Page 33 of Slick & Spooky
He’s relentless like that.
Normally it’s annoying, but tonight it’s worse because we’re only hours away from the annualDía de los MΛNblowout. Tyler needs it to be perfect. Not just because it’s the biggest party of the year, but because it’s our anniversary.
It’s easier this time. My tenure as president is up, so I get to just show up and exist like everyone else. No risk management, no damage control. Just the noise, the lights, and him.
Still, I know myself. My idea of enjoyment only goes as far as making sure he’s happy. He lights up a room, and I hover in the shadows, making sure nothing burns down. That’s the balance we’ve found. He’s the spark, me the watchful hand keeping the fire from taking the whole house with it.
It’s a strange world I live in now. The one where that tornado of a boy tore through my life and leveled everything I thought was solid. I used to think I liked control. Turns out, I just liked predictability, and he blew that to hell.
Now there’s noise where silence used to be. Laughter where there used to be routine. I can’t be upset about that, no matter how much I pretend to be.
I was raised to keep my guard up. Raised to be the wall and not the man behind it. To act like nothing touches me, but Tyler showed me that strength isn’t the same thing as control. I guess being tough is just another performance.
He calls it “emotional strategy.” I call it bullshit.
But he’s right… Delicate can be a weapon too and soft can get you what brute force never will. Somewhere along the line, he taught me how to use both.
I sigh. “You’re gonna stain the floor.”
Droplets of fake blood trail down the arrow and across his hands as he decorates it, the mess already drying in little tacky streaks between his fingers.
“Nah, it’s my own mixture. Non-toxic.”
“What do you mean, your own mixture?”
He looks up at me with that infuriating glint in his eye. “I followed some instructions from the internet. It’s all edible.” He drags a finger through the blood and puts it in his mouth. “See? Didn’t kill me.”
“Not yet,” I mutter.
He smiles as if I’ve just complimented him, and it’s so bright it’s blinding.
I cross the room, shove a few things off the bed, and fall onto it. The mattress creaks under the weight of all my bad decisions. “I swore I’d never do fake blood again after last year.”
He doesn’t look up. “You said that about tequila too.”
“Yeah, well,” I mumble, “at least tequila doesn’t ruin sheets.”
Last year had been worse. The fake blood. The glow-in-the-dark paint. The way he’d chased me down with every intention of invading my life and then actually did it. I let him, too.
Told myself it was a temporary lapse and repeat of something that should only be a one-night thing, another chemical mistake I’d correct in the morning. But morning came, and there he was… still ruining everything in the best possible way.
It took days to wash the stains out, and I don’t just mean the sheets.
He finally sets the arrow down and walks over, blood still slick on his hands. “Relax,” he says, pressing a finger to my knee, leaving a red print on my jeans. “This year, I’ll do the cleaning.”
I glance at the mark. “You said that last year too.”
He leans in, close enough that I can smell the sugar and corn syrup on his skin. “Yeah, but this time I mean it.”
God help me, I almost believe him.
“You think the brothers are gonna handle this much gay right to the face?”
He snorts. “They’ll have to. Surely they’re used to it by now.”
“If not?” I ask.
He grins. “Fuck ’em.”