Love, Comment, Subscribe by Cathy Yardley

CHAPTER 23

It shouldn’t be this damned difficult, but here they were, Tobin thought with a scowl. They’d finished the Ouija board segment and shut the camera down, and now he was setting up for the next section, the Bloody Mary thing. Then they’d break down and set up the camera over again with the third game. It was a pain, certainly more so than his usual game playthroughs. Still, it was easier than the beacons shoot, and the editing shouldn’t take that long. He hoped.

Lily was sitting on the closed toilet, watching him with sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes as he struggled, yet again, with the light balance.

“What are you trying to do?” she asked around a yawn.

“Well, Bloody Mary is usually played somewhere dark, with a mirror—hence the bathroom,” he explained, as he futzed with the aperture on the camera and adjusted the frames per second again. “The dark is what makes it creepy. But the damned light sensor’s not working if I have the light too low. There’s no point in doing this if we can’t, you know, actually see it on the video.” He grimaced. “And I don’t want a mic in the shot, either. Gah!”

She snickered. “I’ve never done anything in the dark,” she said.

He smirked at her. “Oh, really?”

“Perv,” she said, but there was something amused in her voice, and he shot her a grin. “I mean, with makeup or clothes, you want to show them to their best advantage, which means showing them in plenty of light, especially natural light if you can get it, but regulated artificial light otherwise. That’s crucial.”

“Huh. But most people don’t have those kinds of ideal conditions, do they?” he asked, as he lit a few more candles and then looked at the video feed. Too slow, damn it . . . it was kicking up all kinds of visual noise, making the background look pixelated and messy. Totally amateur. He sped up the frames-per-second rate a little, trying to eliminate that, and the scene went darker. He growled softly in the back of his throat, tugging at his hair.

He was frustrated. He’d thought this was a brilliant idea as he was falling asleep, and if he hadn’t promised Lily that he was going to keep to her video schedule, he would’ve put this idea in a “marinate” file—give himself a few days to a few weeks, or longer, to figure out whether the idea would work at all, and then the mechanics and setup. He didn’t do full shot-by-shot setups or anything—he did a lot of simple stuff like playthroughs and whatnot—but for skits and silly stuff, it needed more thought.

There was a good chance this wasn’t going to work, he thought with irritation. Which would mean that they were wasting their time. The Ouija board bit was kind of funny, but sort of limped along. He needed to figure out a way to punch things up if he was going to post this tomorrow. Otherwise, it would just be some lame video of him and Lily, and that wasn’t going to help either of them. If anything, it would just make people question what the hell he was doing, collaborating with someone so opposite to his brand.

He finally got the lighting, the mic, and the camera the way he wanted them. He tugged Lily in front of the mirror. She looked, then yelped.

“I’m not wearing makeup, Tobin!”

“I know?” He hadn’t realized she wasn’t aware, especially since they’d shot the Ouija board stuff where she had a bare face . . . man, she must be really tired. “Please tell me you’re not going to put a bunch on. It’s almost three in the morning.”

She grumbled. “Just . . . give me a minute.” She shuffled out, turning on the light and causing him to squawk as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness.

“Damn it!”

“Oh, hush. Just give me a minute,” she said, pulling out a few things. She rubbed something into her face, then slicked on some eyeliner, and something on her cheeks, then something that made her lips just the slightest bit darker. When she turned to him, it looked like she wasn’t wearing makeup at all. Instead, her features seemed somehow more pronounced.

“That’s a neat trick,” he said, reluctantly impressed.

“It’s what I do,” she said with a shrug, tucking the little accoutrements back into her voluminous bag and then tossing it into the corner. She shut the light off, and for a second, he felt nearly blind, the candlelight so dim he could barely make out Lily’s form. He reached forward, his hands brushing against her back, her hip.

“Hey, watch it!”

Oops. Her butt, he realized, and yanked his hand away as if he’d been burned. “Whoa, sorry, sorry! That was an accident, I swear.”

“Sure it was.”

“No, I mean it,” he said vehemently. “I would never.”

She seemed to be staring at him—at least, that was the impression her silhouette gave. Then she let out a little huff of agreement, just a puff of breath. “Actually, I believe that,” she said. “You’ve always been touchy feely, granted, but you’re not a horndog about it, and you don’t just . . . you know, grope people. And you’re just as likely to tackle or hug a guy as you are a girl.”

He frowned, mulling it over. “I guess I am,” he said. “Never really thought about it before.”

“You’re pretty confident in it,” she said. “I always thought your parents must be too. You know. Physically affectionate.”

He let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Oh, hell no. My dad’s Vietnamese, and my mom’s British. I think we’d mail each other Christmas cards when we were living under the same roof.” He shook his head. “We are many things, but ‘touchy feely’ is not one of them.”

“Really?” He could see her features better now—his pupils had finally settled, and he was able to read more details in the low light. She looked curious, her eyebrows drawing together delicately. “My family’s not that physically demonstrative, either, I guess, although they’re warm and supportive. Why are you so different, then? You seem to hug, noogie, or tackle everyone.”

It made his stomach clench a little. “Trust me, if I had the answer to that, we’d all be happier. All I know is, I’m totally different from my parents.”

And it was something they’d noted, seemingly all his life. He swallowed.

“Okay. Let’s give this a try.”

“Right. What do I need to do?”

He tugged her in front of the mirror. “You need to look into your own eyes—like, really intensely—and then say ‘Bloody Mary’ at least three times, but more if necessary.”

“Oh-kay,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And that does . . . what?”

“Um.” He frowned, trying to remember what he’d quickly googled. “You’re supposed to see her face, I think? And in extreme cases, she’s supposed to come out of the mirror.”

Her eyes went wide. “Okay. That’ll be eventful.”

“Here, I’ll do it, too, with you,” he volunteered, standing next to her. He wasn’t terribly tall—about five foot ten—but Lily was only five foot three. He realized that their heads weren’t going to line up. “Maybe, um, kneel?”

She blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

He knelt first, then tugged at her shirt—his shirt, he remembered. “I want our heads to be closer to the same height in the shot,” he said.

“Oh. Right.” She knelt next to him. “That didn’t help much.”

“Dang it.” He really, really needed to think through logistics on this. “Um . . . chairs, maybe?” He went and grabbed two folding chairs from the kitchen, setting them up quickly. She sat next to him, and he checked the shot one last time. “Um. Okay. Let’s give this a try.”

He stared at his own face, then nudged her. “On the count of three, okay? One, two, three . . .”

“Bloody Mary,” she said, and he chimed in along with her. “Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary!”

They paused.

“Um . . .”

“Keep going?” he prompted.

They went on like that for a good minute. Then he shook his head. “Okay. So that’s a big fat goose egg.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I had my doubts about that one.”

“I don’t even know if that’s going to be good enough to post,” he groused, turning the light back on and then blowing out the candles. “Damn it!”

“Hey, are you okay?” she said. “I never see you this frazzled.”

He grimaced. “I’m not frazzled,” he said. “It’s just . . . I told you I’d stick to a shooting schedule, and I’m trying to keep up my end of the bargain, but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, you know? I mean, haven’t you ever had an idea just not pan out, or need a day or two to . . . I dunno, recharge? Get your head on straight?”

She blinked at him. “No.”

“Oh. Just me, then.” He was a little harsher than he needed to be, shutting down the camera and putting things away. “Great.”

He froze when he felt her tiny hand on his shoulder, making him pause. “It’s okay,” she said. “I think it’s probably better than you realize, if anything, so don’t worry about it, okay?”

He tried to feel heartened, but it just felt like he’d been tired for too long. He sighed.

“Did you have anything else you wanted to try?” she said.

He realized that she was standing there in just a long T-shirt and the tiniest whisper of makeup. And she looked both amazing and encouraging. And he felt warmth for her, which was surprising in and of itself.

“Um,” he said, trying to get his mind clear. “There’s a game called, uh, sinking into the floor that we could try.”

“What’s that?” she asked, curious.

“It’s kinda stupid,” he admitted.

“Can’t be worse than Bloody Mary,” she pointed out, and he rolled his eyes.

“Yes, thank you for that reminder. Anyway, it’s sort of the opposite of ‘light as a feather, stiff as a board’ . . .”

“Oh! I remember that!” she said, her laugh like a bell. It made him grin—it was a sound of sheer delight. “I swear, we got Melanie up to about a foot off the ground one night, over at Emily’s house.”

“Honestly, you probably didn’t,” he pointed out. “But yeah, we don’t have enough people to do that. This is more like a mindfuck.” He glanced around, then set up the camera in the living room again, where his carpeting was the thickest. “Okay. So. This is ‘sinking into the floor,’ and it’ll be our final spooky sleepover game,” he said for the benefit of the camera. “Lily, can you come here?”

She stepped up to him, and he got down on the floor. She followed his lead, but he stopped her before she could stretch out. “Nope. I’m going to be the corpse that gets dragged to hell in this scenario. You’re the, um, torturer?”

She grinned at that. “Oh, I’m in.”

“Figured you’d like that,” he muttered. He spread himself out on the floor, on his stomach. “Okay. So, the trick here is to lift me up by my shoulders and hold me for a while, okay? Then you’re going to let go, and it’s going to feel like I’m going through the floor, all the way down, like the damned. In theory, anyway.”

“Huh.” She knelt in front of him, and he saw the smooth skin of her thighs. Which seemed, again, vaguely inappropriate, so he looked away. “Sounds like a yoga pose,” she noted.

“Don’t stretch me too much. I’m not Gumby,” he warned, as she started to lift him.

“Ugh, you’re heavy,” she replied, tugging at him. It wasn’t comfortable, he’d say that.

“A little higher,” he said. “I think I need to feel the stretch?”

“Have you never heard of leg day?” she groused, and he laughed as her fingers dug into his shoulders. She crouched a little, trying to get a better grip, get some leverage. For a second, they were face to face. He found himself holding his breath. She was flushed, and grinning—until for a second, she wasn’t.

He hadn’t felt a damn thing when he’d been staring in the mirror saying Bloody Mary. But now? He felt his stomach knot, his heart pound. Just from looking into Lily’s deep, dark-brown eyes.

“Lily,” he breathed.

She smiled.

Then she dropped him.

His face hit the carpet with a thump. He was lucky he’d turned a little at the last second, or he might’ve broken his nose. “Ugh,” he mumbled.

“So,” she asked, tilting her head and putting it close to his ear. “Feel like you’re going to hell?”

“Pretty damned close,” he admitted. “And that ought to wrap it up for us. Thanks.”

She laughed, then gave him a hand up. “C’mon. Let’s go to bed.”

He grumbled, shutting everything off. She washed off her reapplied makeup. Then they both tumbled onto his king-size mattress. “Three o’damned clock in the morning,” he muttered, jostling for bedding as she curled next to him. “Hey! Blanket hog much?”

“Shut up, Tobin,” she said, then paused. “Hey, remember what we were talking about earlier? About you being, you know, touchy feely?”

He blinked in the darkness. “What about it?”

“Does that mean you’re one of those snuggling-type boyfriends?” she asked, around a yawn. “I’ve never had one of those, and they always sound nice.”

He thought about it. “I never got why guys wouldn’t be into snuggling,” he admitted. “It’s been a minute since I’ve had a girlfriend, but when I do, I like it when they spend the night. They’re all soft and warm and feel great and smell better.”

“You’re a hair sniffer, aren’t you?” He could hear the smirk in her voice and burst out laughing.

“Yup, that’s me,” he teased back. “Just sucking in that air like a pervy Roomba. Now get some sleep, or I’ll snuggle you.”

“Heh.” Then, to his shock, she wriggled until she was flush against him, then dragged his arm over her like a blanket. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

He froze momentarily, especially when she wiggled again to settle herself firmly in the little spoon position.

Fuck it.He curled around her . . . and yeah, he found himself inhaling her scent, the one that reminded him of jasmine and cinnamon and something indefinably sexy. He pressed a kiss on the back of her head.

“G’night,” she murmured, sleep heavy in her voice.

He held her tighter. “Good night, Lils.”