Page 64 of The King of Halloween
Whenever Raj had told him he didn’t think he’d wanted kids, Jordan had come up with an excuse.Give it time. You’re not seeing the big picture. You’ll get baby fever once you hit forty.Raj hadn’t reached forty, but his life was chaos, and the idea of adding another mouth would only dump gunpowder on the fire.
“Came home one day to find the locks changed and my stuff on the sidewalk. I guess he found his new baby Daddy at the gym.”
Why was he saying this now? They were halfway around the building, it was their second date, oh—and he had mere minutes to fix this problem and save his haunt. This was easily the worst time to drop his baggage on a new guy.
“Raj…” Adam’s voice cut through the collapsing darkness. “I’ll tell them their costume is cute. I will happily take their money for all the blood capsules and vampire teeth they want. But I will never want a squealing potato that shits, eats, and pukes everywhere.”
Raj sucked in a breath so hard, his stomach hurt. “Really?”
“I might go for a cat, a black one with green eyes who doesn’t take shit from anyone.”
A cat he could deal with. Even a dog or two would be nice to have around the place. Why was he picturing himself adopting a kitten with a man who’d been his nemesis a week ago?
“I admit, Choudhary, I’m surprised you’re already thinking about kids. I mean, I knew my head game was top notch and all… Hmm, perhaps I should look into getting a Guinness record.”
Raj couldn’t stop giggling like a weight was chipped off his shoulders. He glanced behind himself, half expecting to see his ghost of ex-boyfriend past fade from existence. Instead, he stared into the eyes of a frozen werewolf.
“We should get back to work,” Raj said. “The clock’s ticking.”
“Aye aye,” Adam called back. The walkie-talkie went dead, and Raj returned to tracing down the wires. Suddenly, it chirped and Adam called out loud enough for three of the actors to hear, “But you can still call me Daddy.”
Their cross chatter died as they both dove into the weeds. On occasion, Adam would report back thinking he found the problem, only for it to solve nothing. Tension grew with every tick of the second hand. If he didn’t find this, if he didn’t solve it now, then what?
All the work he put in, the calls, the connections, the people who believed in him, the ones who didn’t—would it mean nothing? Were all his hopes and dreams about to evaporate like a spider web come dawn on November first?
It’d seemed sound. The first haunt in Anoka in decades. But maybe there was a reason why no one else had done it. Maybe no one was supposed to.
Raj’s flashlight skipped over a cord, and a strip of metal glinted. He jerked back, and his heart skipped. Was this it? Had he found the source of all of his problems?
Smiling, he bent over and took both ends in his hands. While he didn’t have a lot of expertise in joining together the male and female ends, he at least understood the basics. Tipping the plug into the hole, he gazed up, then rammed them together.
Nothing happened.
“No. No, no, no, no!” Raj flailed, shaking the cord up and down as if that could jumpstart whatever was broken. The extension cord snagged on the back of a fake fireplace and tipped the mantle. Skulls tumbled off like macabre bowling balls, and Raj nearly fell to his knees.
Pressing his hands to his mouth, he screamed.This isn’t fair. It’s not supposed to be this way. All I wanted was a spooky hotel brimming with old-school special effects. To have a hot boyfriend look at me with pride. To have a damn life!
A wounded screech slipped from his mouth. Raj kicked the cord and skittered back on his feet until his ass slammed into the wall. Cold wood pressed around him, trying to seal him into this bankrupt tomb. This folly would follow him until his last days. It’d hang off his neck like a dead albatross. He’d be forced to work ninety-hour weeks for the rest of his life just to hope to climb partway out of his hole before they chucked his body into one by the ditch.
“Raj?”
Adam?
“You okay?”
Damn it. He must have pressed the button when he fell. Raj held the walkie-talkie in his hand, his heart pounding faster and faster.
I fucked up. There’s not going to be a haunt tonight, or tomorrow, or this season, or ever. It’s over. The hotel can’t survive. The barn is nothing. I blew so much money just trying to impress you. No, in trying to prove I belonged. But I don’t. This town doesn’t want me. It’s going to chew me up and spit me out.
And I’ll take you down with me.
“Raj? I’m coming your way. I think. Sit still and I’ll stop the bleeding, or get a priest, or whatever people do.”
I can’t take you down with me.
“Adam.” Raj managed to keep his voice taut, his lip with nary a wobble. “Forget it.”
“Forget coming to find you? Cause I think I’m in a swamp with a man-eating hippo now. Wait, is that fromMurder Murder Hippos?”
