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Across the street, I happen to see Levi walking with his headphones in. He shuffles his feet while he walks, but his broad shoulders make him look confident. After a couple awkward minutes of us walking at the same pace on different sides of the street, he takes his headphones out and notices me. He jogs over, rosy cheeked, to greet me.
“Let me guess,” I say, “you’re on your way to my house.”
“Hell yes. It's tradition that I help Steven with the decorations the second Saturday before Halloween.”
“Halloween is next week, this is the last Saturday,” I say, pressing the warmth of the second latte I made for myself against my cold cheeks.
“Yeah.” He shrugs and takes the other earbud out. “Looks like everyone is a bit late this year. Summer lasted longer than usual.”
I look around at the houses as we pass by and notice a lot of families gathering outside with their bins of Halloween decor and supplies. A lot of them I recognize as customers from the shop.
“Steven goes all out. He needs me to help hang up the high stuff since Elijah’s too cool for decorations.”
I laugh at his comment. At least Levi understands how annoying his best friend is.
“Are you going to help this year?” he asks with puppy dog eyes.
“Sure, just tell me what to do, and I'll do it,” I say a bit out of breath as we reach the top of the hill.
“Yes!” He jumps, fist pumping the air and runs up the driveway and through the front door, leaving me in the dust.
As I get to the door, I run into Dad lugging out bins of decor with Elijah at his tail. I'm surprised he wants to decorate at all, considering he’ll be out of town, but he looks happy doing it. Living in California meant I missed the fall and changing of the leaves, so it's a nice change of pace.
Elijah walks bins of plastic ghosts and witches down the steps and plops them on the concrete for Dad to sift through. I walk in to see Jessica decorating the kitchen and living room in fall and Halloween themed lights. Behind her in the dining room, Olive and Stephanie hang orange and black streamers and plaster bats on the walls.
“You guys are helping?” I ask, surprised to see them downstairs with the family.
“Is Levi here yet?” Stephanie asks, peering into the kitchen.
“He is—“ I say but they both rush past me to the foyer before I can finish my sentence.
“My coffee was delicious. Thank you,” Elijah says behind me in a mocking tone. I'm surprised he can sneak up on me like that given his size.
I spin around to face him, my eyes glaring before they even meet his. My heart annoyingly skips a beat when I look up at him. I take a step back and he steps forward in unison, refusing to close the gap between us.
“Why so nervous, Tay-Tay?”
“Don’t call me that,” I hiss.
He grabs my hand in his, stroking the top of it with his thumb. I nervously look around, but everyone is outside helping Dad. “Why not, Tay-Tay?”
The pulsing between my thighs is fighting against the frustration and anger spewing from my mind.
“Taylor has the same number of syllables as that stupid nickname,” I say, barely able to force the words out in a coherent sentence. He smells like fresh firewood and desert rain and it's doing something to me I can't explain.
Barnacle runs into the room and smashes into Elijah’s legs at full force. Elijah grunts as he picks up the finicky little Chihuahua, swinging him up into my face.
“Get that thing away from me.” I back up to the table, tilting my face away from its rancid breath.
“But I'm just a puppy, Tay-Tay, a little puppy,” Elijah says in a baby voice.
“You know Levi is here, right?” I say as he puts Barnacle down on the ground.
“Yeah, but I think he likes your dad more than me sometimes.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and leans against the wall casually. It's taking all I have not to go up to him and touch the tattoos crawling up his neck. I want to feel the ink on his skin. I want my touch to make him tense. I want my touch to make him hard.
“Do you like my dad?” I ask, fighting back my barbaric desires.
He chuckles and leans his head down. “Yeah, Steven’s cool. His daughter’s a fucking pain in the ass, though.”
