Page 66 of Wild Pucker

"Nothing," Holly squeaks, but then she jumps again and kind of leans into Luke for support. "Luke, stoooop." Her whispered words are broken, breathy and elongated, and just plain weird. "Oh fuck… I knew. This was. A terrible. Idea."

"Oh my god, Holly! Please tell me you and Luke aren't method-acting tonight," Avery says, eyes darting to Luke's hand, which I now see is holding some sort of remote.

"We don't do things by halves," Luke grins.

“Oh, fuck off. Give me that," Avery says, grabbing the tiny remote from Luke's hand and slipping it into her pocket. "I'm not letting you torture my best friend with fucking remote control panties all night. And you," she turns to Holly, "You better not have Benoit balls rolling around in there, or I'll slap you silly. The last thing we need is yet another sex scandal on this team."

"Oh, barf," Lily groans. "Really, Luke? You're an idiot."

Luke just laughs, and I can't help but chuckle to myself until Lily elbows me in the ribs.

"What are we all laughing at?" Ryan, dressed like Clark Kent, asks, walking towards us to join our group of ridiculousness.

"Nothing," Holly quickly says. "We were just getting ready to go in. Do you have the camera, Avery?"

She gives Holly one last stink eye before ushering us all into Casa Loma's haunted gardens. Lily's hand grips mine, and she smiles up at me with complete trust in her eyes.This girl. Holly, Luke, Ryan, and Avery trail behind us as we prepare to be scared shitless before joining the rest of the team inside the banquet hall and drinking ourselves silly with a bunch of Northmen Nation.

20

Monster Ball

Lily

"Ican’t believe you just left your wife to die with an axe murderer," I tell Luke. Unlike the rest of us, who remained somewhat calm inside the underbelly of this haunted castle, Luke decided to scream like a little girl, push Holly aside, and run away when a Ghostface dude wielding a bloody axe jumped out at us. I bet Holly is regretting her choice of husband right about now.

"I didn’t leave Holly to die," Luke argues. "I thought I was dragging her with me."

"Luke, you literally threw her hand down like it was on fire and bolted. If this was a movie, Holly would have been stabbed eighteen times, pleading, ‘Why? Why did you do this to me, Luke?’"

"Oh, shut the fuck up," Luke snaps back, but I have to admit, Holly does not look impressed right now. In fact, I’m pretty sure she’s rethinking the whole Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele thing they have going on.

"Christian Grey would never have left Anastasia behind like you did," I goad, laughing, because sometimes I just like seeing my brother squirm before he’s thrown in the dog house. "And we all know Rip would sacrifice himself a hundred times before letting someone hurt Beth. And Superman turned back fucking time to save Lois Lane. You’ve got a long way to go, buddy, before Luke Valentine digs himself out of this hole."

I cackle inside as Holly glares at Luke and shimmies over to Avery and Ryan. I hope Avery got that on camera, even if it’s just incriminating footage we can whip out when it suits our purposes. Luke’s going to have a lot of buttering up to do, the jackass.

Within five minutes of us walking into the banquet hall, stories of Luke’s horror-filled epic fail have most of the team laughing their asses off. Everyone is dressed up, drinking, jovial, and having fun. The room is filled with black lights, pumpkins, and other creepy decor. Two large bars sit at opposite ends of the room, selling alcoholic and non-alcoholic specialty drinks that glow in the dark. I’m not sure I want to know what type of toxic waste was poured into that punch to make it that colour.

There are probably about two hundred and fifty people here, and a massive donation booth outside the main doors. By the looks of it, the Scare Hunger Away fundraiser is a massive success. There are fans dressed as everything from their favourite hockey players to characters from their favourite Netflix show to couples dressed like peanut butter and jelly. Young fans and old, loyal fans are all roaming around getting autographs or dancing to the live deejay.

The room is buzzing, and so am I. I’m not sure if it’s from the cocktail in my hand or the sexy cowboy at my side. The haunted house was fun, but I was so distracted by Chase’s hand gripping mine and the pent-up energy thick between us that I barely noticed anything else. Plus, I’ve never been one for horror movies or things with jump scares because I have the annoying habit of nervous laughing. Take me to a scary movie, and I guarantee every time the rest of the theatre is gasping or screaming, I’ll laugh maniacally. Sometimes I think my brain isn’t wired quite right.

"Ready for some dancing, Beth?" Chase says, leaning down close to my ear, and I shiver. If I had a say, we’d blow this popsicle stand and be naked right about now. All this pining and waiting has me horny as fuck.

"Do we have to?"

"We do because Holly is fucking scary when we don’t meet her schmoozing quota."

"I mean this with love for my sister-in-law, but fuck Holly."

"Hmm, no, thank you. I’d much rather fuck you." Chase grins as he pulls me onto the dance floor as Michael Jackson’s Thriller transitions into a slow song. His arms curl around my waist as mine hook around his neck, and we sway side-to-side, my head on his chest.

I do my best to smother my libido by thinking about anything other than getting Chase naked and let my gaze wander around the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a woman at the bar dressed as Harley Quinn. She’s surveying the crowd, alternating between taking pictures and typing something into her iPhone. There’s something vaguely familiar about her, but the costume is doing nothing to help me figure out where I’ve seen her before.

As the song ends, our last steps bring us near Avery and Ryan. They look like they want to get out of here just as much as I do.

"Hey, Avery, do you know who that is?" I ask, pointing to Harley Quinn, and she follows my finger. Her eyes narrow, and she clenches her jaw.

“Oh, hell no," she says, making a beeline toward the woman in question and naturally, we follow. Avery isn’t exactly the shy, subtle type, and she’s nothing if not entertaining. "What are you doing here?" she asks accusingly.

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