Page 10 of A Hexcellent Chance to Fall in Love

I giggled to myself. “Totally relatable,” I said, and she swiveled back in my direction with a smile playing on her lips.

“Do you know how many types of vampire teeth there are?”

“I do.” I laughed out loud this time.

“Of course you do.” She rolled her eyes at herself.

After I set the bags down, I couldn’t stop myself from really checking the place out.

The number of hours, days, weeks I’d spent in this very room painting and prepping was immeasurable.

A rush of emotions hit me all at once like a tide crashing onto the shore.

Working here, I didn’t realize how important those moments would become until now, when they came flooding back as memories.

I wished I’d have taken the time to cherish them more when I was here.

The room was still in chaos—paint cans pushed up against one wall; a few mannequins, some without heads, sat in a mound; and sawdust galore—but this was part of the process.

Where a blank canvas became a work of art.

Or a bloody mess in this case. I couldn’t make furniture, but we always had parents who would come and help out.

And we always had donations that we could repurpose.

Beside the trees pushed to the side of the room was an unfinished wooden chair. “Did you make this, too?”

“It was a little more challenging than I expected. But then again, I’ve never made an electric chair before.”

“And why would you? Unless you were some kind of serial killer.” I stopped inspecting her work and spun around.

“You aren’t, are you? Because this would be a really great place to murder someone.

” I glanced at the concrete floor, which was stained with all the different kinds of paint and fake blood from years past. They’d even installed a drain when the house was constructed, likely knowing it sometimes took a lot of water to get the floor clean—and then there was always the occasional kid accidentally peeing in their pants.

“With the black lights on, I bet it already looks like a crime scene.”

“Oh, I bet you’re right. I’d never thought about it.”

I glanced up at the ceiling. The same light fixtures were there from before, so I headed to the wall and pressed a couple buttons on the light switch panel.

It immediately got darker and then the black lights flickered on.

Just as I expected, splatters were illuminated along the floor and walls, some bright puddles while others dim and dark.

The tree cutouts Christina had made looked even more menacing in the special lighting.

Christina spun around like she was taking it all in, her hair glowing and her skin a deep blue.

She’d switched out her corporate dress for a simple black tank top and jeans, which were speckled with glowing white dots.

Even her black Hunter boots were covered in sawdust. “How’d you know to do that? ”

Crap. Not even five minutes with her and I’d already slipped up. I was not supposed to know more about this place than she did. “Would you believe magic?”

She turned toward me, her eyebrows raised.

“My job title could be Halloween expert.” The lie came out so easily as I pointed up.

“I noticed the bulbs and saw the switch and put two and two together is all.” I shrugged casually—like this was, of course, the perfect explanation and not that I had been the one to write the instructions on how to use all the gadgets in the house.

“So, Halloween expert and electrician.” She smiled, her teeth glowing a bright violet.

“Definitely not.” I shook my head. I really needed to be more careful, though—there was too much that I couldn’t explain, and the last thing I wanted was to scare Christina away. I flipped the switch again, turning the world back to its normal colors. “How’d you get into building stuff?”

“My grandfather actually. My parents would drop me and my two sisters off, and while my older sister, Ashley, baked in the kitchen with my grandmother, and my little sister, Emily, either watched cartoons or helped them, I would hang out with my PawPaw in the garage and help him build things.”

“That’s really cool.”

“You think?”

I walked back over to the chair. “Yeah.” I sat down and it didn’t wobble or shake at all. She’d even gone as far as carving in little details to make it look like something that had been used before. “This is really good. Do you make any furniture that isn’t torture related?”

“Ha,” she said. “I made my own dining table and chairs.”

“I’d say that checks.”

She smirked. “I also made my bed frame and dresser and a couple of side tables.”

“Hold up, Jonathan Scott. If you can do all of that and I’m betting they’re just as amazing as this is, why aren’t you, like, I don’t know, doing this for a living?” As soon as those words hit my own ears, I cringed. “That sounded bad, didn’t it? I swear I didn’t mean—”

“No, it’s fine. Part of me would love to build things for a living, but, like, I’m one person, and people have IKEA, and why would they pay me more for something they can build themselves?

” She let out a long breath. “And then I’d have to hear about how I wasn’t putting my degree to good use.

” She rolled her eyes. “Architecture,” she clarified.

“Gotcha,” I said. “Still, I bet some people would pay for quality stuff like this, or these.” I walked over to the tree cutouts. “These are so cool. And if building things brings you joy, isn’t that what’s most important?” At least that is what Mom always said to me—find your joy, do what you love.

“We’re doing a deadly forest theme, and I thought the kids could hide between them and jump out, so I set a couple up to see if they’d work. And now that I know how to turn the lights off, I think they could actually do the trick. I was going to show the kids today when they got here.”

“They’ll love them. Plus, they look supercool.

” A deadly forest theme was such a simple idea, but there were so many things you could do with it.

I was a little jealous I’d never thought of anything like it before.

Christina may have not liked Halloween, but she had good instincts. She needed to believe in herself more.

She bit her lip. “So what did you bring me exactly?” she asked, clearly wanting to change the subject. She started going through the new bags, pulling items out.

“Mostly mix and match costume pieces, but some of this stuff you could cut up and, I don’t know, pour blood all over it.”

Christina glanced back at the stained floors, which only a moment ago were glowing. “I’m gonna need a lot of fake blood, aren’t I?”

“There is still that murder option.”

She laughed. “Might be cheaper.”

“It’s the ten to life that’ll get you.” I laughed with her. It was so easy to laugh with Christina. “You know what? I have a bunch more stuff back at the store. If you wanna stop by sometime, you can have whatever you want.”

“You won’t get in trouble, will you?”

“Not if it’s like this, and we would toss it anyway.” I couldn’t exactly tell her that it was impossible for me to get in trouble. A few years ago, I tried to get myself fired, and it didn’t work. “Come by whenever and ask for me, and I’ll show you what we have,” I said. “I got you. I promise.”

“Just come by and ask for you. It’s that easy?” She licked her bottom lip.

A flush of heat raced through me. “Yep.”