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Chapter Twenty-Three
“We arenotwatchingThe Texas Chain Saw Massacrefor girls’ night. I’m drawing the line there.” Eliza gave Andi a don’t-try-me look as she placed a bowl of caramel-and-cheese popcorn mix and a bottle of wine on the coffee table. “You are now hooking up with your hot neighbor and getting properly laid. That means you should be open to a romantic movie.” She looked to the other woman in the room. “Don’t let her sway you, Hollyn. Every time she promises a fun movie, she’s lying. It’s just a ploy to scare the bejesus out of me.” She put her fist in the air. “I demand a romantic comedy!”
Hollyn rolled her lips together—obviously trying not to laugh and probably a little overwhelmed by Eliza. Andi was trying to introduce Hollyn to more people because she hadn’t really met a lot of other women since she’d moved to the city, but Eliza could be a lot for an introvert. Hell, Andi could be a lot for an introvert. Poor Hollyn.
“Did I say anything about a massacre?” Andi asked, hand to chest as she tried to school her face into an innocentwho-me?look. “Give me some credit. I wasn’t going to suggestTexas Chain Saw Massacre.” She pulled one of the beat-up cases from her shelf of DVDs and held it up for her two friends with a toothpaste-commercial smile. “ButLet the Right One Inis sort of…sweet.”
Eliza narrowed her eyes at the DVD cover. “Isn’t that the one with the kid vampire?”
Andi winced. She hadn’t accounted for Eliza’s steel-trap memory. She thought she’d grabbed a movie Eliza hadn’t seen yet.
“And a love story,” Andi said with a serious nod. “She kills for him. It’s sweet…in a murderous way.” She looked over to Hollyn, who had claimed the corner spot on the couch and appeared to be regretting accepting her invitation to movie night. “Come on, Holls?” She waggled the DVD in her direction and batted her eyelashes. “Teen vampire love story?”
Hollyn’s nose wrinkled, but Andi couldn’t tell if the look of distaste was one of her friend’s facial tics or if she was giving her opinion on the movie option.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Eliza said, reaching out and plucking the DVD from Andi’s fingertips. She tossed it onto the coffee table. “You’re not putting Hollyn in the middle of this. She’s too nice to say no to you. And don’t sell it like it’sTwilight.” Eliza looked to Hollyn as she picked up the bottle of wine and started pouring it into stemless wineglasses. “It’s so not. There are zero werewolf abs. Zero. Just creepy pale kids and subtitles.”
Hollyn smiled at Eliza as she twisted her mane of curly blond hair into a bun and secured it with a ponytail holder she’d been wearing on her wrist. “No abs is a big mark against it,” she said to Andi. “Plus, you have to watch and read horror all the time for your job. Maybe you should take a break from work-related viewing tonight.”
Andi groaned. Normally she’d be all for watching whatever her friends wanted to, but right now, the last thing she needed was a romantic comedy. She was already feeling too many feels after her afternoon with Hill. She didn’t need anything making her feelmoresappy and starry-eyed. He’d straight up told her it couldn’t turn into something more, but all afternoon she’d been imagining what-ifs.Ugh.She needed to keep her head on straight.
She was not going to be that person. She refused topine. But she also wasn’t going to force her friends to watch something they weren’t in the mood for.
She grabbed two glasses of wine and then collapsed next to Hollyn on the couch, handing her one of the drinks and sending a playful look her way. “Traitor.”
Hollyn laughed and readily accepted the drink. “I should also admit I’m terrified of creepy kids, so you had no shot.”
“Creepy kids are why I have an IUD,” Eliza declared. “So, it’s settled. My dating life is in the shitter, and I have to live vicariously through fictional characters, which means tonight is for sappy love stories. No monsters or murderers allowed. Bonus points for a hot guy taking his shirt and/or pants off.”
Andi blew out a breath, ceding defeat. “Those are super-restrictive rules.”
“You’ve got us covered on Halloween, though,” Hollyn said, lifting her glass to Andi’s to toast her.
Andi clinked her glass and settled in. “Fine, fine. I am at your sappy mercy.”
Eliza tucked herself into the cozy chair Andi thought of as her reading spot and grabbed the remote. She signed in to one of the streaming services with her own credentials and pulled up her playlist of romantic movies. “I say we pick one of these. I’m in the mood for a rewatch of a classic.”
Andi eyed the screen.Sleepless in Seattle,You’ve Got Mail,Clueless,Overboard,Grease. She laughed. “So wearewatching horror.”
Eliza pointed the remote at her in warning. “Don’t go there, Lockley.”
Andi bit her lip, smiling, and lifted her palm in acquiescence. “I’m just saying. Each of those is horror in its own way.”
Hollyn shifted on the couch to look at her. “What—”
“Don’t ask. Don’t ask,” Eliza chanted from above the rim of her glass. “Don’t encourage her.”
Hollyn smirked and her nose scrunched again. “Sorry. I can’t resist. Tell me. How are those horror movies?”
Andi tucked her legs beneath her, bouncing the couch a little, and grinned at her friends. She took a long sip of her wine, preparing her arguments. “Let’s go down the list, shall we?Sleepless in Seattle—Lady hears a dude on the radio talking about his dead wife and then totally stalks him and his kid while she’s engaged to someone else. Creepy. Reverse the genders on that one, and it would’ve been a horror movie for sure.”
Eliza rolled her eyes.
Andi flicked her wrist dismissively. “Next,You’ve Got Mail—Tom Hanks catfishes Meg Ryan and destroys her business. Total dick move. Then he basically gaslights her into thinking that was a good thing.”
Hollyn frowned. “Damn, I hadn’t thought about it that way. Her storewassupercute.”
Andi nodded. “Clueless—Eww, she falls for her stepbrother and she is underage.”
