Epilogue
“Hey, I’m so sorry, guys.” I look up from my PC, pausing Silent Hill. “Give me just a minute?”
Shiloh calls my name again from the living room, interrupting my stream in a way that’s uncharacteristic of him. Normally he’d just join in, as long as he’s not bloody or in some other way inappropriately attired for my followers.
Like being naked.
I get to my feet, putting the stream on pause as I do, and listen to Shiloh talk to Arugula in the other room.
“Hey, is everything okay?” I’m half expecting to walk in to see him covered in blood and needing my help to get it off the floor, though he knows I’ll absolutely expect him to go get us food from Waffle Wagon if that’s the case.
But instead, I see him kneeling down on the floor, his back to me, and over his shoulder I can see Arugula’s bottlebrush tail flicking back and forth.
“Shiloh?” I don’t see any blood, which is a good sign, but my guard is up, anyway.
Shiloh looks back at me over his shoulder, his grin full and charming. His bright green eyes gleam with mischief, and he huddles over whatever he has that has Arugula so interested. “Close your eyes,” he requests, lifting his brows when I just stare at him. “Pretty please.”
That has a bemused grin curling over my lips, and I nod. “Yeah, okay?” Without a clue about what could be going on, I close my eyes, though light from the windows still shines against the blackness of my eyelids. “Do I need to do anything else?”
“Nope.” I hear him move, taking a few steps to eat up the distance between him and me. “Nothing at all.” When I can feel him in front of me, my anticipation grows, and I half expect him to kiss me, this whole thing just a sweet gesture.
But the tongue that I feel on my nose certainly isn’t his. And the little purr has my eyes flicking open to see a tiny tabby kitten with bright blue eyes cradled carefully in Shiloh’s hand as it reaches out to touch my face with itty-bitty paws.
“Oh, my God!” I gasp, my hands coming up instinctively. He deposits the kitten in my arms, where it curls up against me, my heart pounding with delight. “A kitten? Where did you get him? Her? It?”
“Her,” Shiloh tells me. “I found her a few hours ago on my way back from Chicago. I didn’t want to tell you until I had him seen by a vet. Which I did. She’s all good and now up to date on vaccines.” He hesitates, his smile turning impish. “They asked me what her name was, at least for the file.”
“Oh?” When I look at him, bemusement enters my expression. “What did you…” I trail off, and my eyes narrow. “You did not.”
“Meet your new child, Rutabaga Wilkes,” Shiloh all but cackles, his fingers tickling the kitten’s ears. “Sorry for interrupting your stream, by the way. I just knew you’d want to meet Ruty.”
Ruty makes me cackle. But I drag Shiloh close and kiss him until the kitten mewls her protest and climbs up to sit on my shoulder, balancing on tiny paws. Shiloh scoops her up, but before he can walk away, I drag him straight to the bedroom with me with Arugula in tow.
“Hey guys, I’m sorry again,” I greet after turning my stream back on. My viewers are quick to greet me, though it only takes them seconds to recognize the arrival of Shiloh.
Holy shit, there he is.
How do I get a man like that??? Should I start a blog and beg to be scared?
Heyyy Shiloh can you give us any tips for getting a masked fan like you?
Shiloh grins and leans down to kiss my cheek.
“Clearly the answer is to declare that nothing can scare you and to practically invite someone to show up at the haunts you go to,” he tells my viewers in a solemn, sage kind of way.
“But, uh, I think she wants you guys to meet the newest family member.”
“I do. So stop stealing her limelight. You guys already know and love Arugula. Now meet…” I plop Rutabaga on the desk, right in front of my keyboard. The little kitten makes the cutest sound then reaches up to play with my headphones. “Rutabaga.”
“Ruty,” Shiloh supplies, reaching over my shoulder to gently boop her nose.
As expected, my chat lights up at that, though their reactions are split between excitement over Rutabaga and general swooning of Shiloh, which is their favorite thing to do when he streams with me.
I wonder how they’d feel if they really knew him. Or what he does.
“I’ll take Rutabaga and leave you alone. If she gasps or looks even a bit scared, don’t let her live it down,” he instructs my viewers, giving the camera a look. “Silent Hill freaks her out. Don’t let her lie to you.”
“Traitor!” I laugh, but I hand Ruty up to him, and the kitten all but launches herself into his chest. After that, it takes me a minute to get back into the swing of things, but I manage to resettle myself, unpause my game, and go back to the steady stream of conversation with my viewers as they type their comments into my chat.
Even though, admittedly, I can’t quite keep my mind off of my new kitten and my boyfriend, who I can distantly hear in the other room lecturing Arugula on how to be a good big brother.
When my stream is over, the sun has all but set over Mrs. Elmore’s house, casting my yard into an orange glow. As usual, Shiloh is sitting out back, letting Arugula prowl around the enclosed yard we’ve managed to fix up, though we’d never let the cat go out here on his own.
Without a word, I sink down beside him on the porch, my head on his shoulder as he lets Rutabaga gnaw on his finger and roll around, play fighting him with everything she’s got.
“How did you find my blog?” I murmur curiously after a moment of watching them. “You know, back before we met and all.”
Shiloh doesn’t reply at first; he just keeps playing with the new kitten while Arugula hunts real and imaginary mice. “Google,” he chuckles finally, though I lightly thump his arm with the back of my hand at the vapid answer, earning a snicker.
“I saw you first,” he admits finally, turning his emerald eyes up to mine.
“Last year, I actually helped out at Park Scream. You know I have some friends there who, uh, were so great about returning the favor this year.” He gives me the smallest, most playful grin imaginable.
“I saw you there. Alone. I was working The Darkness that time, too. And you came face-to-face with me in my riot gear. Everyone else was so scared, except the ones who pretended they weren’t.
But you just looked at me like…” he trails off, and scoffs.
“Well, maybe I’m just a cheesy romantic, but I couldn’t get you out of my head.
Later, when I found out who you were, and found your channel, I knew what I saw in your face that night, Persy.
” He reaches up with his free hand covered in small wounds from kitten claws and teeth.
“I knew you were going to be mine.” He cradles my face in his hand, guiding me to him to press our lips together.
When we finally break apart, a question occurs to me. “Wait, a whole year? You waited a year to show up in my life?”
Shiloh blinks a little owlishly.
“Why didn’t you just, like, ask me out? Or talk to me, or something, or—”
“You wouldn’t have given me the time of day, Scaredy Cat.
Nah, you’re worth more than just walking up to you on the street.
You’re worth everything. I knew I needed a plan to scare the un-scare-able blogger, after all.
” He laughs and kisses me again, and again, until Rutabaga is bored of our shit and wanders off toward Arugula in the yard.
“Okay, well…” I reach up to press my fingers to the sides of his face, and I’m unable to stop the smile from reaching wide on up my cheeks.
“I can’t blame you. I mean, this is probably the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me…
aside from cutting off a woman’s pinkie and throwing it into a cornfield. ”
That has him snorting, but he tackles me back against the porch to kiss me again, this time with his hand dragging up my thigh. “We need to take the cats inside,” Shiloh murmurs against my jaw, before nipping slightly.
“Why’s that?”
“Because all this talk about scaring you has made me remember that it’s time for our Texas Chainsaw Massacre marathon,” he purrs. “And I intend to make it your favorite franchise all over again.”
His words draw a stupidly amused laugh from me, and Shiloh pulls me to my feet.
He barely lets me go long enough for me to scoop up Rutabaga and call Arugula before we’re back inside and the door is closed and we’re locked in our tiny house.
Then he kisses me again while both cats use his quickly discarded jeans as target practice for their sharp claws as we celebrate the night before Halloween.