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“Maybe not here in a rundown motel rumored to be haunted by a vengeful ghost.”
“Point taken.” Dave kissed him, tongue slipping quickly across Oliver’s lips before he stepped away. “Do you want to clean up first, or should I?”
“You can. I’ll get dinner organized.”
“Mm, soup fresh from the can.”
“And peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”
Dave opened his mouth in a huge smile and widened his eyes. “PB and J sandwiches too? Is it Christmas?”
“Go clean up, funny guy.”
Once they’d washed up and eaten, Dave dug a deck of cards from his backpack and they played poker until Oliver ended up owing him over $87,000 and gave up. It was ten thirty by that time, and they’d both started yawning.
“Think we should trade off keeping watch tonight?” Dave asked.
Oliver chuckled as he put the cards away, then saw Dave’s expression. “Oh, you’re serious?”
“Yeah. I mean, someone screamed out in the woods then came in here and messed our stuff up.” Dave shrugged. “Might be a good idea for one of us to stay up a bit, then wake the other one.”
“Sure, yeah,” Oliver said, looking toward the door and feeling nervous all over again. “Which shift do you want?”
“I’ll take first shift.” Dave grinned and added, “Since you owe me so much money, it’s the least I can do.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Oliver turned away to hide his smile, but it stayed with him as he brushed his teeth and used bottled water to rinse his mouth. Until he’d met Dave, Oliver hadn’t realized how long he’d gone without someone to have fun with, someone to boost him up. And it never sounded corny or sappy coming from him; he sounded genuine and sincere.
When he’d finished in the bathroom, Oliver put his glasses in the case and stretched out on top of the tarp. Both of them started laughing at the ruckus he made.
“It’s going to be a long night,” Oliver said, but then yawned again. He shifted around on the mattress, making them both laugh again, and he tried not to think of how many bugs lived underneath the tarp. They couldn’t chew through plastic and get to him, could they? When he’d finally found a spot that might almost be considered comfortable, he put thoughts of bugs and screamers out in the woods out of his mind, closed his eyes, and soon fell asleep.
* * *
A gentle shake woke Oliver, and he started awake. Dave leaned over him, shadows from a dim light devouring the details of one side of his face. Oliver let out a breath and his muscles slowly relaxed.
“Hey there,” Dave said, his voice soft and a half-smile curling up one end of his mouth.
“Hi,” Oliver said, looking around in confusion a moment. Where the hell were they? Then he remembered, and he rubbed his eyes and sat up, the tarp crackling beneath him. “What time is it?”
“Three thirty.”
“Ugh.”
Dave nodded and put the back of his hand against his mouth to hide a yawn. “Pretty much how I feel.”
“Anything happen while I was asleep?”
“No ghost. No lurking and shadowy figures. No screams out in the woods. Not a damn thing,” Dave said. “Not even a raccoon visit.”
“I hope that continues,” Oliver said through a yawn.
He slid his legs over the side of the bed and put on his glasses, then sat with his chin tucked to his chest, trying to wake up. Dave laid down in the spot he’d vacated, and before Oliver had even managed to stand up, Dave’s breathing had deepened.
“Sleep well, handsome man,” Oliver whispered over his shoulder, then carefully pushed to his feet, wincing at each rustle of the tarp.
After taking a drink from a lukewarm bottle of water, he noticed Dave had braced a chair under the doorknob. Would that keep out a determined ghost? The other chair in the room—the one with the seat cushion mostly intact—had been moved close to the center of the window, near the split in the mildewed blackout drapes miraculously still hanging from the rod. Oliver sat and used the tip of a finger to part the drapes and look out. Moonlight illuminated Dave’s car a short distance away as well as the line of woods across the parking area, leeching color from everything. All looked well, and Oliver was about to let the drapes fall back into place when a shadow shifted in the trees.
Oliver’s breath caught in his throat, and his mouth went dry. He squinted and leaned a little closer to the glass, but couldn’t make out many details. Had he really seen something? Could it have simply been an animal strolling past?
