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“Uh-oh,” I winced, observing her creamy skin turn green. Sure enough, she bent over the bushes and hurled the contents of her stomach. I rubbed her back and held her hair.

“Take me home. I don’t feel good,” she cried.

“No. I’m taking you to my place so I can take care of you.”

“Your place?” She whispered.

“Yeah, my place.” Rarely did I have women over to my place. I didn’t like them invading my space. But with Chelsea, she turned my universe upside down.

17

APOCALYPTIC HEART

CHELSEA

Now I knewwhat I’d look like if the zombie apocalypse ever occurred. “This is amazing. Great job!” I complimented the hair and makeup artist. I hardly recognized myself, between the makeup and fake blood covering every inch of my skin and hands, and the streaks of black and silver they painted into my hair.

When Sophie and Maisy were also all made up, we took photos together. Complete with clothes we got from a salvation shop that we dirtied up and ripped to shreds, we were ready for our roles tonight.

“I can’t believe how perfect our costumes turned out. Sophie, thanks so much for getting us into this,” I said.

“Of course. I score an entry into the city’s largest ball for a good cause and you think I’m not taking my two besties with me?” She cackled, already trying out a zombie-like laugh that sounded more like a witch.

The annual Zombie Ball was all we heard about for the past week as soon as Sophie came home from classes and told us about it. Through her friends in the drama club, she found out they needed zombie extras to walk around the ball and interact with the guests, pose for photos, and provide flavor for the event. This wasn’t on my bucket list, but I added dressing as a zombie as an addendum at the bottom.

We mingled at the enormous ball held at the Waterfront, where a thousand guests were expected.

“This is wild,” Sophie shouted above the music. “There’s food, alcohol, dancing with a live band, and a silent auction of expensive art. It’s all for a good cause.”

She pointed to a huge sign reading, “Zombie Ball: New York’s Halloween Bash to Fight Lung Cancer.” I skimmed the rest of the sign and when I got to the bottom, I noticed the fine print. A little important detail that might have been nice to know. The Buchanan Energy Group and Buchanan Family sponsored the event.

My hand flew to my mouth. Rex had mentioned nothing about this, and surely it’d be an important event to him since his father passed away from this horrible disease. I looked all around me, but with the masses of people dressed in costumes, there was no way I’d find him if he was here. I resorted to texting him.

Chelsea: Are you at the Zombie Ball? I am.

I thought I’d mentioned to Rex that I’d be working here with the girls, but maybe I hadn’t. It’d been a busy week for both of us and we’d had little time to get together or talk, other than a few texts here and there. After only a handful ofdates, I felt like I was ready for more, but sometimes there still seemed to be a distance between us. We might go a few days without chatting, then suddenly he’d want to talk and get together—wait.

Was I just a booty call for him?

I shook off the question. No, it couldn’t be. Not with the way Rex looked into my eyes, held me in bed, and talked about things each time after we had sex. And the way he took care of me after I got drunk that one night, taking me to his apartment and admitting how special I must be since he allowed me there.

Okay, so things were casual between us, but my heart started believing there could be something more growing and only one direction we were headed.

We looked over the art pieces up for auction. A painting of the Eiffel Tower in Paris in particular caught my eyes. While Sophie and Maisy chatted about their party strategy for mingling as zombies, I waited for a return text from Rex that never came.

Suddenly, a woman carrying a walkie talkie in one hand and a tablet in the other rushed up to us. “Ladies, we need zombies over where the photographer’s setup to pose with the guests. Right over there, go on. Hurry.” She pointed with the antenna of the radio.

We all shrugged and rushed to the platform where the photo opportunities took place. For over an hour, under the hot lights, we must have greeted hundreds of guests and posed until our facial muscles spasmed from all the smiles.

We took turns taking breaks, so Sophie and Maisy leftbriefly for the bathroom and to scrounge up food and drinks for us. I waited for the next couple in line for photos to step forward when a deep voice I knew well hit my eardrums.

Rex appeared with a woman on his arm for the photo. My jaw hit the floor when I recognized the woman from the party out at the Hamptons. I’d never be able to pull off her all-black leather skin tight ensemble on her perfectly tall model-like figure. With a tail and black ears poking out of her big blonde hair, she dressed up as a cat woman.

He wasn’t really in costume, but wore a sharp black suit with a black t-shirt underneath. Handsome as ever, with his hair slicked back, his blue eyes crinkled in the corners when he laughed at something the woman said.

What was this? Had he been stepping out on me the entire time? I had no one to blame, though. It wasn’t like we’d ever talked about dating exclusively. But the apocalypse going on in my heart was fierce.

The photographer snapped his fingers at me, taking me out of the trance of devastation. “Hello-o. Zombie number three—” that was me. “Could you step into the photo frame, please?”