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“Watch where you’re going.” He sounds downright angry, lips brushing against my ear. I freeze, soaking in how warm he feels and how natural his hold is before he lets go as soon as another college guy dressed up as Ghostface comes out from a nearby closet and tells us to “run as fast as we can.”
Knox takes the instructions literally, dropping his warm touch to my waist and full speed sprinting out of the room and down the hallway—the wrong way, though, so he’s going back to the entrance. It takes about three seconds for him to see the doll that we previously jumped at and turn back to where I stand waiting for him.
He stays glued to my side from there on out through each room, our hands tightly clasped together as we both jump at each face-painted actor along the two-story house. A personal favorite of mine is the vampire that came swinging down from an open window. Knox yanks me back to the doorframe again and my heart does a weird little flip at it.
“You are way too calm,” he whispers as we eventually burst out of the final, black-curtained doorway and into cool night air like we’ve just survived an apocalypse. Which, according to Knox’s face, we basically have.
“That was incredible.” I feel like I just ran a marathon; I am so out of breath. “There’s a haunted hay ride too. Should we try it?”
Knox levels me with a blank stare, and there’s a begging in it that makes me smile.
“I’m kidding.”
He breathes a sigh of relief and we begin our walk back to his truck.
My shoulders shudder in the nighttime breeze. It’s not that cold during the day yet, but the temperatures are dropping quickly and I wish I brought a jacket with me.
“We can do the haunted hay ride next date night.” I wink at Knox and he shakes his head, jacket slipping off his long arms.
“Can’t wait,” he mumbles and wraps said jacket around my shoulders, squeezing it tight to me. It smells like him. I breathe in deep and smile into the faux-fur-lined coat.
Considering he’s never done any dating stuff either, I think Knox might be a genius at it.
Chapter Thirteen Knox
“I am the worst at this,” I groan as I slip back under the company truck again.
My hands are covered in oil stains that are bound to never leave and the music I was blaring to drown out my racing thoughts has suddenly stopped for no reason, leaving me alone in the silence.
“I invited her to that stupid haunted house and spent the whole time jumping and screaming. And”—I lift my hand to unscrew a bolt and nearly throw it when the two don’t line up—“this isn’t the right damn attachment.”
I begrudgingly unroll myself out from underneath the truck to see a man standing by the edge of my truck. The man is Miller, staring directly at me with disappointment, or maybe a little smugness, spread on his tilted face.
“You need three-eighths for that.”
I toss the bolt to the side where the other spare tools and bits that haven’t worked in the last half hour have accumulated. “I figured that out when I was under it.”
“So…” Miller grabs the closest rolling stool and pulls it closer to me, a hand outstretched with the correct piece. “You took that curly-haired girl to a haunted house?”
My cheeks warm and I grunt a yes as I rip the attachment from him.
“And it didn’t go well.”
“I’m not really asking for advice right now.”
“You know, when I was eighteen I had some pretty good pull—”
“Spare me the details.”
The last thing I need right now is even thinking about my uncle as a teenager and what possible pull he could have or how he did it. Then again…Felicity did want me to ask Miller about when he was young, right? Likely, she’s trying to trace back an owner of an old dog that they can’t find at the shelter or looking for someone’s uncle’s cousin’s sister, etc., to take ownership of a Komodo dragon that was left in an estate sale. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Felicity’s had to go barreling around town trying to find the rightful owner to a pet residing at her work.
“Actually”—I roll out before I can try to bolt this again—“when you were my age, did you know a girl that went by Cricket?”
It feels ridiculous to even say that name out loud, but Miller hums and toys with the adjustment of the stool. “It sounds familiar. Did she go to school here?”
“Yeah, Felicity said you may have known her since she graduated with you?”
“I didn’t move this way until later in high school. Most of the girls I hung out with weren’t in my class, but I’ll check an old yearbook or something, see what I can find.”
