“Thanks.” Lawson had tried. His best jeans, a white shirt, a jacket, and he’d cleaned his boots. It was formal wear compared to the working clothes he usually wore.
The concern returned to Eve’s face when he pulled into the high school parking lot. It was packed, and there were people scurrying from their vehicles into the building. He drove past all of them and headed to the side entrance. Since it was clear on the other side of the building from the gym, there was no one else parked there.
Lawson stuffed the envelope in his jacket pocket and got Eve moving as fast as he could. Fast wasn’t fast enough though, because the sky opened up. It didn’t help, either, that the rainfall was sheeting off the roof and falling right in front of the door. It felt as if they’d stood under a waterfall before they got inside. Worse, the A/C was on, and the cool air suddenly felt a whole lot cooler now that they were soaking wet.
Hell.
Eve was shivering, and that little silver wrap wasn’t going to do much to keep her warm. Neither was her being in his arms because he was as wet as she was.
Even over her teeth chattering, he could still hear the music coming from the gym. It would have been loud enough to go through with his plan of a private dance in the empty hall between the rows of metal lockers, but he doubted Eve wanted to risk pneumonia. If he didn’t find something or someplace warmer fast, he was going to have to nix this plan and get her back in the truck so he could turn on the heater.
It’d been years since Lawson had actually stepped foot inside the high school, so he headed toward the nurse’s office, where maybe there’d be a blanket or some other items of clothing. But it was locked.
“Let’s go to the girls’ dressing room,” he suggested. He also took off his wet jacket, making sure the envelope didn’t fall out, and then he peeled off his shirt. It was a lot drier than Eve’s dress, so he slipped it over her shoulders.
The dressing room was right behind the gym, so there wouldn’t be any trouble hearing the music. Eve and he might just be able to go through with that dance after all.
Or not.
This door was locked, too.
He huffed, ready to go back to the truck, but Eve stopped him. She opened the little purse she was carrying, pulled out a nail file and went after the lock. “It’s something I learned on the set. Ulyana had to pick a lot of locks.”
And she’d obviously honed that particular skill because Eve had it open in just a couple of seconds. But when she threw open the door, Lawson immediately saw another problem.
It wasn’t the girls’ dressing room.
There were lights outside the windows that made it easy enough for Lawson to see the Demon High posters that were all over the walls.
“It’s the new drama department,” Eve muttered. “Mrs. Hattersfield told me about it.”
Mrs. Hattersfield had been the drama teacher for as long as he could remember, but Lawson definitely hadn’t heard anyone mention that she’d set up what appeared to be a shrine for her star pupil—Eve.
She hugged his shirt tighter around her shoulders as she made her way past one poster right after another. Of course, Kellan was in some of the pictures, too, causing Lawson to automatically scowl.
“My name,” Eve said, sounding a little in awe as she pointed at something.
Yep, there was a banner stretched across the stage, and it did indeed have her name on it. The Eve Cooper Center for Dramatic Studies.
It was a mouthful all right, and a pretty grandiose title for what’d once been a locker room.
It didn’t take long though for the surprise of seeing all of this to wear off, and Eve started shivering again. Lawson wasn’t exactly warm, especially now that he was shirtless and carrying a wet jacket, so that was his cue to get the dance started. Since the song the DJ was playing was already halfway done, Eve wouldn’t have to risk him stepping on her feet for more than a minute or so. Then he could get her back to the truck to finish out this evening.
Lawson reached out to pull her into his arms, but Eve was already heading to the front of the room. At first he thought it was so she could have a closer look at the banner, but she went to the room on the side of the stage. She opened the door, flicked on a light switch.
And gasped.
That sent Lawson running to her because he thought maybe she’d seen a snake or a serial killer. It was neither, but it was a long narrow room filled with costumes. The ones right up front and facing them were all familiar, too. Because they were costumes from Demon High.
“Holy crap. Did you give these to Mrs. Hattersfield?” he asked.
Eve shook her head and examined one of the sleeves of a red leather bodysuit costume. It looked exactly like the one that Ulyana had worn while fighting demons. “Mrs. Hattersfield must have made them. Or had someone do it for her.” Eve glanced through the rest of the rack. “All of these are handmade.”
She plucked a red cape from one of the costumes and put it on over his shirt and her dress. Obviously, the total outfit wasn’t the same as what she’d worn on set, but seeing it on her brought back some memories.
“What?” she asked when she caught him looking at her.
“There were tons of pictures of you in that cape,” he said. “I used to see them everywhere.”
She nodded. “Must have brought back some bad memories for you.” Eve sounded very sorry about that.
“Sometimes. Other times it gave me a hard-on.” He shrugged when her mouth dropped open. “Hey, I had a very clear picture of what was beneath all that leather, and it had an effect on me.”
Eve smiled and went to him, putting her hands on his chest and leaning in to kiss him. She’d already pursed her lips and closed her eyes, but she stopped. “God, you’re freezing.”
Yeah, he was, but he didn’t care as long as he got that kiss. But Eve obviously cared because she riffled through the clothes rack and came up with another cape. One that didn’t produce a hard-on. It was long and black, the garb worn by those Swaron idiots.
She lifted an eyebrow when she saw his scowl. “At least it’s not Stavros’s coat.”
There was that.
“And I did have a make-out scene with a Swaron once,” she went on. “A redeemed one.” She put the cape on him, catching onto the high collar and using the grip to pull him to her.
Now he finally got that kiss.
And it was everything he’d thought it would be. Minus the fact they were dressed like a superhero and a villain. Still, he was warm, and the kiss was making that heat go up a couple of notches.
It would have been so easy just to fall right into the kissing, touching...and other things, but he had promised Eve a dance. So, Lawson dropped his wet coat on the floor, took hold of her and snapped her to him.
“Do you like this song?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t hear it. That kiss caused my pulse to throb in my ears.”