Page 42
I LOVE YOU, SUSIE!
“Fuck, you two are adorable.” Vince shook his head with a chuckle, and I breathed a sigh of relief that he seemed to have calmed down.
“He delayed his shoot to be here tonight and tomorrow night so he can watch me headline.” She was beaming and blowing kisses down to him, which he pretended to catch and put in his pocket like a ridiculously sexy dork.
“You make me believe true love is possible,” Vince said teasingly with a wry grin. Susan immediately gasped and placed a hand on his arm.
“Oh, Vinnie.” Her soft voice was laced with sympathy. “You’ll find true love.”
“Eh.” He shrugged. “Not all that interested right now. I prefer fucking with zero emotion.”
I snorted in amusement as Susan laughed and Crossbody’s lip curled with disdain. With a dramatic flip of his hair, he turned and strode away.
“Well, Asmo gets plenty of that at work,” Susan said jovially, which made both of us laugh.
“True,” Vince agreed.
“I think some of us plan on heading down to watch Holt’s big introduction speech and give him some support from the sidelines,” she told us. “Corey’s already in his office running through the script and giving him some tips. Breathing exercises and stuff, so he doesn’t sound nervous. Do you want to come?”
“Sure,” Vince said with a shrug as I nodded and grinned. I liked going down into the arena when it was full. The audience went totally wild when any of us made a surprise appearance, even just to watch from the sidelines.
“Is Chris here yet?” Vince asked as we wandered away from the windows. “Just want to run through it again with him one last time.”
“He’s about twenty minutes away.”
Tonight, we were debuting a new storyline in which Chris—who I rode down the walkway on while he was in his unicorn form—betrayed me to team up with Vince and make me lose the match. He was going to steal my head and run out of the arena with it, leaving my body flailing in the ring for Vince to pin.
I was looking forward to it. I knew the crowd was going to be rabid when Vince beat me. They loved both of us, but Vince was firmly a face—a good guy—whereas I veered closer to being a heel—a villain—kind of straddling the line in between, because I always pulled illegal moves in the ring. It meant some of the audience loved me, while others loved seeing me get taken down. Either way, it made for great crowd reactions.
When Chris showed up a while later, he fist-bumped me and Vince before heading into my dressing room to get ready. Once the audience was seated in the arena—the security was being extra stern about enforcing it tonight—most of us headed down to watch Holt introducing Goliaths to the world, no longer just our local supernatural community.
We used the side entrance to slip into the arena and stand by the now deserted bar. Over by Paxton and his camera were Taylor, Larkin and Corey. The security guards were already blocking the exits from the seats, because people were frantically trying to reach for the Tasselled Tussler. He just gave them a demure smile before turning away. He wasn’t performing tonight, so he was wearing only light make-up and a sombre—for him—peach silk jumpsuit with thin straps.
Corey was a natural born performer, and he revelled in the adoration from fans even more than I did, but he also held strong views about not stealing someone else’s moment. We’d all heard his many speeches on his philosophy of performing. One of his favourite inspirational phrases was, “This is your moment. Never let anyone take it from you.”
And he was unflinchingly loyal to Holt, so he wasn’t here to steal the spotlight, just support him.
Larkin was chatting to Paxton, probably distracting him, because he looked a little tense as he fiddled with his camera but nodded politely. Paxton was a shadowperson, so he could operate the three cameras we had at once, his smoke tendrils snaking along the floor to each one around the ring while we performed, making sure he never missed a crucial shot during a match.
Taylor was fiddling anxiously with his phone and glancing repeatedly at the left walkway, which I assumed meant that was where Holt would appear from when we went live.
Some of the audience members seated closest to us finally noticed that most of the Goliaths were down here in the arena, and they started jumping out of their seats and screaming, waving at us. I had my cowboy hat on now, which meant I couldn’t tuck my head under my arm, so I placed it on my shoulders and waved back.
Folks started waving their homemade signs at us, and I chuckled as I read them.
THE NIGHT LIGHT WOULD TREAT ME RIGHT
LADY VICTORIA TURNS ME TO STONE
DULLAHAN DAN CAN DU ME ANY DAY
“Ooh, I think it’s starting!” Susan patted my arm excitedly. I glanced over with a smile, then followed her gaze up to the commentator’s box, where David the incubus was getting settled in his seat and scanning his notes.
When he looked up and dragged his mic closer, he spotted us clustered together by the bar and grinned, shooting us a quick wave. Then he did a few quick mouth exercises, wiggling his jaw and stretching his lips open wide, before fitting the headset over his ears.
His voice boomed through the arena a few seconds later. “Goooooood evening, folks!”
The crowd cheered. I grinned as the floor vibrated under our feet when lots of them started stamping their hooves and feet excitedly.
