The trickle of kids slowed, and then it stopped all together. I left some candy on the terrace and locked the front door, and we moved into the billiard room. Somehow, Bobby and I ended up on a settee that was technically big enough for two people, although that was probably only true if one of those people was a fainting Victorian waif and the other was a fainting Victorian maiden. Bobby, so that we’d both be comfortable, stretched one arm out along the back of the settee. Which meant, technically, his arm was behind me. Almost around me.
“HOW?”
Here’s a quick tip, totally free: cold showers? They’ve got nothing on Millie.
“HOW,” Millie asked again, “HAVE YOU NEVER SEEN HOCUS POCUS?”
“I don’t know,” Keme said. “It’s a kids’ movie.”
“Oh my God, no. I mean, it’s about kids, yeah, but there’s also this talking cat, and there’s a zombie, oh, and there are WITCHES! It’s the BEST!”
“What about Scream—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Indira said. “You’ll have nightmares for a week.”
The look on Keme’s face was priceless.
“Nightmares,” I said under my breath.
“Be nice,” Bobby murmured in my ear.
“Hocus Pocus is great,” Fox said. “Put it on.”
That seemed to settle the matter for Keme (although, God knows, if I’d tried the same thing, he probably would have put on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre just to spite me). Millie, Fox, and Indira took the chesterfield, and Keme stretched out on the floor, and we started the movie.
Fox didn’t last long; they kept making a suspicious noise, their head drooping, and then jolting upright. Indira finally offered to drive them home, which Fox accepted. Then Millie stretched out on the couch, and I entertained myself by watching Keme try to sneak glances at her until Bobby poked me in the ribs and gave me a look. Millie went next; after a period of silence that was far too long for her to have been conscious, she sat up groggily, explained she had to be at Chipper early the next morning, and headed out (shaking her head at Bobby’s offer to make sure she got home safely).
Keme, meanwhile, had gotten glued to the screen.
“Why are they all so dumb?” he asked.
“We don’t have to finish it,” I told him.
“No, don’t turn it off. Millie said they sing a song.”
My eyebrows must have done some talking for me because Bobby whispered, “Let it go.”
So, we watched the rest of the movie—if you can call it watching when you’re hyperaware of the arm behind you and in a state of constantly escalating tension because he’s here and he’s right next to you, and oh my God every time he breathes you can feel his chest move against your shoulder.
When the movie ended, the credits rolled, and Keme’s soft breathing blended with the music. Bobby and I sat there, in the quiet, in the dark. And maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I felt something building, an electric charge that kept bouncing from him to me to him to me, until it felt like I had a ball of lightning spinning in my stomach.
Bobby sat up and whispered, “I need my arm back.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
He squeezed my thigh in answer as he stood. When he crouched next to Keme, he whispered something, and Keme groaned in protest. Bobby whispered something else, and he helped Keme sit up, then stand, and a moment later, he was easing Keme down on the chesterfield.
By then, I’d recovered from my heart attack enough that I could get to my feet. (I could still feel where he’d touched my leg.) I found a blanket and unfolded it, and in the weak light from the television, Bobby helped me spread it over Keme, who was already asleep again. When we’d finished, Bobby was standing next to me, his shoulder brushing mine.
“You don’t mind if he sleeps here?” Bobby whispered.
I shook my head. Then, realizing he might not be able to make out the movement in the dark, I whispered back, “No.”
It felt like a long time before Bobby said, “I guess we should call it a night.”
We made our way out of the billiard room, and I closed the pocket doors gently. We fought our way through Millie’s spider webs (literally) and followed the stairs up to the second floor. We stopped. Bobby’s room was to the right. My room was to the left. Neither of us turned.
“So,” Bobby said, and he wore a strange half-smile, “I saw Damian today.”
“What? Oh. Okay. Wait, why?”
But Bobby ignored the question. “He asked me for your number. I didn’t know if you wanted me to give it to him.”
I made some sort of noise that might, somewhere, have meant something to someone.
“I guess he’s going to stick around for a while,” Bobby said. “He likes cold-water surfing. He’s got a free place to stay until someone figures out the legal mess of the camp.” And then that half-smile was back again. “He’s definitely interested in you. He’s also the jealous type; he stared daggers at me until he decided I wasn’t a threat.”
The best I could come up with was that noise again.
“So, do you want me to give him your number?”
“Uh, I don’t know.” I managed to suppress a wince as I heard myself, but only barely. “The arrest record does worry me a little. Plus, I’m kind of in a weird place still. After Hugo, I mean. And…” I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. “…stuff.” Seconds ticked past on the grandfather clock, and I managed to add, “Also, I have seriously bad judgment when it comes to men. Like, for a while, I even thought Damian might be the killer. He’s good with cars. He cares about the surf camp. He’s got some gray in his beard, but I think he wants to be a kid still, and he acted really strangely when he saw Gerry hitting on me.”
“Because he’s into you.”
“Maybe. He seems like he wants to mess around, though, not like he wants something serious.”
“Messing around can be fun, though.” His face was like a mask. A mask of someone happy, someone trying to be happy. “I think you should go for it.”
