Flynn

I’m batting zero. My night has gone like this:

A woman asks, “Are you a code ninja?”

I scowl and shake my head.

The next guess comes from an employee. “You’re an awesome Dark Web.”

“I’m not the dark web,” I tell him.

A woman wearing a pink mustache cocks a smile and says, “You must be an SEO ninja.”

Seriously, I am not a ninja at all. Maybe the all-black get-up is throwing them off, but I’m definitely not a ninja. Don’t they get why I can’t be a ninja?

“Nope,” I say, with the dejected sigh of someone whose costume is understood by no one. It’s quite sad to fail at dressing up. But I’ve earned my F in this class tonight.

As the woman dressed as Lyft walks away, I notice an angel chatting with Evil Kermit.

And I can’t look away from her.

Those legs.

That waist.

That body.

The little bit I can see of her face tells me I can’t complain about the shape of her jawline or those lips like a pink bow. But honestly, it’s the costume that has me most intrigued. Because it says she has a brain that works well.

That’s what I find most attractive in a woman.

When she’s done with Kermit, she heads for the bar, and shortly after, I walk over to her.

“You’re no ordinary angel. You’re a next-generation angel,” I say, since a clever costume deserves something much better than a pickup line.

Her lips quirk up. “I am?”

“And let me state, for the record, the costumes here are damn good. But yours is the best one I’ve seen tonight.” I take a beat. “Angel investor. That’s brilliant.”

She wears a white dress, a halo over her head, and has the coolest wings I’ve ever seen, because that’s where she stops being a regular angel.

She juts out her hip and gives me a smile. “Would you like to see my wingspan?” Her invitation sounds vaguely dirty but also adorably cute.

“I would love to see your wingspan,” I say, meaning it from the bottom of my heart, and maybe from other parts too.

She steps away from the bar and spreads her arms wide. They flutter with ribbons of white fabric, something satiny or shiny, shimmering faintly. The strips of material that hang from her arms are covered in Monopoly money. Ones, fives, tens, and hundreds.

I reach for a strand. “May I?”

“By all means, touch my money.”

I laugh as I run a finger over a yellow ten-dollar bill. The money is pinned to the fabric, covering her wings. It’s the perfect sexy costume, with a twist and a wink and nod to our world, where angel investors often set new start-ups in motion with their first cash infusion.

But the insider joke doesn’t stop at her wings. The concept extends all the way to her gold halo. The best part? She’s wrapped bigger bills around it—a handful of thousand-dollar bills.

“I see you don’t just have a halo. You have a halo effect,” I say, referring to the marketing term as I signal to the bartender for a glass of champagne.

“Why stop at one bit of wordplay when I can have two?” she says, with a clever grin I’m pretty sure I want to kiss off her face.

“Where did you find a one-thousand-dollar Monopoly bill? I thought the game only went to five-hundred-dollar denomination.”

“It does. Unless you have Mega Monopoly,” she answers.

I mime an explosion by my temples. “Mind blown.”

She gestures to her ensemble. “I made the whole thing myself.”

“Clever and handy. I’m defenseless before your charms.”

She laughs. “Good to know, since I make all my clothes. Will that render you completely helpless?”

“That’s a likely possibility. As long as you aren’t about to pitch me an app for how to make your clothes.”

She laughs and shakes her head. Her hair is light brown, almost a caramel color, and it’s braided down one side. From behind her gold mask, her hazel eyes twinkle at me.

“No. My app would say go buy scissors, a sewing machine, and a pattern.” She raises her flute to her lips, and I watch her drink, wondering briefly how the champagne tastes on her lips. She sets down the glass. A faint imprint of pink from her lip gloss decorates the rim. “Can you even imagine if someone tried to make an app for how to do that? There can’t actually be an app for everything.”

“But people try. Next thing you know, someone will make an app with a sign that says taxi on your phone screen, and you hold it up to hail one.”

“I think someone did make that. Also, I didn’t fund it,” she says, laughing, as the bartender slides me a champagne.

“I didn’t either.”

She runs one hand along a wing full of money. “I only fund the best and brightest ideas with my Monopoly money.” Her voice turns slightly more serious. “Do you get pitched on apps a lot?”

I take a drink of the bubbly. “I get pitched on everything all the time.”

She nods. “That must be par for the course, being a VC and all.”

I part my lips to speak, to tell her I’m not a VC. But I flash back to the racquetball game, to the face-lift suggestion from my sister. If this angel thinks I’m a VC, that means my face-lift is working. My costume is doing what I want it to do—it’s making it possible for me to be me. To have a conversation as Flynn Parker the guy, not as Flynn Parker the multimillionaire.

She doesn’t know who I am. And I don’t correct her. “It can be.”

She nods thoughtfully then roams her gaze over my black attire. She taps her bottom lip. “Hmm. Let’s see what we have here tonight because I don’t think you’re a ninja.”

I punch the air. “Keep going.”

She studies me more closely. “You’re something mysterious. You’re trying to fly under the radar. Am I getting warmer?”

More like hot. “Yes.”

Her brow knits. “You want to go unnoticed, at least for the moment.”

I tense, hoping she’s not putting two and two together as to my identity. Absently, I raise my hand to my glasses, wondering if they give me away. But then I remember. I’m wearing my contacts tonight, something I rarely do.

She snaps her fingers. “I know! You’re a stealth start-up,” she says, using the term for a new company that’s keeping quiet.

I raise my arms in victory, a thrill racing through me. “Everyone else has guessed code ninja or SEO ninja, but you’re the first person all night to get it right. I am, indeed, a stealth start-up.”

Admittedly, donning black pants, a black shirt, and a black eye-mask might have made it challenging to guess. But then again, the angel figured it out, and all without the missing start-up button.

“Your lips gave you away.”

She recognized me from my lips? I furrow my brow behind my mask. “What do you mean?”

“Your mouth,” she says, raising her fingers dangerously near to my lips. “I could tell you weren’t a ninja because your lips aren’t covered. Ninjas cover their mouths.” I relax again since she was referring to my clothes. “Only their eyes show. But you’ve covered most of your eyes, and you’re showing only your mouth and your chin. That’s how I knew you had to be something other than a ninja.”

“I could kiss you for that,” I blurt out. I take a step back and hold up a hand. “I’m sorry. That was probably terribly inappropriate.”

A smile slowly spreads across her lips. “No, it wasn’t inappropriate. It wasn’t inappropriate at all,” she says. Something in the way she takes her time with each word tells me she wouldn’t mind being kissed. That gives me one mission and one mission only: keep talking to this angel.

But before I can ask her a question, she reaches into her purse, grabbing at something. She holds out her hand. It’s in a fist. “Is this your start-up button?”

She opens her hand to reveal a red button.

Laughing, I take it from her hand, and slip it into my pocket. “You found my start-up button. Maybe that’s why no one knew what I was. Or maybe you’re just a genius.”

“I prefer to think genius.”

“I’d offer to buy the genius a drink to keep the conversation going, but the drinks here are free . . .” I let my voice trail off, inviting her to pick up the thread if she wants to.

She smiles coyly. “I wonder if you could come up with another way to keep talking to me.”

And she wants to, so now it’s my turn. The music shifts from hipster rap to something slower, smoother. One of those songs I never know the name of but you hear on trendy TV shows before a hot couple kisses. I nod my forehead toward the speaker. “I planned that,” I say as I hold out a hand.

She laughs. “No, you didn’t.”

“But you have to admit it’s good luck, like the button. Care to dance?”

Her lips twitch in a sexy smile. “Yes, I care to dance.”

I take her hand and lead her to where the chandeliers cast patterns of light across the hardwood floors. The dance floor is surprisingly crowded, but I don’t notice who’s here since I’m not actually looking at anyone but the hazel-eyed angel. I twirl her once, and when I tug her closer, her eyes sparkle.

“You know how to dance,” she says, a note of surprise in her voice.

“I’m not just a clever costume-maker and a producer of the finest knock-knock jokes.”

She leans her head back and laughs, exposing a gorgeous throat that I want to kiss. Yes, this is instant attraction. But then, that’s exactly how some attraction can be. And, perhaps, how it should be.

“One, your costume skills need work,” she says, giving me a pointed look as we move in time to the music. “Perhaps you should enlist the help of a crafty costumer for your next ball, at least to sew on the buttons so they don’t fall off. Two, tell me a fine knock-knock joke.”

“One, I will take that as a yes to enlisting your help next time I go to a masquerade ball. Also, side note, are there more? Are masquerades like a thing around town?”

“I hope they are, and if so, we’ll have to find them.”

We. More. Next time.

We haven’t even had a first time, and we’re already talking seconds. This is new for me too, but I like how instant this attraction is for her as well. “And two,” I add. “Knock, knock.”

She gives a coy smile. “Who’s there?”

“To.”

“To who?”

“To whom,” I say, like a grammar policeman.

She laughs. “Have I mentioned how much correct grammar turns me on?”

I wiggle my eyebrows and yank her closer, so we’re inches apart. “No, but have I told you I never let my modifiers dangle?”

“And do you also know how to conjugate properly?” she asks in a purr.

“Even better. I can conjugate improperly too.”

She raises a hand and fans herself. “Now you’re getting me truly turned on.”

She likes me, she’s flirting with me, and she has no idea who I am. Yes, this mask was a brilliant idea in my list of brilliant ideas. The music picks up speed, and I twirl her around once more.

“Seriously, how did you learn to dance?” she asks again. “And don’t say YouTube.”

“Because that’s where everyone learns everything these days?”

She nods. “Or Instagram. That’s where I learned you can slice cake incredibly well using dental floss.”

“Why not just use a knife?”

She shrugs. “I suppose it’s for those times in your life when you desperately need to slice a cake and don’t have a knife handy.”

“Hmm. So, if I’m traveling and I need to slice a cake in my hotel room, I’d use the floss rather than call room service for a knife?”

She nods. “Clearly. What else would you do? Also, you have such pretty teeth. I would imagine you have lots of”—she slows, takes her time, and nibbles on the corner of her lips—“floss.”

My breath hitches. “How is it that you’re able to say ‘dental floss’ and make it sound naughty?”

“I suppose it’s one of my many talents. So tell me, Non-Ninja, where did you learn to dance?”

“Don’t laugh.”

“I’ll probably laugh.”

“YouTube.”

She laughs sweetly. “Seriously?”

I nod. “I figured I needed a life skill beyond math, numbers, and computers. I learned how to dance online.”

She curls her hands over my shoulders. “You’re a nerd.” The words come out as if she just said I was a rock star or a pro quarterback. She says it with affection and, honestly, a whole lot of desire.

“Shocking, isn’t it, that I’m a nerd?”

“A hot nerd, to be precise,” she adds.

I bring her closer. “So are you.”

“You’re a very hot, witty nerd.”

I’m damn close to kissing her on this dance floor. But I’d rather get her away from everyone else. I lean in to whisper, “Same to you, you incredibly sexy hot nerd I want to kiss.”

She lets out a murmur, and when I pull back to meet her eyes again, I ask, “Have you seen the library here?”

“There’s a library?” Her pitch rises.

“Yes. Why don’t we check out the books and you can tell me more about your Monopoly strategy and the taxi apps you didn’t fund?”

“Why, yes, your grace. I’d love to.”

I laugh. “I’m not a duke.”

“Can we pretend you are?”

“Of course, Angel. I can be whoever you want.”

As long as it’s not me.

* * *

The door crawls shut.

Inch by inch.

A slow-mo door.

I have no patience for its theatrics. I kick it shut, eager for the next part of the evening to begin.

Her laughter sounds across the library and echoes off its dark wood shelves bursting with books. A leather couch takes center stage, flanked by a mahogany table.

“Are you in a rush to read something?” she asks coyly.

Her voice turns me on. It’s like bourbon and honey. A little throaty and husky, but with sweet undertones. Funny, how when you can’t see someone’s face—at least, not all of it—your other senses heighten. Your ears work harder, homing in on the voice, or you zoom in on the eyes. Hers are warm hazel with flecks of bronze and green.

“Why, yes, I was looking for a particular book.” I stroll to the bookshelf along one wall, running my fingers across the spines, from old hardcovers like Tess of the d’Urbervilles to modern thrillers from the likes of Clive Cussler to non-fiction reads on the habits of highly effective people. “I thought if you wanted to go to the library you’d want to read. Naturally.”

“Of course. Read me a story. A bedtime story.” She leans against the wall next to a writing desk with a green lamp on it, the kind that has one of those chains you pull down to turn it on. She goes with the moment, and this night seems like role-play with her. I half want to understand who she is. But in a way, I’d rather experience everything she seems to want to give. Her body. Her mouth. Her mind. Whoever she is here in the library is as real as whoever she is behind the mask. My mission is to make sure she gets everything she wants.

I grab the nearest book and crack it open. It’s a James Patterson. “Once upon a time, there was a woman at a party who wanted to be kissed,” I say, walking to her, the pages open.

The angel raises her hands to her hair and sweeps off the headband that holds her halo. She tosses it to the desk. “That sounds like a very scintillating tale.”