Accidentally…Over? (Accidentally Yours #5)(52)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Oh, saints. Cimil is pregnant? This just couldn’t be. Máax’s heart felt heavy and saturated, as if filled with lead. But if she were pregnant, then why was she advocating so strongly for throwing a party and giving up?

Perhaps she is not giving up at all. Quote, I am a complex creature, unquote. Was Cimil trying in her own way to fight the end? Yes, she loved parties, but she loved a happy ending more than anything in the world. It was her one saving grace. Even after she’d destroyed Chaam, she knew exactly how to save him. She’d personally given Máax the list of each and every woman who’d died, including where to find them prior to their deaths.

“Máax, I’m sorry.” Cimil sighed. “I really thought I was helping.”

“So what do we do now?” Niccolo asked Roberto. It was a damned good question. “The ship’s going to sink, and we have no clue as to why.”

Máax glanced at Cimil’s tormented face, and his gut told him to roll with it. Somehow, goodness always managed to blossom from the wreckage of her wake.

“I suggest,” Máax said, “we do what any family might and celebrate our blessings. We throw a party.”

Cimil pasted on a smile. “We’ll party like it’s 1999! Except for Ashli. She skipped that year.” Cimil looked at Colel, aka Bees. “Get your ass to Walmart. We’ve got decorating to do.”

“I cannot believe I’m agreeing to this.” But even Máax knew that sometimes, when all appeared hopeless, one simply needed to have faith.

Immediately after Máax had that flirty, young-looking vampire deposit Ashli in a room, the shocking events came crashing down. Being hunted by Death, the trip through time, becoming immortal, losing her home, Monkeyccino’s—cringe—vampires, gods, and the now-eminent apocalypse, which could have been avoided had she not traveled forward in time. But that was the irony of it all. Now that she’d had time to breathe, she saw the truth and knew in her heart Máax had been right; she wouldn’t have lived much longer had she stayed in 1993. Her dreams and near-death misses were proof of that.

So perhaps Máax really had done the only thing he could to save her. She just wished he’d spoken with her first instead of lying, and more importantly, she wished his choice to bring her forward hadn’t meant derailing all hope for mankind.

Bummer.

Nevertheless, Ashli was determined to find a way through this and pull herself together. Of course, her version of being “together” reminded her of a Rice Krispies Treat, bits and pieces stuck together with artificially sweetened goo.

Until Máax came along, she reminded herself.

He’d offered glimpses of what it felt like to be alive again. To not feel, well, gooey and patched together. That was the other epiphany she’d had. She realized that she’d physically walked away from that car accident so many years ago; however, her inner chutzpah had not. Sure, she still walked and talked and breathed like a living person, but that’s as far as it went. She’d completely closed herself off from the world. What had Máax called her? An emotional hermit who lived in the past. Well, he was right. And she didn’t want to be that person anymore. If the world was truly about to end, she wanted to leave it feeling like she’d conquered her demons. But how?

You need to embrace life and take this new chance you’ve been given, even if it’s a short one, she decided. Not that it meant she’d forgiven Máax.

There was a knock.

Boy, were the people around this parts friendly. In the last ten minutes alone, she’d had seven visitors.

Jeez. Ashli cracked open the door and peered into the hallway. A man with sandy-blond hair, medium height and build, wearing leather pants, stared down at her, grinning from ear to ear, flashing some major fang.

Another vampire? “Yes?” she asked, trying to hide her confusion.

“Just wanting to make sure you’re all right.”

“Yep.” She smiled. Awkward.

“And wondering if you need anything?” he asked.

“Oh. Thanks, but no. I’m great,” she replied.

He stared.

Weird. “Okay then.” She began to close the door. “Nice to meet—”

“Do women prefer flowers or chocolate? I met a woman, and I’d like to ask her out, but I’m not sure which she’ll prefer.”

Seriously? “Uhhh… I really don’t know. Maybe just ask her?” Ashli tried to close the door, but he stuck his foot in the opening.

“I can sift,” he said.

“Um. Cool.”

“If you help me, I can get you anything from anywhere,” he added.

Getting weirder. “That’s really generous, but I really don’t think I can. Good luck.” She closed the door and scratched her head. Was this normal behavior in this world?

There was yet another knock at the door. She opened it. “Listen, I really don’t need…” There was no one.

“Máax?”

She waited for a reply. If he was there, he wasn’t saying anything. Ashli then noticed a card and rectangular box wrapped in shimmery red paper on the floor. She picked it up and closed the door, locking it behind her.

The card was an invitation for a party tomorrow evening. A costume party? For the end of the world?

Your driver will pick you up at eight o’clock. I hope you like the dress.

Yours Forever,

Máax

Ashli opened the box. “Funny, Máax. Real funny.”

Eighteen

Ashli’s limo pulled up behind a long line of other flashy vehicles to the red carpet, where svelte men in crisp tuxedos lined the walkways and giant floodlights speared the desert night sky. It felt like a lavish Hollywood movie premiere until she noticed the crowd pouring inside. Unicorns, clowns, genies, kings, and queens, the costumes were elaborate and outrageous.

Great. I’m underdressed.

Ashli thanked her driver as an usher opened the door, and she made her way inside the grandiose ballroom. The dimly lit interior pulsed with loud music and flashing lights. Giant twenty-foot-high golden statues of several gods illuminated every corner. The ceiling was a radiant spectacle of thousands of sparkling white lights arranged into constellations and…

Googly-eyed unicorns?

There had to be at least a thousand people toasting, dancing, and laughing.

Flabbergasted, Ashli stepped aside and gawked at the river of people flowing by. Or fountain of people? Yes, a man dressed as a fountain, complete with running water spouting from the top of his head and a giant round basin to catch the flow, floated by right next to another woman riding a very tall… well, she didn’t know really, because there wasn’t actually anything there.