“BREY, you have to have some costume that will work better than that.”
Full disclosure: I’ve dressed up year after year for Halloween. If I didn’t have a friend throwing a party, we found someone who did. If somebody didn’t have a costume, I conjured one up. If someone wasn’t excited, I hyped up the party.
Halloween let you be someone else for the night. You could hide behind a mask or expose yourself with the mask. The possibilities were endless.
“I’m a black cat.” Brey looked at me and shrugged.
“You are wearing a black dress and ears! And I know for a fact that dress wasn’t purchased as a costume.”
Brey smoothed back some of her long dark hair. She did that every time she was uncomfortable. “I just don’t want to wear anything weird when it’s a work party.”
I slumped a little as I looked at all the costumes laid out on my bed. “I hate that everyone will toe the line because Jett is a tight ass and this is a work party.”
She nodded and eyed my outfits like they were bombs. In her defense, most were extremely revealing or outrageous.
“I’m being Tinker Bell,” I stated, and her eyes bulged. “Oh, come on, Brey. It’s not that bad.”
“It’s a work party, Vick.”
“You’re wearing my Catwoman leotard.”
“Absolutely not.” She shook her head. “I’m way shorter and wider than you.”
“You’ll look hot. Just try it on.”
She sighed because she knew I wouldn’t let her out of at least trying it on. She snatched it and went to change as I slid out of my tank and jeans to shove on the green leafy bra that connected to a sequined corset and skirt. I had been smaller when I’d bought it two years ago. Now, I filled out the costume and was fully aware I was stepping over a work line.
I wanted to.
“Are Jax and Jaydon coming to pick us up?” I yelled to Brey in the bathroom.
“Yep. They should be here in an hour.”
“Katie?”
Brey poked her head out and made a face. “Bastian is escorting her.”
“‘Escorting’?” I repeated and scrunched my nose.
“Her words, I swear.”
“Weird,” I mumbled. Katie and Brey had been high school best friends. I stumbled into their friendship in college, but they knew each other much better than I did. They’d all grown up together with Brey living right next door to the Stonewood boys. Jaydon still donned the title of her best friend, and I liked to think I came in at a close-ish third after Katie.
I loved them both but Katie had so many secrets, so many personalities, and a dark side that made her a moving target. I couldn’t always read her, and didn’t know if I wanted to. Some dark places were better left hidden, away from view.
“So, does she know that Bastian is heading up Chicago’s Cosa Nostra?” I asked Brey because I knew if anyone could talk sense into Katie, it was her.
“I should ask you the same thing,” Brey grumbled on the other side of the door.
“Oh, care to elaborate on that comment?” I did my hair in front of the mirror, trying to act as nonchalant as possible. She probably knew I told Bastian I would help. The Stonewoods rarely kept things from one another, and she was a Stonewood now.
Our conversation was cut off by the ringtone I loathed. Miranda sang about Mama’s broken heart, and I about threw my phone across the room.
“Don’t you think you should answer?” Brey mumbled. It was the third time my mother had called while Brey was over.
“You forget that my mother takes giving in as a weakness. If I answer, she’ll assume her strategy was effective and ring me twelve times in a row the next time she wants to get a hold of me.”
“Your mom is not that bad,” Brey emphasized.
That was true, and I saw the way Brey fidgeted while my phone kept ringing. So, I grabbed and silenced it. “She’s absolutely not that bad. We just don’t see eye to eye on some things. You know she’s extremely overprotective of me. She’s obsessed with telling me I shouldn’t be living in the city. Don’t you know how dangerous it is, Brey?”
She laughed at my widened eyes. “I honestly wish I had parents who doted on me like yours do.”
I cleared my throat, not knowing what to say but picking my words carefully. Aubrey had lost her mother in a house fire her father had started. She didn’t go visit him in prison, and they didn’t get along.
My relationship with my parents was nowhere near that complicated. I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “I’m sorry, best friend. You can call my parents any time.”
She laughed and shrugged, “I have Jax’s parents. The Stonewood family is priceless.”
“I bet.” After assessing myself in the mirror, I asked, “Do I look the part?”
“The part of what? Tinker Bell in Peter Pan?”
I scoffed. “No, do I look slutty enough to make all the boys look my way but professional enough to be at a work party?”
She sighed. “Yes to the first, not so much to the second.”
“Great! Exactly what I’m going for. Steven will die when he sees me,” I proclaimed.
“He won’t be the only one,” she said. Then she asked, “Do you really care what Steven thinks?”
“Of course,” I replied a little too quickly. “Why do you ask?”
“I just …” she cleared her throat and smoothed a flyaway hair. “He’s a bit boring, Vick.”
“Brey!”
“I know. I’m not enjoying telling you, but it’s the truth.”
I giggled at her discomfort. “That’s so rude. He’s not boring, he’s just not complicated. You, of all people. I wouldn’t have expected that coming from you.”
“I know. I’m a bit bitchy today.”
“Care to share?”
“Not yet,” she sighed. “Soon. Just not yet.”
I nodded and let it go. “So, it’s just him being boring you don’t like?”
She winced. “You had to ask, didn’t you? Honestly, I think I’m starting to hate hearing him call you Vicky about as much as Katie does.”
“It isn’t that bad,” I countered as I put on a little more eye makeup to match the green on my costume.
“Not now. But imagine in a year or two, it might drive you nuts.”
I shrugged and smoothed some of the leaves into place on my skirt. “He’s nice, and he wants to be married in a year or so. He told me on our date.”
Brey wrinkled her nose at herself in the mirror next to me. “He told you that on your first date?”
“To be fair, we’ve known each other for years, Brey.”
“True.” She waved at her face. “Paint me, please.”
I smiled because Brey never did her makeup when she was going somewhere with me. I took it as a compliment to my past life as a hair stylist and makeup artist during college.
As she closed her eyes, she pointed to my leotard. “I don’t think I can wear this.”
“Oh, you are wearing it. You will be jaw-dropping after I finish your makeup. We are going to win this costume contest.”
“You are.” She cracked open one of her big green eyes. “Or Jett is going to drag you out of the party because of your inappropriate costume.”
“Drag me?”
“Yup.” She laughed a little.
“Hold still. What’s funny?”
“He’s going to drag you out and have his way with you.”
“Oh, God. Please. That was a mistake that won’t be happening again. Nor do I want it to.” Even as the words left my lips, I knew they were a lie.
“You don’t have to hide it from me. I’m married to one. I get it.”
“Stonewood men, right? Except Jaydon.” I finished her eye shadow.
“Ew. Definitely not Jaydon.” Brey almost gagged, and I knew it was genuine. He was as close to a brother as she could get.
“Steven’s been perfect though. Seriously.” I sighed and sat down on the bed atop the glitter of my Victoria’s Secret flight attendant costume. That one was much too revealing even if it was one of my favorites. “He and I go way back. We were able to just comfortably talk and enjoy each other at dinner. He loves working with me, and oh my God, he loves the Stonewoods. Double dates would be amazing.”
“Or kind of weird. He kind of sucks up to them.”
I rolled my eyes. “They’re the Stonewoods. You don’t get it, but I was a little starstruck at one point too.”
She sighed and sat down next to me. “That might be true. It doesn’t really matter if you like him and are comfortable with him though.”
I nodded and assessed both of us in the mirror. “I’m definitely more comfortable with him than Jett Stonewood.”
That was the biggest problem. I liked Steven. But when I’d gotten home after our date, I’d poured myself a glass of wine, laid out my pills, and pondered why I didn’t like him more. Maybe we were uncomfortably comfortable. I didn’t want to be so comfortable with someone that I didn’t feel a damn spark when I looked at them. With Steven, it felt like a soft, cozy fabric brushing up against me. Nice, but not a spark of fire that excited the hell out of me.
My apartment buzzer sounded. “Speak of the devil men …”
I buzzed them up and when I opened the door, Jax gave me a brief hug before looking for his wife like an animal starved.
When he saw her, his eyebrows slammed down, and he stalked over to her. “Oh, no,” he growled as he waved at her outfit.
“Oh, yes!” I exclaimed, clapping as I saw his dangerous look. It meant we did her up perfectly. “I love that you’re Batman. This is so perfect, you two.”
“She’s not wearing that, Vick.” He glared at me and then at his wife. “You’re not wearing that, Whitfield.”
“You mean Stonewood?” Brey smirked and crossed her arms over her chest. “We think my outfit’s cute.”
“Your outfit is a second skin, and that fine ass is mine. Not for anyone else’s eyes.”
“It is a fine ass, Brey,” Jaydon added.
I laughed. Jax looked like steam was about to come out of his ears.
“Avert your eyes, you asshole,” Jax grumbled at his brother.
“Oh, come on, man. You know I’m joking with you.” He winked at Brey and smirked at me, “Not really though.”
I grabbed my coat. “You boys clean up nice. Jaydon, the Joker costume.” I nodded my head. “You even have the makeup on point.”
“I got a friend to do it.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Gross.” I rolled my eyes and waved them toward the door. “We better get going. I don’t want to miss the haunted house. It’s supposed to be three floors of hell and then they bury you alive for ten minutes. People are going to freak the hell out.”
“We’re going to stay here for a minute while Brey changes.” Jax stood cemented in place like an immovable wall.
“You stay,” Brey replied, completely unfazed as she walked out the door and yelled over her shoulder. “I’m going to see who does like my costume.”
He growled, but made his way after her with a grin on his face. That man loved her even when she was testing him, maybe more so.
Brey and I chatted with the driver while he navigated the streets to pick up Steven and then take us to the Farmland Haunted House. The road darkened, twisting and turning like a snake until we pulled up to the old barn.
Ghouls and monsters hovered around our group as we waited outside the haunted house. They were letting our team in only ten at a time. Turned out, a lot of people from Stonewood Enterprises wanted to attend the impromptu Halloween party.
Brey nudged me. “Probably should have worn something a bit warmer.” She laughed, but Jax had already wrapped his Batman cape around her. He looked happy as hell to have an excuse to.
Steven hadn’t been so thoughtful, or rather, he was in the same position as me with his green attire and no coat. He shivered near us. Jaydon unbuttoned his purple jacket. “You’ll freeze, Vick.”
I held up my hand. “No can do. Purple clashes with my green.”
Jaydon snorted. “So, take it off when we get inside.”
I couldn’t admit the real reason I wouldn’t put on his coat. Waiting for a man I wasn’t with to see my outfit before I covered it up would be silly. Still, I shook my head.
“Vick,” he grunted as he held out the purple blazer. “Put the damn thing on.”
“She enjoys living on the edge,” the voice I’d been dying to hear responded to his brother.
I turned to take in the vision that Jett Stonewood had warped into on Halloween. The black silk suit reflected a slight shimmer under the moonlight. The clean lines and tailoring showed off his athletic build. He lurked in the shadows but the bold-white mask covering half his face drew everyone’s attention. His collared shirt was the same onyx as his belt and shoes. And even in the darkness, his eyes sparkled and commanded me to look straight at him.
“A modern Phantom of the Opera?”
“A risqué, over-the-top Tinker Bell?”
The light green corset cut into my breasts as I took a deep breath.
Jett’s eyes laser-focused on my quivering cleavage. “Take Jaydon’s coat.”
Steven took that second to finally act concerned. “Vick, when we planned this, I didn’t think to wear extra layers. Wish I would have brought a coat to match for you.”
Jett’s eyes didn’t wander over to Steven or anyone else. He unbuttoned his black jacket and slid it off. Without saying a word, he stepped behind me, grabbed my wrist, and stuffed my arms into his jacket.
I protested, but it wasn’t in earnest. “Hey! I’m really not that cold.”
“No one gives a shit. You’re making us all uncomfortable,” Jett hissed, and that shut me up.
Tonight wasn’t about making anyone uncomfortable. It was about proving that everyone could be more comfortable and would work better when they were.
I had to remember that even as our line moved, and I smiled to myself at having Jett’s smell all around me. The jacket was warm and felt like melted butter over my skin. I glanced at the tag. Yup, this cost him a fortune.
Steven stayed glued to my side as he talked with the Stonewoods, and I tried my best not to salivate over Jett. He’d pocketed his hands, but that was the only sign the cold affected him. He nodded at all the right things, talked at all the right times, and genuinely looked like he was trying to have a pleasurable time for once.
The night had kicked off perfectly. A few employees came out of the haunted house laughing and screaming. Ghouls and monsters leapt at them one last time as they made their way over to the concession stand.
We moved forward in the line, just one group away from going in. Right then, Gloria walked up, her white dress flapping in the wind behind her. Her dark hair fell loosely around her face, framing her rosy cheeks and red lips. As she leaned in toward Jett, my stomach twisted.
The Phantom of the Opera and Christine.
They’d come as a couple.
My boss and his assistant.
My boss who I’d slept with and secretly had a stupid crush on even though I knew we could never be anything.
He’d come with her just as I’d come with Steven.
Jett looked at me as Gloria whispered something in his ear. He put his hand on the small of her back to steady her while she leaned into him. His eyes held no remorse, no guilt.
Nothing.
We’d fucked. That was it.
What a perfect reminder.
I spun toward my friends to hear Brey saying, “I’m not doing the burying-you-alive part. I just can’t. Small spaces. Just no.”
Jax pulled her close. “We’ll do hot cider, Peaches. No worries.”
Jaydon nodded. “I’m doing it all. Vick you’re doing it all right? YOLO?”
I winked at him. “Only live once.”
The line shifted as a masked man ushered us in. Chains clattered and the door shut us in. Pure darkness descended. My heart rate instantly rose. I liked scary movies, and I’d been to haunted houses but I always, always went with someone I could hold on to.
Tonight, I wasn’t sure if Steven wanted me to hold him and Brey was holding onto Jax. I folded my hands together and walked forward. A light, dim and flickering, switched on. I glanced around to find all of us were in a small metal cage, the door to the next room closed. I looked up and my stomach dropped as I stepped back, stumbling into Jett. It looked like snakes slithering above us. “Oh, God.”
Jett grabbed one arm to steady me. “They’re fake,” he said dryly.
I glanced back, and he was smiling a little at my horror.
I mumbled a sorry for falling on him and righted myself. It occurred to me that Gloria hadn’t come into the haunted house, but even so, I moved over toward Steven.
In that cage, more creepy-crawly reptiles sprang out at us. The sound effects had me flinching at every single one. Steven jumped along with me, and at one point shoved me forward to save himself.
He whispered, “Sorry. That one got to me too.”
“It’s fine. All in good fun.” And it was. Some people handled these sorts of things better than others. I wasn’t one of them but this was for the company, and this haunted house boasted some of the best reviews.
When the door opened for the next room, I let everyone else walk in. I figured that way I’d know what was coming, seeing as I had to fend for myself. Brey would have been more understanding of my fear and hung back with me, I was sure, had she thought Steven wouldn’t be a great partner. As it turned out, he crossed his arms to shield himself from the rest of the frights and hurried through, leaving me behind.
I waved Jett forward. “I’ll go last.”
“Pix, the last one always gets scared from behind.”
My eyes widened.
“Go on. I’ll protect you.” He waggled his eyebrows and puffed up his chest, teasing me as if the haunted house was absurd.
In the next room, a man with a melted face handed us 3D glasses. The room’s graffiti suddenly popped out menacingly. The monsters lurking behind dark objects jumped out, snarling and grabbing at us. The 3D paint enhanced their disfigured faces and made them appear much closer than they were.
Our group dispersed, each man for himself. It felt like life and death. Run or be killed. Some of us rushed forward but I stumbled back and screamed as a green goblin whose head hung from his body lunged at me.
Jett steadied me again and whispered in my ear, “He matches your costume. You come with him or Stevie?”
I glared up at him. “You’re joking right now?”
“It’s just staging, Pix.”
A chainsaw revved in the distance. I cursed the stilettos I wore as I tried to back up further.
“No. Go forward. We have to get through the haunted house. Not go backward.”
“I probably shouldn’t keep going,” I mumbled as I looked for an exit. “Do you think they’ll let me out if I say I have a heart condition? My heart’s beating really, really fast.”
Jett laughed. It rolled out of him like he couldn’t contain it, and his smile stretched so wide that I wondered if the real Phantom of the Opera would have ever appeared as beautiful as he did. “Your heart is fine, Victory. Move your ass. I got you.”
He didn’t know if my heart was fine. I counted the days back to when I’d last taken my heart medicine. I tended to avoid it. The meds made me feel like I had a weakness, and I wanted to forget about it. Cancer lingered, and ignoring it felt better than dwelling on it.
Still, I moved forward, feeling a little more confident with Jett’s arm to hold on to. “We should probably try to catch up to our group.”
“The group that ran as fast as they could and left us for dead?”
“They didn’t leave us.”
“Stevie ran so fast, baby. And his face was whiter than my mask.”
I tried not to laugh. I really did. “In his defense, I’m just as scared.”
The next hallway pulled more screams from me as lights flashed and shined on a morbid-looking skeleton covered in cockroaches.
Jett retracted his arm from my death grip.
“Jett, fine. I’m scared! Please don’t …’
He wrapped his arm around me, tucking me in close to his chest like he was ready to fight off all the damn haunted house demons for me.
I squinted at him to see if I could read the expression he had under the mask. “Should I be reading into you staying behind to walk me through this?”
“No. It’s the best use of time for me to usher you through so we can get tonight over with as fast as possible.”
“Efficient.”
A man with a mask jumped out and revved a chainsaw right in my face. I yelped into Jett’s chest and he pulled me close before glaring at the man in front of us. “That was too close. Back the fuck away from her.”
The man must have witnessed a Stonewood stare because the chainsaw died and he moved out of our way.
“I’m officially keeping my eyes closed the rest of the way,” I mumbled into his shirt.
“I don’t know why you booked this when you hate it.”
“Because other people love it. But I don’t usually do things like this.”
“Seems like some stupid shit you would want to do all the time.”
“I didn’t indulge in stuff like this for a long time,” I admitted.
“Interesting,” he murmured but didn’t ask me to elaborate.
Something loud clanged near us. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and gripped Jett’s arm like it was my only lifeline. He announced, “That was an angry clown. Scars all over his face.”
“Um, thank you?”
“Well, if you’re not going to look, I guess I’m obliged to help you experience it somehow.”
A scream sounded on our left. “A child being held hostage by an angry witch.”
We stepped up onto what felt like wood boards that creaked under our feet.
“In a room full of decapitated dolls. The angry little girl with long black hair is coming at us with one of the heads.”
“Oh my God.” I shoved him forward to get out of the room as fast as possible.
He laughed at my antics. “You can’t even see them, Victory. She’s probably ten years old.”
“And could be completely deranged.”
“You still want to be buried alive at the end of this?” he asked. That tone, snide as hell, made me want to let go of him and walk the rest of the haunted house on my own.
Almost.
I was too chickenshit.
“Maybe I shouldn’t.” I meant it too. My heart rate wasn’t slowing down. I made a mental note to take those pills tonight.
“Yes. Maybe you shouldn’t.”
“But they say it’s a once in a lifetime feeling.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he sighed as we walked through another creepy sounding room. “We don’t have to do everything that’s once in a lifetime.”
“You don’t,” I replied. But I did.
I had to live.
We reached what seemed like the end. A man asked if we wanted to be buried alive, and I opened my eyes to see he was dressed in jeans and a sweater, completely normal.
“We need full consent to do this. You can go in with four other people, but it looks like it is only you two right now.”
“Did my friends go in already?” I asked about Brey and the others.
“They opted out after their walk through, which is very common.”
I cleared my throat. “I think I’d like to do it.”
“Before you go into the room, I have to let you know we do require you to lie down flat like you’re in a coffin. Then, we drop hollow plastic balls on you for a couple minutes. They are the same type of balls that can be found at Chuck E. Cheese’s and Discovery Zone. After the allotted amount of time, the walls are shifted so the pressure will give your body the illusion of being buried alive. The experience is about ten minutes.”
I cleared my throat, trying to shake my anxiety. I glanced at Jett to see if he was contemplating going in with me. “You don’t have to come with. I’m going to do it.”
I couldn’t tell what he thought with the mask covering half his expression. He shrugged his shoulder and then wrapped his arm around my neck to pull me close to him. He whispered into my ear, “I’m not happy about you laying down on the ground in my jacket.” Then he said to the man, “We’re ready when you are.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The beeping this time was fast as hell to match my heart. I walked into that dark room with a man I wasn’t sure I would ever fully not want but definitely sure I trusted more than most. He watched me lie down on the ground and grumbled something about how filthy it must be.
Then he squatted down beside me and lifted up his mask. “You really okay doing this, Pix?”
My hand, completely disregarding my mind’s command, searched out his and held it. “I think I just need to do it and not focus on it.”
He slid the mask back onto his face and laid down right next to me. Then he pulled my body up against his. Turning on his side, he faced me and wrapped one arm around my waist.
“You’re supposed to lie on your back, Jett.”
“I’m supposed to be doing a lot of things I’m not doing tonight, Victory.”
“Like what?”
“I’m supposed to leave you and your damn fantasies alone.”
I sighed, waiting for something to happen. And avoiding looking over at the man I wanted way too much. “Then why don’t you?”
His hand slid from my waist up to my cheek and turned me to face him. “Because you make it your mission to glitter and shine brighter than every single object around you.”
“I don’t.”
He shook his head slowly, and then his lips were on mine and an eerie version of an Evanescence song began to play as balls fell on us. His hands held my face, and I lost myself in the way his tongue slid over mine, the way his body fit up against me, the way he didn’t let me up for air through the whole song. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer, like our bodies needed to be right up against the other, like we were two molds that slipped into each other perfectly.
It seemed like just a small moment in time. Maybe a second or a minute that his lips brushed over me. Yet, the balls rolled off of us and he pulled away to stand. “Good enough distraction from being buried alive?”
The Phantom of the Opera glowered down at me from above, one of his large hands outstretched. He didn’t look at all tousled or shaken from what we had just done.
I, on the other hand, felt my heart stuttering as my mind disassembled all my hopes and dreams of a future with someone I could count on to be with me, stay with me.
“Pix?” he questioned when I didn’t immediately move from the ground.
I grabbed his hand and pulled myself up. Hurrying forward, not wanting to look at him anymore, I shoved through the exit doors, so ready to find Steven.
A werewolf—a real one, I swear—snarled at me as soon as I turned the corner. I screamed and toppled right back into the Phantom’s arms as the werewolf ran back into the forest on four legs, no joke.
Jett laughed so hard, his eyes scrunched closed behind his mask. I wiggled out of his grip and straightened his jacket as I huffed at him. “It’s not funny. That thing was real.”
“That thing was a fifteen-year-old kid. You’re scared of a fifteen-year-old.” Then he laughed hard as hell again.
I wanted to scream at him, but this was one of the few times I’d seen him relaxed and jovial.
Jett worked. He didn’t play.
Then and there, looking at him, I found something I was more afraid of than haunted houses, werewolves, or even getting sick again.
I was losing my heart to the Phantom of the Opera.
