Page 54 of The King of Halloween
It was his voice crying out, “Are they gone?” that led Raj to him.
“Please, sir.” The clipboard woman held out her arms as if she had to hide Adam as he changed. “This is a staging area.”
“Raj? It’s fine, Marianne. He’s with me.”
She dropped her arm, but pivoted back to the man holding a pumpkin head in his hands. “Since when?”
“Very funny.” Adam sneered at her before he glanced over at Raj, and all the stress melted away. Lifting his hand, Adam beckoned him closer. He nearly clasped around Adam’s palm, but remembered the mayor’s assumptions and gave him some breathing room.
“Are you okay?” Raj asked.
“Of course,” Adam said with a laugh. “Why?”
“They threw eggs at you.”
“They always do that. It’d be nice if the Chamber of Commerce could count, but that’s asking a lot of business leaders, apparently.”
Marianne sighed. “I shall put in a request for another fifty bags next year.”
“And we’ll need another hundred.” Being trapped inside the huge pumpkin had deflated Adam’s hair. The gelled locks had fallen damp across his forehead. He kept trying to push them back and to the side, but raking his fingers through caused them to part.
Raj couldn’t hold back the little laugh as Adam turned to him. “What?”
“You look like an angsty hedgehog,” Marianne summed up rather perfectly.
“Bah.” Adam tried to mash it back down, but whatever product he’d used caused the little spikes to pop back up. To be fair, it was an adorable, angsty hedgehog. “Here.” He handed over the pumpkin head, but Marianne kept a tight grip on her clipboard.
“I have to move the throne platform out of the street. You can return the head to storage.”
Adam looked ready to argue her to death. Then Marianne gave a pointed look to Raj, who was trying to pretend he wasn’t there. Adam’s pouting lip shifted. “Fine. But you’re lucky the warehouse is nearby.”
“I’m blessed,” Marianne deadpanned. She walked back to the dispersing crowd. But before she went, she got one last hit in. “Try to leave the pumpkin in a better state than last time.”
“Oh yeah, well, try not to wrap the platform around… She’s already gone.” In one swift motion, Adam’s body bent in half like someone had cut his strings. An exhausted sigh rose from him, and Raj scooted closer. He couldn’t help himself and rubbed his palm along Adam’s weary shoulders.
He lifted his head enough for Raj to catch a flash of those silvery eyes. “Some first date, huh?”
“It is a new one,” Raj said.
“Really? You’ve never had another guy put on an oversized gourd and risk disemboweling from third graders? Californians are a strange lot.”
The two of them laughed. Instead of sliding apart, their faces drew closer. Adam’s straining lips dropped into a soft gasp that tickled Raj’s cheek. Raj’s palm had managed its way to the other side of Adam’s shoulders. He held him tight, nearly in his arms—both staring into the other’s eyes.
“I should…” Adam tapped the pumpkin head. “Get this back before I fall on it and face further humiliation. Do you want to come with? Maybe we can get this date back on track after, unless…?”
It was getting late. Raj was already facing a night drive through fog drifting off the lake across the gravel road. The smart thing would be to call this a wash, maybe try again some other time. Probably after Halloween, when they weren’t so busy.
Adam’s proud smile faltered, the mask of the king cracking. Duty and sense flew out the window. “Sounds fun,” Raj said. “Lead the way.”
?
Adam flipped the lights, half-illuminating the room that was part maze and part mausoleum. Racks and racks of costumes from plays and musicals long since past were slowly turning into moth food. Rather than throw a single piece away—on the assumption the wearer would one day make it huge—the theater director had formed an accidental boobytrap for any potential thieves. There was only one safe way to walk through the labyrinth without being crushed by crates of tights and dance belts.
Which was probably why the front door was left unlocked ninety percent of the time.
“This place is…” Raj took in the sights and probably the smells too.
The costume department reminded Adam of those boxes of baking soda people left in fridges—there were so many incomprehensible scents that the nose shut down to save itself. “Ah!” Adam took Raj’s hand before the man wandered off and fell into a chifforobe. “Careful. Who knows what’s around that corner.”
