CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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“HELP!” ADAM SHOUTED, his voice raw from the past hour of screaming. No one had heard them.
The movie had to be playing now. The one he brought, that he always introduced. And no one gave more than a passing thought to try to find him.
Raj grunted and slammed the wrench into one of the pipes.
“Hey! Don’t break that. Last thing we need is to drown faster.”
The water had risen over their knees. For a time, Adam had tried to huddle on the stairs while Raj kept trying to find this leak. He also whacked the sump pump that refused to do any pumping. All that did was cause it to gurgle, then let out one large bubble before going silent.
Adam’s entire right side ached from slamming into the door. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear the damn thing was barricaded on the other side. No matter how hard he swung, or even if Raj helped, it wouldn’t budge. And still the water rose.
At first, he’d found the idea rather comical, being trapped in a slow death trap with his worst enemy.
But as the hours ticked on, Adam’s smile turned into a rot in his stomach.
He eased up the stairs to check on his phone.
No matter how close he pressed it to the door, he still couldn’t get a signal.
Raj’s was in an even worse state. The fool had let it drain to nothing.
They couldn’t contact anyone, they couldn’t budge the door, and no one could hear their screams.
All they’ll find are two handsome but bloated corpses come the morning.
“Damn it!” Raj cried out. The wrench cut through the air, banging into the exposed pipe before hitting the wall. It tore from his hands and landed with a kerplunk into the rising pond.
Both men stared at the wrench’s watery grave.
The air thickened with the allure of giving in, laying down with the wrench, and letting the water wash them away.
A tic shivered up Raj’s shoulders. He shoved his arm up to the shoulder into the sludge and dredged up the wrench.
Sloshing in a half circle, he wielded the tool at Adam. “This is all your fault.”
“Mine? I didn’t make you put in shoddy pipes.”
“You shut the damn door. If you hadn’t… If you hadn’t come down here, I could have left, turned off the water, and everything would be fine.”
Adam sneered. “Who builds a cellar door that locks on its own?”
“I don’t know. This place is old and weird, and…that’s not the point!” Raj smacked the wrench in his hand. “You did this. Again.”
Scoffing, Adam nearly rolled his eyes. He peered through the dark gap in the locked door. No matter how much he looked, no one was coming to save him. There was no point in pretending any longer.
“I wouldn’t even be down here if not for you.” Adam seethed.
“I didn’t invite you to join me.” Raj stared up at him and blinked before he spun to face the sump pump once again. “Every time I turn around, there you are with that fucking smile. Waving to people. Acting like you’re so damn happy with everything! Ah!”
Happy? He was anything but happy. Adam rose off the stairs. Not caring about his shoes or trousers, he descended down the steps. “Excuse me. You don’t know me.”
“I know you well enough. Think you’re the fucking peacock around here. The rooster running around, keeping all the hens in check.”
“I’m sorry, did you run a farm on a movie set?” Adam laughed.
“But you’re miserable,” Raj grunted. His face turned bright red as he tried to turn a stripped bolt. The wrench slipped off, banging his knuckles into the wall. Cursing, Raj slapped the pipe and shouted, “Fuck you. And fuck you too. You’re ruining my life.”
“Your life?” Adam sloshed through the water, walking toward the man holding a weapon that could shatter his jaw. “I’m sorry, did you get humiliated in front of the whole town? Oh no, that was me.”
“I didn’t— How could you even think I’d want some sniveling brats to do that?”
“You sold them the apples.”
“Because you made me buy them!” Raj thundered. “Thanks to your fragile ego, unable to handle a little competition, I had to spend the last of my petty cash on shitty caramel apples.”
Adam didn’t know that. He’d thought the random check was another flash of his wealth to wow the people, especially the council.
Wincing, he shook off the guilt. “No one forced you to do that. To show off, as you keep doing. Blaze in here out of nowhere acting like you’re already the town’s darling. ”
Raj’s flustered face stilled. He quirked his lips to the side in a half-laugh. “I’m sorry if they’re looking to trade in for a newer model.”
He could never say why he did it.
All Adam remembered was a snap in his ears like a broken rubber band. The next thing he knew, he was lunging. Hands on Raj’s shoulders, lips pulled into a sneer, legs running until Raj slammed into the wall.
A wave of anger twisted around them, both men silent save for the shocked panting as they glared into each other’s eyes.
The rage subsided enough that Adam could feel his fingers again—fingers and hands holding onto the very firm arms of a man that smelled like myrrh and amber.
“You…” Adam sputtered, shocked to realize he was the aggressor.
Pain snapped at the back of his eyes, the humiliation dragging him back to his moment on the stage. “They wore her masks.”
“What?” Raj asked, dumbfounded.
“The assholes who pelted me with apples. They were wearing her masks, the ones you sold. That you took from my sister.”
“I didn’t—”
“Do you have any fucking idea how humiliating that was?” Adam leaned closer, his heart darkening as their jeers echoed in his ears.
Raj didn’t panic. Maybe he realized he could easily bat Adam away. But he took a slow breath and stared him down. “How about a grown man shoving me aside to steal my caramel in front of everyone I’m trying to impress?”
Okay, so maybe he’d overreacted that day. But he had good reason. “You opened a store to sell fucking Halloween costumes.”
“Only because you opened a haunt before I can even get mine to god damn work!”
“I did that—!”
“Oh, I know why you did it,” Raj interrupted him. He leaned off of the wall, his hot breath tumbling down Adam’s face. “Because you’re threatened by change, by someone new, by thinking there can only be one accepted gay man in this town.”
Adam’s fingers tightened around his shoulders. “You don’t know me.” I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I… It’s complicated. “I’m sick of you. Of people chattering about your hotel day in and day out in my store. How fucking excited they are because you’re a master of Halloween.”
“Oh, as if I can avoid you, Mr. King of Halloween. Every day, every event, there you are, lording over the proceedings like Pope and Emperor in one lithe body!” Raj panted hard, his nose almost glancing against the tip of Adam’s.
His chest kept rising higher as his lip bunched into a quivering rage.
Fuck him.
But Adam was a mess at the sight of Raj coming undone.
The man’s flushed face and body practically straining to leap out and wrestle him back had Adam throbbing in his pants.
Instead of feeling embarrassed by the mysterious erection, all he wanted was to press it into Raj’s hips, which made him all the angrier.
“I hate you,” Adam cursed, feeling near tears. The asshole was right here, hot, smart, and with someone else.
Raj sneered. “I hate…” He glanced at the water level that’d risen another inch during their fight. “I hate that we’re going to die before I…”
“What?” Adam asked. Before he opened his haunt? Before he ran Adam out of business? Before he took the King of Halloween’s crown? “What do you—?”
Raj lunged. Adam’s first instinct was to let go. He almost cowered back when Raj wrapped a palm to the nape of his neck. All that inescapable teddy bear power locked Adam. He shivered to his toes.
The water parted, and Raj pulled him down to his lips.
The feral kiss ripped through Adam. His heart exploded in shock, heat tearing through his veins.
It took until Raj’s fingers brushed over Adam’s waist for him to think to return the rising kiss.
Raj parted his lips, and Adam raced to keep up.
Their tongues tapped as if on accident, before both started to taste the other.
At his mercy, Adam stumbled backward through the water while Raj led. Finally, Adam raked his fingers through Raj’s untamable mane. Fuck, he wanted to wrap it around his knuckles and pull Raj’s head back while thrusting.
Raj didn’t let up for a second. He kept shoving until Adam’s back smashed into a shelf. Dusty jars shook on the rotten wood, and Adam gasped.
Which was when Raj cupped his palm around Adam’s bulge.
“Oh, fuck…” he moaned. His skin burst into flames at just that over the pants action.
Wait. What about—?
The fast tear of a zipper yanked away any thoughts of the blond himbo. Dumbstruck, he glanced down as Raj, clinging to the pull of Adam’s fly, dropped to his knees.
Holy shit. Yes. Yes. Yes!
“Hey, man. Are you down here?”
No!
Their door of the damned flew open. A dark shadow leered down at them, then Logan stuck his golden head through the gap.
Raj shot up to his feet, his body drenched up to his chest. Turning away, Adam tried to corral his cock back into place, but the flesh was so hard and aching for that mouth, he nearly screamed at the touch.
“Logan, shut off the water main!” Raj shouted to the man. He started to glance back at Adam, who’d finally managed his fly without tearing any very important skin.
Then a sound began. A low hum rose from the sump pump, and—like magic—the water level started to drop. For a beat, Adam and Raj caught each other’s eye before both turned away at a loss for what the hell just happened.
By the time Adam climbed out of the cellar, the whole thing felt like…
well, not a dream, or a nightmare. More like a sleep paralysis demon squatting on his chest and torturing him with all the things he couldn’t have.
On one hand, Raj—a man he’d been warring with for the past fortnight—kissed and got down on his knees for him.
On the other, he’d bent his head with Logan—his partner—and both fussed over the sump pump now dutifully draining the basement.
Even the leak seemed to have vanished, turning Adam’s panic-induced horniness to a dull ache from his balls up to his stomach.
Maybe he hallucinated all of that from black mold. That made sense, right?
Adam turned away from the cozy scene of a couple’s basement repair and reached for the door handle. As he tugged, he remembered the damn thing was one way.
“Fuck me,” he snarled at himself.
A quick gasp from behind caused his hands to drop from cradling his aching head. The man who’d just about done that nervously fiddled with the wrench’s nut, his eyes somewhere around Adam’s midsection. His gaze, however, was about two miles down the road.
“Hey man, what’s up?” The third wheel in all of this looked over at Adam.
Swallowing his guilt into a gnarled snare, Adam pointed to the back door. “It won’t open.”
“Oh, here. You need the key.” Logan breezed past, his golden hair blowing in the October wind. Damn it, he smelled like salty waves and white sands. The thought twisted Adam’s intestines into a pretty bow.
“There ya go, man,” Logan declared, propping the door open for him.
Nodding, Adam placed a hand to the cool metal. He turned from the beckoning light to the darkness. For a beat, he caught Raj’s eyes. Their manic darting froze, and—while he could tell a thousand thoughts zipped behind them— Adam didn’t have a clue what they were.
“If you hurry, you can still catch the end of the movie,” Logan said.
Adam nodded his thanks and started to ease his way inside. He should be bolting, but he couldn’t stop from lingering.
“Hey.” Raj glanced his finger against Logan’s arm. “How’d you get the door open?”
“With my key,” he explained like the golden retriever of a man he was.
“Not that one.” Raj laughed, the sound placing a stake to Adam’s sternum. “The one to the cellar. Do you have a key for it, too?”
“No.” Logan reached over to the shut door, then pulled it up without any fuss. “There’s no lock.”
“What? No. It was locked. We were banging for hours. Um…”
Adam winced at the heat blazing across Raj’s cheeks. He couldn’t take the cauldron of emotions and slipped inside. As the door slammed closed, he heard Raj testing the door over and over, all while Logan kept explaining it never locked.
It didn’t happen. It was a dream. A nightmare.
Something in between.
Applause broke from the ballroom, and the lights rose.
The movie was over. Adam’s only reason for staying faded away like the drip of a fixed leak.
Holding his breath, he dashed down the hallway, keeping his head low so none of the people leaving could recognize him. But as he went, he glanced back.
The word exit blazed in red above the door.