Page 29 of A Hexcellent Chance to Fall in Love

“Thirty minutes,” she said—meaning the amount of time she had left before she had to be at the haunted house. Time seemed to fly by so quickly when I was with her. I wished there was a way to slow it down.

“I could come with you.”

“You don’t want to spend your day off working.” The lie I had told her earlier as to why I was available to hang out rolled off her tongue.

“It wouldn’t feel like work. Besides”—I reached into the bag and shook the little bone earrings at her—“we have to test these out.”

“And someone should be there just in case things go wrong,” she said.

Or maybe if they go right . Those words were stuck in my throat as I held her gaze.

“Good idea,” she said, and I hoped she was thinking the same thing.

“We’ll need snacks.” I pulled her in the direction of Stacy’s booth.

“We will most definitely need snacks.” She laced her fingers with mine.

At the haunted house, teens raced around and cursed when they thought no adult was listening. It was chaotic and wonderful.

The first time I helped out, Christina had been nervous it would be too much for me, but after I hung with her and the kids a couple times after school, she started to relax.

Luckily, since it was both a school and a community event, and I was only there “after hours”—aka when classes weren’t in session—I didn’t need any special permission to be here.

Who even knows what would’ve come up in a background check, if anything at all?

Small-town living did have its perks like this, as I’m sure it wouldn’t fly in a bigger city.

I might not have been remembered, but The Dead of Night had always been a good partner for this event.

All the tree cutouts had been painted, so today we were screwing them into the wall to secure them in place.

Small town or not, the kids weren’t allowed to use the power tools, so I assisted Christina while all the students worked on other things.

We’d never had anyone who could do these kinds of tasks before, and having Christina here really elevated the haunted house to a completely different level.

What I would’ve given to have her around when I had been in charge of this event—she was so talented.

“People are really going to freak out when they see this,” I said, and Christina stopped her drill.

“In a good way,” I clarified. “This looks amazing, and it’s still light outside.

Once it’s dark and you get some cobwebs up on these things, and with the lighting in here, it’s truly going to be incredible. ”

“You really think so?” she asked, her voice tentative. “I’ve never even been to this event before, so I’m not sure what people are expecting.”

I had to remember that I hadn’t been here either.

That this was my first time seeing all of this.

“Well, I’ve been to more than a few haunted houses in my day, and there’s no way people won’t be impressed,” I said, but Christina didn’t look so convinced.

“Hey, Mycheal, is it?” One of the teens I’d been introduced to before was carrying in some paint for another room.

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“You’ve been to this event before, haven’t you?” I asked, and he nodded. “Can you tell Christin—Ms.Loring—here how cool this looks?”

“There’s never been anything like this. And no one has ever built us an electric chair. Last year we used some of Toni’s patio chairs for one of the rooms, and their mom was pissed.”

I had to suppress a laugh. Kids “donating” items without their parents’ permission was a thing, so I always had to ask if it was okay before we used anything. “See?” I told Christina. “Thanks, Mycheal. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Bet,” he said, and continued on his way.

I shook my head. “I will never be up on the lingo.”

“I’ve stopped trying. I once said something was ‘cringe,’ and from the looks I got…” Christina’s eyes went wide, and her brows shot up. “You’d have thought I had clown makeup on or something.”

“I can only imagine.” I laughed. “Is this one good now?” I nodded toward the wall.

“Oh, sorry.” Christina wedged between me and the cutout I was holding to finish screwing it into place. Her hair tickled my nose, and her shampoo smelled like fresh apples.

Her drill went zziibbb , ziiibbb . “Done,” she said. “You can let go.”

Doing so meant I could step away when all I wanted to do was press my lips against her neck—which of course I couldn’t do with students around, so I complied.

She tried to shake the tree, and when it didn’t budge, she nodded like she was satisfied.

“It’s not going anywhere,” I said.

“I just want to make sure. If someone got hurt, I’d never forgive myself.” She studied her work, tilting her head from one side to the other.

“It looks great,” I reassured her before grabbing a bag of cotton spiderwebs. “Especially once we get these up.” I pulled a chunk out, stringing it from one tree to the next.

Christina took some from the bag, too, and attempted to hang it with me.

“Really stretch it out,” I instructed.

“Like this?” She tugged but still had too much in her hands.

“Here.” I stepped toward her and showed her how to separate the cotton to make it look more like natural cobwebs. It was cute how she watched so intently, like she was really interested in getting it right.

“You make it look so easy.”

“It’s not like using power tools.” I winked. She needed to know how amazing she was at this. That her contributions mattered, too.

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“Did it work?”

She stepped closer. “A little.”

The back door to the house opened, and with it, a gust of wind blew all the cobwebs we’d just strung up all over us.

“Sorry, Ms.Loring,” the teen said as they quickly closed the door.

“It’s fine.” Christina laughed. “At least we know we’ll need some adhesive or something to make sure these stick on.”

“Oh, I know where that is.” The teen opened the door again, sending in another gust of wind and taking down more of our webs, and raced out.

Christina continued to laugh and shook her head, and I laughed along with her. “If these were real spiderwebs, I’d be totally freaking out.”

“Well, you should know, then, that all our webs are made by a hundred percent natural spiders.”

Christina kept laughing, obviously picking up on my joke. “You look like you have salt-and-pepper hair now. Wait, is that why you have that name?”

“Kind of,” I said. “My mom said I was born with a full head of hair, and my dad said it was as dark as pepper, and the rest is history.” I shrugged.

“That’s adorable. This, however”—she plucked cotton from my hair—“not so much.”

“Your hair is so light, it just blends in.” I ran my fingers through her silky strands, seeing if I could catch any.

Christina’s entire body shook. She was so close—with our bodies wrapped together in fake spiderwebs, it would’ve been so easy to lean in. Her gaze fell to my mouth. Was she thinking the same thing? My heart pounded so hard, she had to have felt it, too.

The door burst open again. “Got the spray adhesive,” the teen who had run out before called, quickly shutting the door behind themselves. Christina and I jumped away from each other.

“Thanks, Dora,” Christina said. “Maybe she can help you stick it on.” Christina turned to me.

“Of course,” I replied.

Christina’s cheeks were glowing bright red as she busied herself with sweeping sawdust and helping collect the rest of the rogue spiderwebs.

Dora helped me tug and pull and stick the stretched-out cotton to the trees, securing it with the spray adhesive, but all I wanted to do was be back close enough to Christina to smell her apple shampoo and kiss her until my lips turned as red as hers.

This was her job now, but being here made me miss it—miss my old life.

I was lucky, though, that I got to be here—to be a part of it again even for a short time.

Too bad it couldn’t be for longer—or forever.

If there was only some way—someone—that would want to take my place, then maybe this thing Christina and I had didn’t have to end.

“I’m going to move these.” Christina held up the bags from our earlier shopping trip. The small one with the earrings was inside one of them.

Mrs.Stein came rushing to the front of my mind. She had a new grandkid coming—and while it wouldn’t be ideal that they wouldn’t remember her, maybe it would be enough for her to get to see them grow up.

For the first time ever, there could be a way to break this curse after all.