How Beauty Saved the Beast (Tales of the Underlight) by Jax Garren

Brayden added.
    “Ah, boys.” Jolie sighed in mock disappointment as they reached her car.
    “Shotgun,” Travis called.
    Brayden spun around. “Where?”
    Travis pulled up the passenger seat and pointed. “It means I get the front seat.”
    “Oh.” Dropping back onto his heels, Brayden turned to Jolie. “Is that for real? Or is he pulling another fast one on the native Underlighter?”
    That brought a smile back to her face. Most branches of The Underlight disdained normal technology, like cars, as unhealthy for the planet. Brayden had grown up in the slightly more liberal Seattle Underlight, where computers were still a welcome part of life—unlike Austin, where you had to go above ground to get any form of normal technology. But every now and then his sheltered upbringing showed through.
    Like when Travis made up some crazy shit about what “topsiders” did and tried to pass it off on him.
    But this time Jolie admitted, “It’s real. Don’t ask me why we say that.”
    Brayden nodded as he climbed into the back. “I’ll remember that one. The ways of you topsiders are mysterious unto me.”
    * * *
     
    Jolie blew feathers out of her sightline and glued glittery purple lashes over her right eye. “She’s like a midget compared to him. No, that’s rude. Like a leprechaun.”
    Catrina, the manager of the Pussy Will-Oh! Burlesque, nodded sagely and applied glue to the second lash for her.
    Jolie took it with a huff and bent back to the mirror. “Wait ’til you see them together. It’s ridiculous. How did they even dance at prom? Did she wear stilts? So sure, Hauk’s taller than me, but at least he can reach my shoulders without doing a full squat.” Lashes finished, she started applying lipstick.
    “So your height makes you a better girlfriend for him?”
    The lipstick tube slipped, smearing scarlet all over Jolie’s flco Jolieront teeth. “Fuck.” She grabbed a tissue and rubbed it off. “No. I’m not saying that. I’m saying…other than being a munchkin, she’s perfect for him. I mean, they’re both so good . Like, self-sacrificing and nauseatingly good. And she went to Yale.”
    Catrina finger-combed her smooth black bob with infuriating calmness. “Didn’t you go to Princeton?”
    Lipstick fixed, Jolie stood to check over her costume in one of the full-length mirrors scattered around the chaotic dressing room, where the ten members of Pussy Will-Oh! readied for their number. Usually the camaraderie of her troupe hyped up for a show put her in high spirits, but today it wasn’t working.
    She fingered the purple and black crystals decorating her bodysuit. From a distance they seemed glamorous. “Princeton is my mother’s alma mater, and the Benoits give an annual donation of no small means. I’m pretty sure as long as I graduated from high school, I would’ve gotten in.” She flicked off a loose purple crystal at her hip. The dress may look glamorous, but the shine was manufactured. Its beauty wasn’t worth much. “Saint Ashley’s from crap-hood Cincy. She got into Yale on her own merits. And she’s a lawyer who does all this pro bono work. You should’ve seen Hauk—he was in awe as he raved to me about her. You could tell she’s the kind of girl he dreams about.”
    Catrina looked over Jolie’s shoulder with an appraising eye and smiled, as if satisfied with the skin-tight costume and its sheer panels that revealed more than they hid. “You know, you’re most men’s dream girl yourself, sweetie. What is it they all call you? Red Hots? That’s not a bad nickname.”
    Jolie pulled the rubber band from her hair, letting her curls fall around her shoulders. “More like wet dream. A man’s brain doesn’t have to like you for his dick to want you. Even with nice guys. They can’t help it. But it’s not the same thing.”
    Catrina turned Jolie around. Jolie was just above average in height, but Catrina, a biological male, was quite a bit taller, even without the four-inch