sabrina,” he says. His voice is rougher than I’ve heard before, and it turns me liquid. I’m silver and gold, and I want him to kiss me forever and ever. This kind of bittersweet kiss, this kind of stolen kiss in a costume shop, hearkens back to our first secret kiss.

But when Rita laughs loudly, the sound of her amusement is a sharp reminder that we’re playing with fire.

We break apart.

Because we have to.

I clear my throat, trying to center myself. I can’t think. I can’t speak. “Maybe I should buy a . . .” I don’t know how to finish the sentence.

“A fox mask?”

“If it meant I could have you, I would.”

But there’s no real way to hide who I am, or what I need.

I need a job, and if I’m in love with the man I’m covering, then my story goes up in smoke, and any possible future with Up Next turns to ash.