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“Have you even asked him yet?”
“No,” Nick whispered feverishly.
Jazz sighed. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the reservation. You still want to do a double date?”
“Do I have to buy him a present on top of paying for dinner?” Nick demanded. “I have, like, twelve dollars. How the hell am I supposed to pay for a presentanddinner? Unless we go to McDonald’s and get sad little hamburgers. That’s romantic, right? I think we have candles somewhere. I could bring those.” He groaned. “Relationships are expensive. What am I supposed to buy my boyfriend who can fly?”
“I think you’re probably the first person to ever say that sentence.”
“Damn right I am,” he muttered. “Gay freakin’ rights.”
“Come on,” she said, jumping down from the counter. “I’ll help you with the decorations, and we can plan something that’ll be the most romantic thing anyone has ever done. How do you feel about flash mobs?”
“Badly,” Nick said, “as everyone should.”
“Well, we’ve got time. And since it’s up to me to plan everything, we’re all going to coordinate our outfits, and I won’t take no for an answer.”
“Why doIhave to be the one to askhim?” Nick asked, following her toward the stairs. “That sounds sexist. Okay, not really because we’re both dudes, but still. Down with the patriarchy!”
She laughed, looking startled as she did so, and Nick grinned at her.
Nick would remember this moment, here, right before everything changed. Jazz was still a little down, but he had her laughing again before too long. He couldn’t fly or shoot lasers out of his eyes, but he could help people when they were feeling low. It might not be as impressive as a superhero, but the little things mattered too.
And that line of thinking was what he’d remember most.
Once they had a pile of decorations ready to be boxed up and stored away, Nick went to the small hatch in the ceiling of the hallway. He reached up and pulled the thin string to lowerthe lid to the hatch and the rickety ladder hidden therein. He jumped back as the ladder slid down and clunked against the floor.
“I’ll go up first,” he said, “in case there are spiders.”
Jazz snorted. “Yeah, because the last time there was supposed to be a spider, you acted like a knight in shining armor.”
He climbed the ladder into semidarkness, weak light coming in from a circular window at the front of the house. Boxes and plastic tubs lined the attic. He rubbed his hand against the wall until he found the light switch. He flipped it on, listening in case anything alive scurried around. Nothing did. The house creaked and settled, but nothing seemed to be crawling in his direction.
“Okay,” he called down as he scanned the attic. “Bunch of boxes up here. I’ll hand them down to you. Cool?”
“Cool,” she said at the bottom of the ladder.
He grunted as he pulled himself up. The ceiling was vaulted, coming together like the top of a triangle. He could stand at full height, but only in the middle of the room. Thankfully, Dad hadn’t pushed the boxes too far back when they’d finished decorating. Nick made quick work of it, picking up a box or tub and handing it down the ladder to Jazz, who stacked them on the floor. She’d turned on music on her phone, and by the time he picked up the last box, they were both singing at the tops of their lungs, Nick going falsetto, causing Jazz to wrinkle her nose and tell him to keep his day job. It was good.
He was about to turn around and climb down the ladder when something caught his eye. In the back corner of the attic, a low glint flashed from the light of the bare bulb. He frowned, letting go of the ladder.
“Is that it?” Jazz called up.
“Hold on a second. There’s something up here.”
“That’s how horror movies start. Don’t be the stupid white guy who needs to check things out.”
Nick scoffed as he pushed his way further into the attic, movingdusty boxes to give him room. “I’m queer. That means I’d atleastsurvive until halfway through the movie.”
“I have questions about your logic.”
“Most do,” he muttered. He grunted as he lifted a heavy box markedRECORDS, a memory flitting about in the back of his mind like a little bird: his mother, pulling a black record from its sleeve and telling Nick there wasn’t anything quite like the Rat Pack, lowering the needle to the record and Frank beginning to sing about how the best was yet to come.
Without realizing it, Nick began to hum along with the ghost in his head. He only stopped when he saw what had caught his attention.
An old, gray television was plugged into the only outlet in the attic. The top of it was covered in a thin layer of dust, though the screen looked as if it’d been wiped clean recently. Below the screen was a rectangular slot. It took Nick a moment to realize what it was for. A tape player. A VCR. He crouched down in front of the TV, pushing back the flap of the VCR.
Inside was a tape.
