CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
VIGGO RASSMUSSEN
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
BUD LEROY
Doth? When did Viggy get a lisp? Why does he sound like Shakespeare? Why do you sound like Shakespeare?
JULIANA THE DEMON HUNTRESS
It is Shakespeare
Vampire Falls. Season two, episode eighteen – “My Person”
“Oh dear,” he says, pushing himself away from his doorway and swaggering (swaggering?! At a time like this?) down the hall, spinning his key card between his thumb and forefinger. “Oh dear, oh dear. What a pickle you’re in, Eliza. A pickle indeed.”
“It’s fine. I’ll just wait for Roxy.”
“Here?”
“Yes,” I say, crossing my arms.
“With your cloak trapped in the door?”
“Yes. I actually love this hallway.”
I lean back against the door to demonstrate just how cool I am about the situation. Charlie Chamberlain looks me up and down, a smirky looking smirk on his smirky face. God, he really knows how to boil my piss.
“What are you even doing in economy class, anyway?” I snap. “Didn’t you get upgraded to the presidential suite or something?”
“Yeah, that didn’t work out in the end,” he says, his jaw clenching. He looks over his shoulder then back at me.“Do you want me to go and find Roxy?”
I swallow. I have no clue what she’s playing at, but she must be on her way back here, surely? Even in this dire situation, I can’t accept help from Charlie Chamberlain.
“No. I’m sure she’ll be back in a minute,” I say, folding my arms.
“What about your other friend?” he asks, his mouth tight.
“What friend?” I ask, frowning at him.
“Never mind. You want to wait in my room?” he says, gesturing over his shoulder.
“I can’t move from this doorway, can I, genius?”
“I’m sorry, is that cloak fused to your skin, genius?”
“Yes.” The side of his mouth twitches, and I look at the ceiling with a sigh. “No.”
“So, take it off and come and wait.”
“No, thank you,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
He strolls back down the hall into his room, letting the door shut loudly behind him.
I try Roxy again and nearly throw my phone down the hallway, but even I know that’s not a good move.
I watch the door Roxy went through, waiting for her to come rushing through holding a tattoo pen triumphantly over her head, maybe even throwing in some parkour as she comes back to me, but she doesn’t.
The competition starts in less than twenty minutes, and I have zero chance of winning if I’m stuck here.
I yank my cape, but it doesn’t budge. I take a deep breath and close my eyes.
“Charlie?” I call.
The door clicks.
“Yes, Eliza?”
“Please can I wait in your room?”
“Why of course; what a good idea.”
He heads towards me, not exactly smiling but not not smiling either, and there’s something in his eyes that’s way too sparkly given my circumstances.
He stops in front of me, and I look up at him.
I’d forgotten how tall he is, I’m so used to glaring at him from a distance.
His scent hasn’t changed much; that deodorant he wears but with a new scent sprayed into the mix so he smells like an upgraded version of the boy I was friends with.
We face each other for a few seconds until he slowly lifts his hand and reaches for my face.
My heart clangs against my breastplate and I press myself harder against the door.
“W-what are you doing?” I manage.
“Helping you get your cloak off?”
“Oh,” I say, clearing my throat. “Cape.”
“What now?”
“It’s a cape, not a cloak, and I can do it.”
I swallow and my hands fly up to my shoulders, my fingers fumbling at the fastenings. I look down, hoping he doesn’t notice my hands shaking.
Why are my hands shaking?
I manage to undo both fastenings, then step forwards and the cape falls from my shoulders. I’m suddenly very aware of how much flesh this costume shows without it. I swallow. Again. Why all the swallowing, Eliza?
“Here,” he says, handing me a hoodie.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m just . . . excited.”
“Right.”
He’s still holding out the hoodie, so I take it and put it round my shoulders, not giving him the satisfaction of using the sleeves, even though I’m actually freezing. I bite the inside of my cheek.
“Thanks,” I say.
He raises an eyebrow and turns away, so I start following him to his room, then stop suddenly.
“What about my cape?”
“What about it?” he says, walking into his room.
“I can’t just leave it,” I say, looking at it like it’s Jawfain caught in an Arachno Demon’s web (spoiler: he was fine).
“Roxy’ll get it when she’s back. I can tell her what happened,” he says. I check my phone again; I barely have time to pee before the competition starts. OK, biting big chunks out of my cheek right now. “Eliza?”
“What?” I snap, hurrying into his room.
“You can still do the cosplay without the cloak . . . cape.”
He closes the door behind us. We’re standing at the end of his bed, and I can tell it’s his because he’s a neat freak and it’s all smooth and tucked in like the Undead Princess of Vaquella is coming to visit.
Two bottles of aftershave sit on the side, one all greys and smoky glass, plus the novelty one Sadie got him.
She instructed him only to wear it for special occasions, because she’d spent a month’s pocket money on it.
I can’t believe he still has it. It’s cute he’s brought it.
Wait. Not cute. I have no opinion of that vanilla and sweet orange-smelling football-shaped aftershave.
“But I need it,” I say, my voice wobbling a little.
Something flashes across his face, that look of terror boys get when they think you’re going to cry.
I try Roxy again, and when the busy cross pops up on my phone tears prick at my eyes, so he better get over it.
I bite my lip and frown at my phone, unable to look at him, the last person I want to fall apart in front of.
Being in his room, enveloped in his routine and his smell, is making everything worse; lost and further away from Roxy.
“But she doesn’t always wear a cloak, right?
Didn’t they only add the cloak in season two anyway?
So, there was a whole season where she looked like this.
” He pauses for a moment, and I look up at him.
He smiles and scratches his head, leaving a tuft of hair sticking up on the side. “Like what you’re wearing, I mean.”
“You remember that?” I ask.
His eyebrows pop up. “Remember what?”
“When her costume changed.”
“Duh. Probably every pubescent boy noticed what she was wearing in all her scenes.”
I rush back three years to when he, Roxy and I were watching the episode “Yours or Mine?” from season four.
Juliana pulled Viggo from the Reapers Chasm, straddled him (naturally), then ripped a piece of fabric from her skirt and tied it around his bleeding arm.
Roxy and I paused at the end of the scene to get snacks, but Charlie Chamberlain couldn’t move, stuck with a cushion over his lap.
“I forgot she was your first crush,” I say, smiling at the memory.
“Kind of.” He looks down at me, then shoves his hands in his pockets. “Anyway. Like I said, she doesn’t always have the cloak. The cape, sorry.”
“This version of the costume she does.” I’m pulled back into the room, clock ticking, and the competition start even closer. I go to claw my hands though my hair, but my fingertips don’t get past the hairspray and mousse. “And I don’t have my tattoo.”
“OK. You need to get over the cape, but we can do something about the tattoo.” He shuffles past me and leans over Sadie’s bed, grabbing a pencil case. “Hoodie off and turn around.”
“What? No, I . . .”
“Do you want the tattoo?” he says, riffling through the pencil case.
“Yes, but . . .”
“I can do it,” he says, pulling out a black pen. I shake my head. “You want to do it? I forgot you’re double-jointed and have extendable arms.”
I glance at my phone again. We have fourteen minutes and Roxy still isn’t here. Charlie Chamberlain may be my only option.
“Won’t it smudge?” I ask.
He shakes his head and waves the pen. “It’s permanent; I woke up with an eye patch on me when Sadie was mad once. Had to go to football practice with it.”
I can’t help smiling as he throws the pencil case down.
“Let me find a picture then,” I say, looking at my phone.
“Don’t need it. I’ve doodled her tattoo a thousand times. Just turn around.”
“What if you mess it up?”
“I literally drew it last week, so I think we’re OK.”
“What for?”
“An internship thing.”
“A drawing internship thing?”
“Yes, a drawing internship thing,” he says, rolling his eyes.
“You still do all that?” I say, swallowing. “The drawing?”
He nods. “What about you?”
“What about me, what?” I ask.
“You still following Roxy to uni? Bristol, isn’t it?”
“Why’d you say that?” I ask, stiffening.
“That was the plan, wasn’t it?” he says. I can’t tell if he’s making fun of me, so I don’t say anything. “Wow. Your skin has literally just frosted over. Subject change.”
“Or just quiet time is also fine.”
“OK,” he says, shrugging as he pulls the lid off the pen. “Turn round then.”
I turn away then look up at the ceiling, waiting for something to happen.
“Are you doing it then?” I say.
He clears his throat.
“Take the . . . can you take the hoodie off?” he says.
I pull the hoodie from around my shoulders.
He steps up behind me, but does it so quietly the only reason I know he’s closer is because I feel his breath on my neck.
He clears his throat again and makes me jump a little.
My adrenaline must be through the roof because of the competition and the costume and being late and the door and . . .
“Eliza?”
This time I clear my throat.
“Mm-yeah?”
Mm-yeah? What the hell dictionary did I pull that one from?
“Try and keep still,” he says.
“I am.”
“You’re shaking.”
“It’s cold in here.”
“It’s like a thousand degrees.”