Chapter 10
Ten
Riley
Leo passes the basement door, his footsteps causing the floor to creak as he walks in the same place over and over.
My eyes are heavy, my body fitting too perfectly against the one in front of me to want to pull away.
I have to, though. Leo can’t see what I have down here.
He can’t see what is supposed to be the man we said bye to weeks ago.
“Ry-Ry. If you really don’t want to go, we won’t. We can stay here. I can crawl into that bed behind you if you want me to.” His voice drifts further away. He’s moving toward my room. My ears hang onto his footsteps until I lose track of them.
“I have to get up,” I say.
“Okay.” Gareth leans back, stroking my face. “Let me help you up.”
With his hands steadying me, I lower my feet to the floor. Swaying a little, I grab onto him, and he laughs, kissing my nose. It’s such a Gareth thing to do. “Easy. You’re alright. You need a little more time to familiarize your feet with the ground is all.”
“Yeah.” I wrap my arms around his neck as he stretches out to lift my pants up.
Leo calls for me again and I lower my hands between us, fumbling with the front of my pants. I get my button fastened after the second attempt and he beats me to my zipper. “There you go. I held back this time. It was hard, but I did it.”
“Held back from what?” My voice shakes.
“From tasting you again.”
A chill dances along my spine. “I . . . I gotta go. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Please stay in the house. And don’t come out of the basement until we leave.”
“Okay. I’ll do my best.” His lips turn up into a smirk.
“I hope you do.” I shove at his chest, moving around him.
I don’t have all the feeling back in my legs yet, but I drag one foot in front of the other as quickly I can anyway.
Holding on to the rail, I jump faster up the stairs and close the door as soon as I reach the other side without looking back.
I press my back to it, my eyes pausing on the lock.
Chest lifting and dipping lower with each breath, I twist it until I hear a click.
“There you are.” Leo’s voice catches me off guard and I jolt in front of the door.
“Yeah, sorry. I had to take care of something in the basement.”
“Like what?” His eyes hook on mine.
“Just making sure the pipes weren’t freezing up again down there. Happens sometimes when I have the air on too low all day.”
“Oh. Well, you could have told me. I was wandering around your house like a crazy person. It didn’t even dawn on me to check the basement.”
Good. That’s one blessing in all this mess. “Sorry. I didn’t think it’d take that long, but then I noticed the traps had some mice caught in them that needed releasing,” I lie again.
His face scrunches up. “Yeah, glad you didn’t ask for my help with that one.”
I laugh, adding more of a smile to my lips to make it more believable. “Don’t worry. I know how squeamish you get with those sorts of things.”
“Yeah. Especially with mice.”
“And spiders, and crickets, and—”
“Yes, I’m scared of a lot of things. I get it.”
I pat him on the shoulder. “For someone who’s scared of so much, you sure do love Halloween and slasher films.”
“I didn’t say I made sense, okay?”
We both laugh and he follows me to the door. He keeps looking at me as we walk to his car, and it becomes clear why once I’m in the passenger seat in front of the open visor. My cheeks are pink and my eyes are bloodshot.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks as he studies me more closely.
“Yeah.” I shut the mirror, offering him a comforting smile. “Just my allergies getting to me. There’s so much dust in that basement.”
“You sure that’s all?” He buckles in, eyes full of concern.
“Yeah.” My lips move from side to side. “If you must know, I cried a little after tripping on a box of Gareth’s things.”
His shoulders drop and he rubs my shoulder. “Yeah. I can see that being hard. I would have come to you if you needed me, you know? Even with the mice down there.”
I chuckle, lips twitching. “I know. But it was something I needed to be alone for.”
“I get that. Now I at least know better to let you take all the time you need.”
“Thanks.” Silence stretches between us after he starts the car and fills it with music, singing along to a Mariah Carey song.
I press my side to the door, turning my face to the window, and I watch as everything carries on normally around me while knowing that will no longer be the case for my world at home.
“What about a sexy cat?” Leo slides a headband with black ears attached over his head while wiggling his nose.
“Don’t bunnies wiggle their nose?”
“Oh, a bunny would be cute, and that is a pet name Glen calls me sometimes. Mostly because he says I have the energy of one.” He takes the headband off and waves it around.
“It’s true.” I snort. “I keep trying to figure out a way to transfer some of that to me.”
“Look, I may seem awake but I’m fucking dragging on the inside. I have not been sleeping well.”
“How come?”
His eyes flash with something hard to make out. “I . . . I guess ’cause I’m worried about you, and well, we miss him too. It’s been weird not hearing his loud-ass laugh in the background when I call.”
I give a sad smile. “Yeah. I’m sorry. It was stupid to ask. You guys lost him too.” I forget, I’m not the only one who was close to him. We were all friends. We hung out all the time. It was usually Leo and me dragging them to places with us that they didn’t want to go.
“I’ll go for you,” Gareth would say.
“It’s okay. I know it’s nothing compared to what you’re going through, but—”
“But it doesn’t make it less valid,” I finish for him, placing a hand on his as he reaches for a pink Ghostface mask.
He nods with a hint of a smile on his lips. “How about this one?”
“Who’s Glen gonna be? Sydney?”
He rumbles out a laugh, clutching his shaking stomach. “You know, he can wear a black wig pretty well.”
“I don’t even wanna know,” I clip, heading in another direction. He’s quickly on my heels once the mask is back on the hook, pointing at different costumes.
I stop in front of one that says zombie husband, and I swallow my breath. I’m not sure I’m seeing things right until Leo steps up beside me, making a sound with his throat. “What a weird costume. What the hell is a zombie husband anyway?”
“Maybe they mean like a zombie groom.” I inch closer, taking in the ripped pocket and gray-painted face of the guy on the plastic covering.
“Yeah. That makes more sense.” Something else catches his attention and he rushes to another aisle, bouncing on his feet.
I step away from the costume. Who needs that when they have the real thing at home?
Laughing to myself, I search for my friend and find him in front of the Nightmare Before Christmas aisle.
“Perfect. I can be Sally, and he can be Jack.”
“And who do I get to be? Zero?”
He hides his laughter behind his hand. “Or . . . Oogie Boogie.”
“How about the Scooby Doo crew. You can be Scooby, and he can be Scrappy Doo,” I muse.
“Haha. How about no. Okay, fine . . . we’ll keep looking.”
It takes another hour before he lands on another bright idea.
Traditional serial killers. Except the version of Freddy he wants to be is anything but.
I grab Art the clown, and as I’m heading to the fitting room, I stop when I see someone move fast behind me in one of the door’s mirrors.
Leo is asking an employee something and two other shoppers are waiting to try on costumes.
“You want to try on something, hun?” a lady with red hair asks, smacking gum between her lips.
“Yeah. I only have this one.”
“Okay. Right this way.” She takes me to the last room on the right and hands me a number after opening the door with her set of keys. “Just call out if you need me.”
“Will do, thanks,” I shout behind her as she walks away.
I step inside and freeze when I look in front of me.
A costume is hanging up on the hook on the door.
It’s the zombie husband. Eyes widening, I look around me and my heart gallops.
It has to be some weird coincidence. I turn away from the costume and strip out of my clothes.
A knock comes to my door as I’m velcroing up the back.
“Yeah?” I say, tugging at the long fabric around my legs.
“How’s it going?” Leo’s pink shoes come into view under the door.
“Good. I think this is as good as it’s going to get.”
“We can hem the legs if we have to.”
“How’d you know that was my issue.”
He laughs. “Because from one short guy to another, I understand the struggle. Why do you think I picked the skirt?”
“You sure that’s the only reason why?”
“Okay, maybe also because I have nice legs and life’s too short not to show them off.”
“And finally, part of the truth,” I tease. “I’ll be out in a bit and then you can buy me that lunch you mentioned earlier.”
“Sounds good. I’ll go pay and wait in the car. Glen called asking me to call him back.”
“Okay. Hope all’s okay.”
“Ah, yeah. Just deciding whose family to see during the upcoming holidays. Hopefully we can reach some middle ground.”
“Hopefully,” I say with a tinge of encouragement in my voice.
“Don’t take too long. There are no frozen pipes or mice stuck in traps you have to worry about here.”
“That you know of.”
He huffs a breath. “You got ten minutes.”
“What if there’s a long line when I get out?” I undo the back of my costume.
“Ten minutes.”
Shaking my head, I smile and slide the one piece off all the way. I’m lifting my pants from the small bench in the corner when another knock comes. I roll my eyes. “It hasn’t even been five minutes yet.”
I’m met with silence. Tilting my head, I look in the mirror, eyes traveling to where my feet are and my heart shoots into my throat. I drop my pants on the bench. Black boots. They’re scuffed at the toes exactly like Gareth’s. No. I told him to stay home. How would he even get here?