8. STEVIE
STEVIE
I can tell the guys are confused about why Lo is coming with us, but they have enough common sense not to ask questions.
“We’ll come back for everything tomorrow,” I say as I unlock the van.
I walk around to the passenger side to open the door for Lo.
She looks at me with some hesitation, like she can’t tell if she’s supposed to sit up there or not.
“I’m not making you squeeze between all of them. You can sit up front.”
Lo hops into the passenger side, and I shut the door before heading over to the driver’s side.
I start up the car and glance over at Lo to gauge her reaction.
I can see in her face she’s amused by the whole thing—the random stickers we’ve acquired at gas stations, the scratch marks, the random dents.
It’s our van and I love it, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good one.
I turn the radio on at a low volume. “Dinner?”
“Yes, please,” one of the twins says.
“Diner food?”
“ Yes ,” the other twin moans.
“Jesus. Keep your pants on,” I say. “Alright, we’ll go to our usual out here.” I turn to Lo. “You don’t mind breakfast food?”
She shakes her head. “That sounds delicious.”
Even from Lo’s house, I know the drive to the diner like the back of my hand.
I’ve lived in LA long enough to have a decent mental map, even with how big the city is.
It’s not perfect, but there are certain places that are seared into my memory.
I could find them no matter where I’m starting from, no matter how far I am, or how unfamiliar my surroundings are.
“God, I love this place,” Andrew says.
“Thank god, I’ve had to pee so fucking bad,” Tweedle-Dum says as I park. The car isn’t even off by the time he’s throwing open the side door and sprinting up to the entrance.
I get out of the car and meet Lo on the sidewalk.
She looks up at the restaurant—a classic, retro-style diner with a neon green sign.
It’s open twenty-four hours, and the food is reliably good.
It’s one of my favorite places on earth.
I can’t help but admire the way the glow from inside makes her hair look golden even in the dark.
“You been here before?”
“No, I haven’t,” Lo says. She wraps her arms around herself to brace against the chilly breeze that sweeps over us. “It’s cute, though.”
I place a hand on Lo’s lower back to lead her in the right direction.
When we open the front door and step inside Anita, the waitress who I’ve seen a million times, smiles.
It’s quiet inside just like it always is in the later evening.
It’s too far from any of the major bars out here for people to want to wander to, so it’s usually just the regulars or people craving a sober late-night meal.
“Oh, you guys again. Welcome back,” she says warmly.
“I thought you were out of town for a shoot this week.”
“No, ma’am. Change of plans,” I say.
“And you’ve brought someone new along,” she says, nodding to Lo. Anita looks up at me, playfully raising her light gray eyebrows. “She’s very pretty.”
“She is,” I say. “She’s also hungry, like the rest of us are.”
“Coming right up,” she says and waves us down the aisle of booths.
We settle into one of the larger ones, tucked into a back corner near the windows.
The twins—both of them back after sprinting to the bathroom, continuing to feed into the belief that they do actually share one brain cell—slide into the booth with Andrew.
I sit down after and Lo sits down next to me, taking the seat at the end.
“I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I smelled the food here,” Lo says. When Anita places a menu in front of her, Lo smiles. “Thank you.”
“Of course, sweetie pie,” Anita says with a grin. “I’ll come back in a few. I’m assuming you’re all just going to want your regulars, but I’ll let the new girl have a minute.”
Just as Anita predicted, the only person looking at the menu is Lo. The rest of us take a moment to breathe for the first time in what feels like ages.
“That was nuts,” Andrew says. “I never want to do that again.”
“Was it really that bad compared to what you guys are used to?” Lo asks.
I try to think of a way to diplomatically answer her question.
It is bad compared to what we’re used to because normally, the places we go aren’t actually haunted.
But I can’t exactly tell her that. “Yeah, your house is pretty active,” I say.
“There’s a lot more going on there than I thought when we first agreed to this. ”
“Are you looking forward to visiting the cult compound tomorrow?” Andrew asks. “That might give us some answers.”
“Not a cult compound,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I don’t know. I can’t figure out how to feel about it. I don’t know if it’s going to actually lead to anything.”
“I guess we’ll see,” Lo says.
“Do we really need an explanation as to what the deal is with the ghost if we know there’s a ghost?” Tweedle-Dee asks with a shrug. “Like, someone died in the house at some point. A ghost is there now. End of story.”
“It’s TV, it needs to be more exciting than that,” I say.
Anita swings by again to get our orders down. Andrew, the twins, and I order an impressive amount of food—tax deductible again—and then turn to look at Lo.
“I’ll just do the regular breakfast meal,” she says. “Bacon. But chocolate chips in the pancakes, please.”
“You got it, baby,” Anita says and collects our menus.
I take a sip of the diner coffee that I can’t resist, even when it’s late. Time flew at Lo’s, and none of us seem particularly motivated to rush out of here, so it’ll be a while until we’re at the hotel for the night.
“Lo, I’d ask you how your first ghost hunting experience was, but I guess you’ve already been an expert,” Andrew says as he takes a sip of his own coffee.
She smiles. Now that the adrenaline is gone, she looks sleepy more than anything.
It’s cute the way her eyes are drooping just the tiniest bit.
I fight off the urge to offer to tuck her into bed.
“That was definitely more exciting than I’d been anticipating.
I was honestly a little worried you guys were going to come and nothing was going to happen. ”
Andrew shook his head. “No. It’s almost like the ghost was pissed because we were there.”
Lo nods, deep in thought. “Yeah, honestly. You’re right. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many major things happen consecutively like that before.”
“Are you going back there tonight?” one of the twins asks.
“No way.” She shakes her head. “I might live in a haunted house, but I know my limits. I don’t think it’s going to, like, kill me or anything, but that doesn’t seem like a game I want to play.”
“I don’t blame you. I’d sell the house if I were you,” the other twin says.
Lo looks between them. “I’m so sorry. I only know one of your names. You’re Sean, right?” she says, and Sean—Tweedle-Dee—nods. “Who are you?”
“Tanner.”
“Thank you,” Lo says, and I can see visible relief on her face. The moment is so sweet that it makes me think that maybe I could lighten up on the boys a little bit. They might be idiots, but they’re our idiots.
Anita brings the food over a minute later and my stomach growls at the sight. The day has been so busy that we haven’t eaten anything since early this morning.
“I feel like today has been a lifetime,” Lo admits. She douses her pancakes in syrup and passes it off to Andrew, who pours it over his French toast.
“It’s been a really, really long day,” Andrew agrees. “I feel bad, Xavier has been trying to get a hold of me all day, but I haven’t known what to say to him. I’ll have to call him when we get back to the hotel.”
“Xavier is Andrew’s boyfriend,” I explain quietly to Lo. It’s been so long since we’ve had anyone new in the mix that I forget that she doesn’t know everything.
“Sort of boyfriend. He’s twelve years older than me and it’s not serious. At least, right now,” Andrew says. “We’ll see how things go.”
Lo smiles. “It’s nice to talk about things that aren’t the ghost in the house. I kind of forgot there’s a whole world out there.”
“Speaking of, is your friend single?” Tanner asks.
“She is, but she’s too old for you,” she answers. She looks at Tanner for a beat. “And I am, too.”
He plays it off, but I can see the disappointment in his face. I snort out a laugh, covering up the fact that I’m relieved to hear there’s no one else in the picture.
After eating so much it leaves all of us moaning and gripping our stomachs, we head back to the van.
“Where do you guys usually stay when you’re in a hotel out this way?” Lo asks.
“ Usually stay is generous. We just started making enough money to do things like this. We’ve only done a hotel stay in LA County twice before.
When we were working on our first season, we had to all stay in one room together because we had, like, ten dollars between all of us.
We were shooting around Granada Hills, and none of us wanted to drive back home after a fourteen-hour production day. ”“I get that,” Lo says.
“But we picked a place kind of near you to make things easy,” I say. “LA tends to be the most expensive of the places we stay. When we were shooting in Utah last year, we stayed at a hotel for I don’t think more than seventy bucks a night.”
“Yeah, and it was scarier than the haunted place we were filming in,” Andrew interjects from the backseat.
“It’s part of the fun,” I say, waving off the comment. I pull the van away from the curb and head off toward the hotel. It’s only a ten-minute drive, but it feels like a lifetime. After bouncing between places so much today, I’m ready to stay put somewhere for a while.
Eventually, we make it to the hotel. I pull into a parking spot, and we all jump out of the car. As we grab our bags from the back, I look at Lo and realize she’s the only one without anything. “Shit. We didn’t pack you a bag.”