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“Why would you feel bad, sweetheart?” Phoenix murmurs in my ear. “They got what they deserved.”
“Yeah but, if I were an okay person, I’d feel bad.”
“You also wouldn’t be fucking us, going on hayrides with us, or having starred in about half of my dreams this morning,” Rory agrees. “I fail to see the issue.” From the corner of my eye, I see Phoenix smack the back of his head lightly, but I don’t react.
“I’m not like you two,” I say at last, hating that I’m feeling so conflicted on our hayride date. “You’re so good at being…well, it’s going to sound like an insult, but I don’t think it is. You’re good at beingkillers.”
“He wasn’t, when we first met,” Rory is quick to point out. “Or do you think he already wanted to stab someone? Have you stopped to think that maybe, instead of beingnot like us, or so far on the other end of the good-person spectrum, that you’ve been waiting to cross that line, too?” My face falls lax with shock when I look at him, but his smile just grows. “Oh, I see wehaven’tthought of that, have we? That maybe you’re just a budding serial killer in disguise, Bailey—”
“Stop,” I tell him, voice quiet. “I’mnot.”
“You—”
“Knock it off.” Phoenix interrupts him dryly. “Don’t say shit like that when she doesn’t want to hear it.”
When she doesn’t want to hear it,he said, instead ofwhen it’s not at all true.Does Phoenix agree with him? That I’m way more like them than I think I am?
Well, it would definitely explain why I can’t seem to feel a damn thing for any of my dead peers, but that could also be the lack of natural empathy or the childhood trauma coming out to play.
“Fine. I can be nice,” Rory agrees, scooting closer to my side so he can lean against my shoulder. Someone near the front of the wagon screams when a man runs beside us, yelling and making vague threats while fake blood streams down his face like he’d just poured it on himself.
“Does stuff like this scare you?” Rory asks, more curious than anything. I feel him reach up, and from the corner of my eye, I can see their entwined fingers on Phoenix’s thigh. “At all?”
“No,” I assure both of them, tilting my head back on Phoenix’s other thigh so I can stare at the stars. “This stuff hasn’t scared me in a really long time.” I feel Rory’s teeth lightly against my throat, but he doesn’t do more than tease for a few moments before turning to do the same to Phoenix’s thigh. “But it’s still fun.”
“My family was never much into Halloween,” Rory tells me, pressing his leg to mine for warmth. He really does run hot like a radiator, and I fight not to stretch out on him like a lizard to steal some of that heat. “So I never got to do most of this as a kid.”
“That’s why you have Phoenix,” I tell him without hesitation. “Since he hails from the most Halloween-heavy town in the US, he’ll fill the void your lack of celebration has clearly caused in your soul.”
I expect a quick quip, or a witty, snarky retort like he’s good at. I don’t expect him to stare at me, watching my face like he’s waiting for something. “What about you?” he asks, with a seriousness that surprises me.
“Me? I grew up here too. I’ve been celebrating Halloween—”
“That’s not what I mean. I meanyou.I get you too, right? You and Phoenix, like the sexiest matched pair alive? To—what was it?—fill the void in my soul left behind by years of not celebrating Halloween?” His grin is wolfish as he waits for an answer, but unfortunately, my brain is stuck buffering long enough that it falls slightly. “What?” he questions.
“You want me around that long?” The words slip out before I can stop them, but the moment they’re out, Phoenix drags me tighter to him, arm tight around my shoulders as Rory all but climbs into my lap, forcing me to meet his gaze so I can tell how serious he is.
“To clear this up, yeah,” Rory informs me, eyes bright. “Wewant you around that long. Longer, actually. We want you around when we’re all old and gross andgray.”
“He’ll go gray first,” Phoenix murmurs against my ear. “He’s the oldest by a year.” I can’t help the laugh that sneaks past my lips, though I manage to lock it down at Rory’s withering look.
“I just worry you won’t, after Halloween,” I admit soberly, leaning back to press my cheek against Phoenix’s. “I worry that I’m doing the same thing I always do. Where I fuck up and try too hard, too soon, and spill my feelings all over the floor. It never ends well, obviously. And I just worry that you’ll get tired of it, too.”
“Nah,” Rory denies. “I like mess. I like feelings. Spill your feelings so I can clean them up for you and watch you do it all again. So long as it’s for me and Phoenix, and no one else. Because you know…” He tilts his head to the side, cheer in every inch of his expression. “If you ever decide you’re falling for anyone else, I’ll have to kill them.”
“And I’d have to help,” Phoenix agrees quietly. “Half because I don’t want him to go to jail and half because, I mean…” He shrugs, a soft laugh huffing against my ear. “The moment I made you come in the woods was the moment you were ours. And it’ll take a lot more than whatever you have to throw at us emotionally to undo that.”
“If you say stuff like that, I’ll get attached,” I warn, one hand coming up to grab Phoenix’s wrist, the other gripping Rory’s hoodie so I can pull him closer to me. “And then you’ll never get rid of me.”
“Good.” Rory’s purr is instant, his grin curving wide and cruel over his lips. “Because no one else deserves to eventouchyou, darling.”
It’s not until after the hayride when we’re halfway to Phoenix’s SUV that Rory suddenly stops me, one finger grabbing my hoodie so he can drag me to him, his gaze serious. “I worry,” he informs me, shooing off Phoenix with a quick flick of his fingers. The latter hesitates, then goes, unlocking his car as his low, melodic whistle drifts back to us.
“That we won’t get home before midnight and you’ll turn into a pumpkin?” I shift uncomfortably in front of him, not sure what he wants.
“That you think you’re a consolation prize. Or an accessory to Phoenix that I have to put up with. Just because we didn’t grow up together and I’m not the one who’s been obsessed with you for years.” He goes quiet, watching me as I struggle to deny what he’s said, even though it’s totally true.
“It’s not…I mean, I get that I’m not Phoenix or the boy you—”
