Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Slate sat up in bed, jolted from a peaceful sleep by a sense of something wrong. Next to him, Dash flailed around in the sheets with a startled cry.
“Sorry, guys.” Thomas stood at the foot of the bed, looking unsure of himself. His ever-present letterman jacket looked pristine as always. “I wouldn’t have woken you unless it was important. Slate’s parents are pulling into the driveway. Right now.”
Brushing off the last vestiges of sleep, Slate processed the information. His parents? They never visited unannounced. Obviously, this was their new thing.
“It’s Saturday morning.” Dash picked up the clock and made a sound somewhere between a groan and a curse. “At seven thirty-four. Are they insane?”
Slate shared the frustration. Holding Dash when they woke up was one of his favorite things in life, and his parents were depriving him of that today. “No, but they might be evil.”
Now at the window, Thomas looked down into the yard. “They’re driving up to the front door,” he said. “Do you want me to stall them?”
“You can do that?” Dash asked, already out of bed and grabbing his jeans off the chair. “I mean, you’re not going to scare them or anything.”
The idea didn’t sound all bad to Slate. Serve them right for trying to sneak up on us. “How would you delay them?”
“Figure out which door they’re going to use, and make sure the door sticks.
” Thomas smiled, and Slate was certain he’d done this before.
“He’ll check his key before trying again.
I won’t let it open on the second attempt, but on the third it will open with some effort. Should buy you a minute or two.”
He’d definitely done this before. “Do it.”
“And thank you,” Dash added as he stepped into his pants. “We owe you.”
Thomas smiled before he sank through the floor, and Slate wondered what you gave a ghost for running interference on intrusive parents.
Organized chaos followed Thomas’s departure. Dash swore under his breath as he hopped on one foot trying to pull on his jeans. Slate tugged a long-sleeved Henley over his head and tried not to get too mad.
They moved around each other in the practiced dance of people who’d shared space long enough to avoid collisions when rushing to get dressed.
“Why couldn’t they come for brunch?” Dash asked as he put toothpaste on his brush. “Isn’t that what normal people do on weekends?”
Slate dragged a brush through his hair and wished he’d kept it short like Dash. “You think my parents are normal?”
“It’s too early for trick questions,” Dash said in between brushing his teeth. “I plead the Fifth.”
Slate finished his hair and then nudged Dash over so they could share the sink. “Coward.”
The sound of the door rattling nearly caused Slate to spit his toothpaste on the mirror. They exchanged glances.
“Thomas seems to know what he’s doing,” Dash said, trying to check himself in the mirror. “Do I look like I just rolled out of bed?”
His hair was rebellious, his shirt was wrinkled, and there were pillow marks on his cheek, but that was how he looked most days before noon. He was also absolutely beautiful, sleep-warm, and perfect. “You look like you always do.”
“Shit.” Dash grabbed the brush and attempted to tame his hair again. “I ‘always’ look like I just got out of bed before lunchtime.”
The rattling stopped, followed by the sound of a key turning. Then more rattling. Thomas really had done this before. “Thomas bought us exactly the time he promised.”
“This is a sign we need to change the locks,” Dash said. “I really like your parents, but showing up at ass o’clock in the morning and using their key to let themselves in while we’re sleeping is too much.”
Slate could think of worse times for his parents to barge in. “You’re right. I’ll need to have a discussion with them about boundaries now that this is our home.”
They were on the stairs headed down when the door finally opened. His father muttered about needing to fix the door, and his mother told him to ‘talk to Slate. It’s his house now.’ Which was utterly laughable since they thought nothing of coming in without knocking.
“Boys?” His mother’s voice carried up the main staircase. Slate had heard that tone before. It was her ‘time for you lazy kids to get up’ voice he’d hated as a kid. “We brought…”
She stopped mid-sentence as Slate and Dash appeared in the vestibule. Her deflated expression was worth the abrupt wake-up call. “Mom? Dad? What are you doing here?”
“We brought food.” She held up a brown paper bag. Behind her, his father had two more. “Thought we’d surprise you with breakfast.”
Marjorie Blackwood was many things, but someone who brought her kids breakfast for no reason wasn’t one of them. “More like you thought you’d catch us still asleep.”
“We nearly did, from the looks of things.” She marched toward the kitchen. “Come along, Cliff. We need to set up.”
“Thanks a lot, guys. It’s going to be my fault we didn’t get here before you woke up.” His dad gave them both a mock frown. “Coming, Marge.”
“Sorry, Mr. B,” Dash said. “Next time, tell Slate to let me sleep in.”
Walking toward the kitchen, Clifford muttered something about not wanting to know. Slate lingered for a few seconds, then pulled Dash aside. “Put ‘change the locks’ on the renovations list.”
The kitchen looked as if they were feeding twenty people for breakfast. Marge stood at the long counter, unpacking bags from the local diner.
One by one she opened containers with scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, fresh fruit, and enough pastries to last a week.
Cliff got plates and utensils, and then set the table.
Feeling useless in his own kitchen, Slate put the kettle on for his mother to have her morning tea and then made coffee. Dash joined him with four mugs and the tea box.
“Who is going to eat all this food?” he asked. “They even brought three kinds of juice—apple, orange, and cranberry.”
That sounded like her. “Did she say she wasn’t sure what we liked, so she brought a variety?”
“Yes!” he whispered. “She told me I looked too skinny the last time she saw me.”
“You are.” They both jumped at Marge’s voice inches behind them. “It’s not polite to whisper about people when they’re in the same room.”
Slate wanted to say it was acceptable when said people broke into the house just to embarrass said whisperers. “Since you heard everything, you know it wasn’t bad. But if we’re talking about manners, coming in unannounced like that isn’t in the book of best etiquette.”
“Pish posh.” She waved her jangly, bracelet-covered arm noisily. “I carried you for nearly ten months. I have the right to make sure you’re taking care of yourself. From the looks of it, you’re starving poor Dash.”
“Slate feeds me all the time,” Dash protested. “But I run a lot and have a naturally thin build.”
“Protein bars and leftover pizza don’t count as feeding you,” Marjorie said, going back to the counter. “Come have a proper breakfast.”
Dash shot Slate a look that said, you need to deal with this. Slate shrugged. He’d talk to them about the breaking and entering, but doing it to bring breakfast—that smelled amazing and made his stomach rumble—wasn’t the worst thing a parent could do.
After filling their plates and getting seated, they made small talk while they ate. Slate’s parents asked about the renovations, the preparation for the haunted house exhibit, and if they had plans for an engagement party.
The first time his mother said something about marriage or engagements, Slate froze.
Dash had been against relationships when they met, and he didn’t want to scare him off.
After he suggested they were going to elope to avoid a bothersome wedding, Slate relaxed.
They’d get there, but on their time schedule, not his mother’s.
This time, it felt more like a decoy, meant to lull him and Dash into a false sense of calm. He knew what they wanted to talk about, but if they were going to wake him up on a Saturday, they’d need to bring up the topic.
His father refilled everyone’s cup and Slate knew it was time.
“What’s going on with Gary the ghost?” Cliff asked after a sip of coffee. “We’ve been hearing stories around town.”
There it was. The unspoken expectation was that he and Dash needed to handle Gary and his party. “What kind of stories?”
“Julie at the grocery store swears she heard Jimi Hendrix playing in her kitchen yesterday morning,” Marge said.
She cut in so quickly he wondered if his parents had rehearsed this conversation before they got to the Manor.
“Purple Haze. Clear as day, she said, but when she looked for the source, there was nothing there.”
“Bob at Oriskany Falls Hardware reported the same thing, just a different song,” Cliff said. “Like having a radio on in another room that didn’t have a radio.”
“We’ve heard similar stories.” Dash pushed his mostly empty plate.
“Finish your breakfast, dear,” Marge said. “I don’t care what you say, you’re not eating enough. You’ll get sick.”
Slate watched the play of emotions on Dash’s face. He didn’t like being told what to do—or that he was skinny, but Marge’s tone wasn’t mean. She treated him like her son. More than Dash’s own parents, who never called him in the year they’d known each other.
Looking down, he slowly pulled his plate back. “Yes, ma’am,” he said without his usual snark.
“How many reports have you gotten?” his mother asked.
It had annoyed Slate that his parents showed up unannounced, but her treating Dash like family brushed his irritation away. She loved big, and she loved Dash.
He took a deep breath to clear his head. “Eight, maybe nine since Wednesday,” Slate said. “I figured that was Gary’s friends getting settled. They’re not trying to cause trouble.”
“No, but they’re careless,” Cliff said. “They don’t understand discretion, or the consequences of their actions.”
“How bad is it?” Dash asked, his plate now clear. “It sounds like the people in town are just confused, not panicked.”