A Touch of Madness (A Recipe for Disaster Novel 1)

and grumble in the dark

I burst out laughing when I saw Amanda and Dominic. He had on a long silver haired wig, and a mighty set of angel’s wings and she was playing the role of devil dressed seductress; opposing opposites whereas these two couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. It was amusing to a geek like me. Amanda exclaimed over our costumes, she loved all of our ideas and seemed really impressed by the effort Cassie had put into hers. Then she started to give our instructions, she even put Edward to use since he was here anyways. He had to give each person entering a number to wear so that they could be judged on their costumes. I was put on the stage to be entertaining eye candy with Cassie and Zeke while the judging went on. We were to judge the costumes on whatever criteria we chose. I would let the two love birds play judge and I would the tie breaker if needed, so mostly I jplanned to ust danc around the stage. It felt so weird to have long hair moving around me while I danced. It was heavier and twirled like my skirt of coins did, kinda neat. Since there would be costume judging, Amanda opened the doors as soon as we were all in place. Only about a third of the guests wanted to take place in the actual costume contest, but it was still a lot of people. We had a line up start and people trotted across the stage for us to judge until there were no more contestants lined up and we picked a winning pair. It was by far the most creative costume duo and we all agreed that they deserved to share first place. The talented young man came as a big daddy from Bioshock and his girlfriend was a Rosey from the same game; they looked amazing together.

One we’d announced the winner, I was free to slide into the crowd for some fun. On a night like tonight, everyone was having fun and I danced with them all. One particular hottie grabbed my attention. I shamelessly gave him an all over from the muscles his vest exposed to the way the satin pants fit against his backside in a wonderful way. He was dressed as the genie from Aladdin and the metallic blue looked good on his naturally darker skin tone; I couldn’t tell about the face because he had his back to me. So I started to slowly dance closer, trying to check him out properly. Somehow I lost sight of him in the crowd but I did run across Barry. He was a rather hairy version of Jax. Dancing with him was Melvin. He was just wearing street clothes, no costume which was no fun.

“Hello Callie.” Barry wolf whistled at me so I gave him a full turn so he could see the entire outfit. Then he obliged by doing the same; at least Melvin didn’t misinterpret our joking flirtation. “Melvin came in to say hi to all of us but he’s not saying long.”

I looked at the frizzy haired man, eyebrows raised in question since he wouldn’t likely hear me over the noise of the music. “I have a ‘ride along’ tomorrow with one of the journalists from the Ottawa Sun.” he explained, having to yell so I nodded my understanding. I remember what University is like, school comes first, second and third. I grabbed a drink from the bar as Melvin kissed Barry goodnight and waved goodbye. It was fun to lean against the bar facing the dancing crowd. I caught a glimpse of the genie hottie and it looked like there were chicks surrounding him, each trying to get his attention which was no surprise at all.

“So where’s Alex? I thought he had this great costume that was going to impress me. So far, not impressed.” I asked Barry.

“Oh, he’s out there somewhere. I’m sure you’ll run into him and figure out his costume.” Barry said, laughing a little. I stuck my tongue out at him and danced my way into the crowd again.

Eventually the current of movement on the dance floor pulled me closer to the genie character. I’m sure anyone who spotted our costumes had assumed we were together, especially with our natural colouration being similar even if I was lighter. After a few minutes I found myself face to face with him and it took me a second to realize why Barry had laughed at me. I froze, staring at Alex as I finally recognized the person in the costume.