16. You Live There?!?
You Live There?!?
LUKE
E ven after leaving both jobs, Luke still took more than a week to arrange a time for Matteo to come over to the house. That meant Luke had to initiate a text conversation with Matteo.
Fuck, it was a wonder how he’d ever managed to date someone in the past. Of course, the last people he’d dated hadn’t been people he’d been crushing on at first sight with the danger of it wildly veering into love-at-first-sight territory.
His previous boyfriends had been friends or blind dates who’d turned into brief partners.
Matteo, on the other hand, was hotness personified, and he just left Luke tongue-tied and insecure.
But he persevered. He was a grad student, for fuck’s sake. If he could survive college, he could do this.
The demons had tried to help him compose the perfect, non-dorky, non-pervy text, and it hadn’t gone too well.
In the end, he’d cornered Harper and convinced her to help him write the perfect text.
Naturally, it started with an icebreaker meme about being a poor, overworked student. From there, he asked when Matteo would be free to hang out.
How the hell did she make it all look so damn easy?
The demons were less than impressed with Harper’s cool texting skills, but they were pleased with the outcome. Matteo replied with a laughing emoji and suggested the upcoming Friday.
Such a tempting day. Friday meant that there were no morning classes that could force them to end their evening early. They could hang out, doing…whatever…for as long as they wanted.
Not that Luke was expecting to do…whatever.
He was trying to keep his expectations low. Sharing a few laughs and some food would be nice. Learning they had a lot in common would be amazing. A kiss? Okay, now he was getting greedy. A kiss was too fast.
A bitter icy wind blew across the quad, and Luke ducked his head to his shoulders, trying to shield his face as best he could.
Winter was moving in too damn quickly. The temperature was dipping below freezing more often, and the brief flurries were threatening to become substantial accumulations of snow.
Knowing all this, Luke still chose to meet Matteo in the quad rather than in one of the nearby buildings where he could have stayed warm.
Thinking and Matteo did not go hand in hand.
He couldn’t use his brain when he talked to Matteo.
That was a situation that needed to be remedied fast, or he was going to freeze to death.
“Luke!”
He swung his head at Matteo’s call to see the young man hurrying across the grassy space to him.
As Matteo reached him, he pinched the sleeve of Luke’s puffy coat and pulled him toward the nearby science building. “You look frozen! How long have you been waiting for me?” Matteo asked, his face nearly covered by the beanie pulled low and the scarf wrapped around his neck.
“Not too long. Just a few minutes.” Which was true. He didn’t think it had been more than ten minutes.
“Well, we got lucky. Dr. Lawrence ended the class early. I think he has a cold and didn’t feel like lecturing. He assigned some reading and cut us loose.”
“I wish more of my classes would end early like that,” Luke murmured.
Matteo laughed, his eyes becoming narrow slits as his cheeks rounded. “Right?”
They slipped inside and wandered to a lobby that was sparsely crowded with other students who were reading, chatting, or curled up asleep in hard, uncomfortable chairs. The sharp bite of cold that had gnawed on Luke’s fingers and toes was receding as warmth cuddled him close.
“We still heading to your house today? You sure your landlord doesn’t mind you having a guest stop over?”
“Yep, it’s a few blocks away from here. I was thinking…there’s a pizzeria on the way. We could stop in, grab a pizza, and take it with us. Though…” he paused, glancing at the windows that gazed out on the frigid scene, “the pizza might be cold by the time we get it to my house.”
Matteo paused in his attempts to unwrap his scarf and shrugged. “That’s fine. We could always shove it in the oven for a few minutes. Or eat it cold. Either works for me. I figured we could hang out. Or study.”
“Yeah, okay.” Luke’s heart fluttered at Matteo’s easy smile. He was so damn cute and seemed so happy to simply spend time together. Could this be real? Was it a prank? An elaborate joke? Matteo didn’t feel like the cruel type, but Luke couldn’t understand why Matteo wanted to be with him.
Regardless of the reason, Luke was determined to soak up this happy moment while he had it.
They lingered in the science building for several minutes, their heads together over Luke’s phone as he pulled up the website for the pizza place. They debated toppings before deciding on pepperoni, sausage, and green peppers. After placing their order, they bundled up and headed out into the cold.
The walk to the pizza parlor was brisk with only light conversation, as speaking stole their warmth away.
A few blocks from the school, they reached the pizza parlor as their pie was being pulled from the oven and slid into the box.
Luke had offered to pay for the whole thing, but Matteo was adamant about paying for his half.
Luke didn’t press it. Would Matteo mistake it for Luke assuming this was a date?
No. No. They were friends. Or just starting to be friends.
The pizza box held in his hands, the scent of cheese, tomatoes, and oregano drifted around them with each step. Luke hadn’t been hungry when they’d left school, but his stomach was now growling with every step they took.
After a few more blocks, they reached the giant house that loomed over the entire street. The sun had already set behind the house, casting it in creepy shadows, while the pair of porch lights flickered like torches in a breeze.
“Holy fuck,” Matteo whispered.
Luke glanced back to find Matteo stopped at the edge of the sidewalk leading to the front porch, his wide eyes locked on the house. The wind had bitten his cheek pink, but they seemed to pale now as Luke watched him.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re not serious, are you? You don’t actually live here?” Matteo lifted one hand and pointed a trembling finger at the house in question.
“Yeah. Sure. Why?”
“Dude! That’s the murder house!”
“What?” Luke squawked. The box wobbled in his hands, but his fingers tightened on it before it could fall. “What are you talking about?”
“Everyone on campus says it’s haunted. Haven’t you heard?”
“No.”
Matteo shook his head and retreated a step.
“It was the first week that I was at school. Some of us went for a drive, and my roommate stopped here. He said this place was crazy haunted. All the neighbors have reported hearing weird noises coming from it, but nobody lives there. People have gone in on dares and were never seen again. There are all kinds of stories about people dying and body parts being found in the yard.”
Luke cleared his throat and let his gaze dart over to the house as he attempted to organize his thoughts.
He had no doubt that some of those stories were probably true.
His “unique” roommates loved to get up to mischief.
He might have even helped them a few times— not that he condoned hurting anyone physically.
“That’s crazy,” Luke said with a laugh that he prayed didn’t sound too forced. “First, the house isn’t abandoned. I’ve been living there for more than a month now. The owners are nice. I think people are bored and cooking up wild stories because the house is so big.”
“Okay…but…don’t you think it’s a little creepy?”
Luke looked at the house. “Not…really. I think it’s just the way the sun has set behind it.
It’s making all these shadows. It’s not scary.
” To him, it was a warm, safe haven in a world that was always trying to crush him.
Yes, there were a lot of demons in there.
Maybe the house itself got restless. It would do things like hide the doors to the bathrooms or turn on all the water faucets at the same time, but those were silly pranks.
Matteo didn’t seem convinced. He shivered, and Luke wasn’t sure if it was from the cold.
“Do you not want to go in?”
“ Um …”
Luke’s shoulders slumped, pebbles of disappointment piling up in his stomach. He’d been eagerly anticipating this non-date. They’d be away from the prying eyes of hundreds of college students, and maybe, he could have a normal conversation without feeling endlessly self-conscious.
“We could take the pizza to campus. Eat it at your dorm.” Of course, it would be ice cold by the time they reached his room, and they’d be stuck trying to locate a working microwave in which to nuke it.
“Fuck, no!” Matteo straightened. “Those damn vultures would scarf up all our pizza before we got any and bitch about not getting any breadsticks.”
Luke bit his bottom lip to hold in his laugh. Matteo tipped his chin up and sucked in a loud breath as if he were gathering his courage.
“You promise you’re going to protect me?” Matteo asked while keeping his eyes locked on the house.
“Of course. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
“Cool. Cool.” Matteo nodded, but he didn’t take a step. He continued to stand shivering on the sidewalk, staring at the house.
Luke walked to him and patted him on the shoulder. “I live here. It’s safe. We’ll go in, heat the pizza, and I’ll show you around. You’re going to love the library and the family room. I swear they’ve got the biggest TV I’ve ever seen.”
“Okay.” Matteo took a step forward, but it was a slow, tiny one.
“Did you know there are more than twenty types of vultures and that they can eat meat in any stage of decay?” Luke blurted out.
“What? That’s crazy!” Matteo said, and this time he took an even bigger step.
Luke nodded and led him down the sidewalk to the house. “They can even withstand diseases that would kill most animals. When they find a carcass, some of the first parts they go for are the eyes and the butt.”
“Really? Why?”