Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
“Do tell, darling,” Muriel encouraged, passing them the plate of pastries.
Jamie took a bite of rich, buttery croissant and a sip of milky chicory coffee and settled in to tell them all about the mysterious, sweet, borderline disaster that had been their evening with Edgar Lovejoy.
***
Jamie crawled back into bed with a third cup of coffee after Muriel took her leave. They cranked the window air conditioner as high as it would go and settled in for an afternoon of sulking and horror movies.
Muriel, Germaine, and Carl had listened intently to Jamie’s description of the date and had agreed that something was definitely up with Edgar. But when Muriel left, she had lingered over her goodbye to Jamie, saying with uncharacteristic gentleness, “I hope you give him another chance.”
When Jamie asked her to elaborate, she wouldn’t, simply kissing them on the cheek with a vague eyebrow raise and an even vaguer, “You just never know, do you?”
Jamie, generally of the opinion that they did know, had said nothing. But now, watching as a brother and sister duo were shish-kebabbed by a cursed sword and trapped in a demon dimension, they found their thoughts drifting back to Edgar.
There had been moments—only a few, but they’d been there—when Edgar was truly present and had been sweet, generous, and interested. Moments when his eyes had gone soft at something Jamie said or did. Moments that had made Jamie imagine second dates, walks by the river, kisses, and curling up together after a hard day. And it had been those moments that made it so hard to walk away from Edgar at the end of the night. Jamie had learned from experience that if someone couldn’t make it through a first date without setting off their alarm bells, then it was best to leave it be.
But Muriel’s words drifted through Jamie’s mind as they snuggled deeper into bed. Lulled asleep midmovie by the daily afternoon downpour, Jamie awoke a few hours later to the following texts:
Edgar: Hi, Jamie, it’s Edgar. You probably don’t want to hear from me, but I want to apologize for being so weird yesterday. And for not telling you why. It’s just pretty personal and not something I talk about. Usually.
Edgar: Anyway, sorry for being a crap date.
Twenty minutes later, he’d sent another text.
Edgar: Is there any chance you’d give me another shot? Maybe you could come over and we could watch a movie?
Ten minutes after that, another.
Edgar: But not a scary movie, please 😓
As Jamie read through the messages, they started to smile, and by the time they got to that one, they were grinning. Edgar was just so damn sweet.
A final text came through as they held their phone.
Edgar: Okay, I’ll leave you alone now. Thanks for considering 😀
Edgar had acknowledged his alarming behavior, said it was personal, and apologized. Everyone had struggles and things they didn’t like to share. Jamie could respect that, as long as Edgar didn’t keep his secret forever.
A moment from their date came back to Jamie then. Edgar’s explanation for why he’d ordered desserts even though he didn’t plan to eat them. I wanted you to have what you wanted, he’d said. That didn’t sound like someone inconsiderate.
Jamie had cultivated a habit of truthfulness because so many people in their life had wanted them to lie. It was a slippery slope, and Jamie didn’t intend to be one of the people who ended up at the bottom of it, trying to climb their way back from a lifetime of self-erasure. But Edgar wasn’t Jamie, and he deserved time to feel safe enough to open up.
Jamie texted, I know just the G-rated movie.
Edgar’s response was immediate: Thank you for giving me another chance. That sounds really great.
Jamie’s cheeks ached, and they realized they were grinning at their phone again.
They were pretty sure that meant they’d made the right decision.
***
The House of Screams crew worked in a large warehouse near the tangle of the Pontchartrain Expressway and the river, building set pieces that they’d take to the site of the haunt once the space was available. It was incredibly humid and stuffy inside and always smelled like sawdust kicked off a table saw, hot from the blade. On a sunny day like today, the warehouse baked you no matter what you did, making the entire crew grouchy and irritable.
This Friday, the day of Jamie’s second date with Edgar, in addition to being hot and stuffy and grouchy, it was one of those days that seemed to have been cursed from beginning to end. Tools broke, a delivery of lumber got stuck under a bridge because the truck was too tall, and the trusty coffee machine that lived on the paint cabinet finally perished.
Marty, their fearful leader, was in rare dudgeon thanks to the setbacks—particularly the coffee machine, toward which he’d demonstrated more tenderness than toward his children. And when Marty wasn’t happy, nobody was happy.