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Now he looks upward, confused, and suddenly, through my euphoria, I hear it too. The thud of blasting bass, like the sounds of a very noisy dance club, is echoing down the elevator shaft. Nick’s brow furrows. I start to ask what that is, but then I don’t have to.
Because we’ve reached the top, and the elevator doors have opened, and it’s quite apparent what it is.
Nick’s penthouse has been converted into the first circle of hell.
Every square foot of the apartment is packed with people. Lights are flashing a rainbow of colors over the scene as people dance to music erupting out of a set of obnoxiously large speakers attached to a turntable that’s helmed by a DJ with a lime green mohawk.
Ironically, the song that’s blasting is the latest hit single by the newly-international superstar DJ Kara Kon.
In my complete shock, for a split second, I think Kara set this up as a misguided surprise. But then reality hits. No one who’s spent more than a minute with Nick would think that he’d be happy about this.
No, whoever did this hated Nick. Whoever did this wanted to trample through Nick’s private kingdom and piss on the roses.
And whoever did this is going to die.
I’m almost afraid to look at Nick, who’s standing stock-still beside me. But I have to, just to gauge how bad his reaction is.
My eyes flick up to his face and I wince. It’s both as bad as I expected and yet somehow still horrible to behold. That face I care so deeply for is twisted in rage. Every tendon in his neck is straining. His eyes are black.
I don’t know what comes over me, but I put a hand on his arm. “Nick,” I say. It’s like petting a tiger, but I know instinctively that no matter how mad Nick is, he’d never bite me.
In fact, beyond all reason, my touch seems to help. It takes a moment but finally he looks down at me, and his eyes soften immediately.
“Was this what you wanted to talk to me about?” I make a weak attempt at a joke.
“I’m going to kill him,” Nick replies. He’s not joking. He’s still furious, but that awful intensity has dissipated.
And that might have been enough to fix things. But then something happens that somehow makes the entire situation even worse.
The music screeches to a halt and the green-haired DJ speaks into a microphone, his voice echoing over the revelry.
“All right, all right. Is everyone having a good fuckin’ time?”
The answering scream shakes the foundations of the skyscraper.
“Well we got a long night ahead of us, so let’s take a quick breather and put those hands together for a special surprise we have here tonight.”
Then the DJ says the last thing I expect: “Is there a Nick Madison in the house?”
Wait, had this been planned? What’s going on?
The crowd seems to be wondering the same thing. Everyone’s looking around, heads peering in from bedrooms and more people crowding into the large space from other corners of the house.
“Come on, Nicky,” the DJ shouts. “Don’t be shy.”
Shy is another adjective that has never applied to Nick Madison, but caught between the impossible decision of extending this painful moment or answering to “Nicky”, he chooses the latter. Nick raises one hand.
“Ah there he is!” the DJ announces. “My man in the back. Nice suit.”
The crowd parts down the middle as people turn to stare at us.
I look around nervously. The energy in the room is shifting, rolling backward like a wave across the faces as people catch a glimpse of Nick and realize that not only is he not happy, he’s also the only one in the room who looks like they could own a home like this.
But then I forget everything. Who cares about the people staring at us? Fuck the mess and the noise.
Because the crowd has finally parted all the way up to the windows, and I see exactly what surprise the DJ was talking about.
Gathered in an archway of bushels are about a thousand roses. Beneath the archway is a string quartet dressed in tuxedos and made up of four very distinguished-looking silver-haired men. They’re professional enough to not look unnerved by the scene around them, and when the DJ yells, “Hit it!”, they begin to play.
