Hopefully, he’d behave like Bobbitt said, but I wasn’t holding my breath…
I expected my makeup to take the longest, but Bobbitt was a wizard with a beauty blender. In no time, she was shoving a hand mirror at me with a wide grin.
“Whatdya think?”
I didn’t recognize myself.
My whole face was painted a few shades lighter than my skin, but not stark white like Zero’s. I had rosy cheeks, a red nose, and a heart painted over my lips. My left eye had a diamond around it, and red rhinestones were glued around my elaborate eyebrows to match my dress.
“Holy shit, Bobbi.” I turned my head this way and that to see in the tiny mirror. “This is incredible.”
She smiled proudly. “Glad ya like it, doll! We’ll eventually find ya a signature look, but this works for tonight.”
She hurriedly shoved everything we’d strewn out back into her cabinet and shut the door before it could all come tumbling out.
We were the only two performers left on the bus—everyone else had made their way to the event center to get ready. There were a couple of hours left before the show was supposed to start, but in circus time, I’d learned that flew by in the blink of an eye.
I pulled on my combat boots and tied the laces while Bobbitt touched up her makeup, then it was time to go. She was dressed in a scrap-fabric dress that looked like a quilt gone wrong, with a giant lace flower in her hair. She’d glued on impossibly long feather eyelashes, and she wore chunky heels with flowers on them. She was the most adorable mess I’d ever seen.
“Let’s get going before Hallow chews my ass,” she laughed, taking the lead. “If I make you late, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Would Hallow eating your ass really be so bad?”
She squawked a laugh so loud it made me jump, tears welling in her eyes. “I knew I liked ya, doll. You’ll do just fine with this bunch if ya keep that attitude.”
An appreciative smile worked its way across my face.
The alpha headliners might not want me as part of their troupe, but Bobbitt and Daze did. That was something—an important something. With some luck and a little time, I might win over more of the troupe members.
Once Zero, Revel, and Night saw how well I got along with everyone else, and that I wasn’t going to ruin their circus, maybe they’d come around.
Still not holding my breath.
The walk to the event center was short, and Bobbitt expertly led the way to the backstage area. It was a surprisingly large room, empty aside from scattered performers and props waiting to be dragged into the arena. My eyes landed on the enormous sphere cage that Revel and his stuntmen performed in, and my heart skipped an anxious beat.
Knives, I could handle.
Maybe even swinging on the trapeze, if I knew there was a net beneath me.
But that metal death trap where the motorcycles whipped by one another, sometimes with only inches between them? No fucking thank you.
“Arina!” a familiar voice called, and my insides fluttered.
I spun to find Daze jogging in our direction, shirtless as always, wearing a pair of baby blue suspenders to hold up his sparkling navy pants.
“That’s my queue,” Bobbitt whispered, nudging me with her elbow. “I’m gonna go find Hallow and see if they need anything before the show.”
She giggled as she flounced away, and Daze landed in front of me, a wide grin on his face.
“You look fantastic,” he admired, his dark eyes falling down my body before slowly crawling back up.
I chewed the corner of my mouth when my gaze caught on his lips before I regained my composure. “Thanks. Bobbitt did a great job.”
“Honestly, you’d look amazing in anything,” he said, and his cheeks turned pink. He cleared his throat and shifted his weight back and forth. “Come on, I want to introduce you to some of the other aerialists. I told them all about you this morning.”
It was my turn to blush as I followed behind him. “Oh… y-you did?”
He winked over his shoulder. “Yeah, I crashed with them last night, and we caught up over breakfast.”
