Touch of Mischief 7.5 (4 page)

My mouth popped open. “Really?”

“Right here in the yard,” he said. He tugged me around the neck toward the house. “Let’s go, Princess. More to do...”

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H
ours flew by in the early afternoon. Gabriel blasted Halloween music. I followed his instruction on my pumpkin, carving out a dress with different types of moons. I couldn’t tell how it would look in the end, and he said I wouldn’t get to see it in action until tonight in the dark with a candle inside. He and Luke carved out the other princess dresses, littered with stars and suns.

After we were done with the pumpkins, North arrived with Silas. North wore the usual black T-shirt and jeans. His eyes had circles underneath like he’d been up all night, but he otherwise seemed fine.

Silas, however, had deeper black circles. His blue T-shirt and jeans were wrinkled. The usual slight smile on his face wasn’t there as he walked in. He was expressionless.

I hovered behind Kota as North dropped a box of sandwiches and packages of potato chips on the counter. “Eat when you can,” North said. “We’re not getting much else until the dance tonight.”

“How are you, Silas?” Kota asked. The room stilled. Everyone turned toward North and Silas.

Silas hunched his shoulders at his name. His head lifted, and he caught me behind Kota’s shoulder.

I stared at him, his big brown eyes, black hair hanging across his forehead. It was such a long, shared moment, with me afraid he’d say he was horrible or had some bad news.

In a flash, I tried to smile in a sympathetic way. I wasn’t sure if it came across more of a grimace, but I was trying to be encouraging. Quietly, I was asking him things the others were probably wanting to know. Will everything be okay?

Silas’s eyebrows scrunched together at first, looking puzzled, but then the corner of his mouth lifted, revealing white teeth that stood out from his olive complexion. “I’ll live. I’m good, I think. Just tired.”

“No time to nap,” Kota said. “Will you make it tonight?”

Silas nodded. “I’ll drink some coffee.”

“And carve your fucking pumpkin,” Gabriel said, pointing to the few that were left. “Hurry.”

North groaned and placed his palm against his eye. “We don’t have time for this shit.”

“We’ve got time,” Gabriel said. He grabbed two of the sandwiches and then snapped his fingers at me. “But we’ve got to get started. Kota, we’re going to borrow your bedroom.”

Kota perked up and started jogging after us. “Hang on, I’ve got to walk in with you. I’ll have to explain...”

“Well hurry up,” Gabriel said, not stopping. “She’s still got to take a bath and the others have to start getting ready, too.” He looked at Victor. “Starting with you. Shower. Now.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Victor said, smirking. He winked at me and went to the food to fish out a package of potato chips before he went for the bathroom.

Gabriel passed one of the sandwiches to me, encouraging me to eat while we raced over to Kota’s house. I was swallowing down the last bit as we took the door inside the garage, following Kota in. Kota motioned for us to hurry along upstairs. “I’ll tell her what you’re doing,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll be stuck downstairs a while because she’ll want to ask questions.”

We nodded and I followed Gabriel up to Kota’s bedroom.

The moment we were upstairs, Gabriel patted me on the butt and shooed me into the bathroom. “No funny stuff,” he said. “Clean up in there. Don’t wash your hair. I’ll do it.”

I was familiar with this routine. “I can wash my hair,” I said. “It might be faster.”

“I’ll do it,” he said. “I don’t get enough time with you as it is. I can at least do that.”

Was that the reason?

I hurried with a bath as fast as possible, basically scooping up water as it flowed from the faucet and washing up before it had time to fill. I did a quick shave, washed my face and body, and was out in a few minutes. I might have missed a few spots, but I was trying to hurry.

I got the big towel wrapped around me and just as I was hitting the drain to let the water out, there was a knock at the door.

“Ready?” Gabriel called.

“Yeah,” I said.

Gabriel opened the door. I was sure I’d locked it but that didn’t seem to matter. Gabriel had shed the shirt, wearing just a black tank top now. One of the blond locks fell across his face. He took one look at me at the towel and then snapped his fingers and pointed to the sink. “Go.”

He started the water, and when it was warm, I bent over.

While he was washing my hair, there were footsteps in the bedroom. I glanced over just in time to spot Kota.

He paused in the doorway, looking at Gabriel and then at me. His green eyes were wide. He touched the corner of his glasses, as if to adjust them, but then he paused in that motion, too. “Uh...”

“Don’t just stand there,” Gabriel said. “Are you clean? Hop in the shower if you need to.”

Kota’s face tinted red. “I can go downstairs.”

“Do it up here. Jeeze. It’s not like she’s not seen one before.”

“Uh...” I said, turning my head slightly again to stare at the basin.

“A little too far, Gabriel,” Kota said. “Boundaries.”

“We don’t have time for fucking boundaries. If she’s around long enough, she’s going to end up seeing all of us naked.”

Kota chuckled. “I’ll go downstairs. That one’s open.”

As Kota left, I blew out a relieved breath toward the sink. Gabriel was getting edgy. Probably because we were getting close to show time.

Gabriel still took his time washing my hair. After, he combed it out, dried it, and then did some curls. After, he threw underwear and a strapless bra at me and told me to put them on and left me alone in the bathroom.

When I’d finished, and had wrapped another towel around my body, I opened the door, peeking out.

Gabriel was gone, but the black dress was on the bed, sprawled out. I stepped out, checking out the finished work.

The corset was smooth like satin. Around the chest, the fabric was ruffled. The skirt was shorter, with a longer part in the back.

I smoothed my hand over the material, feeling the glossy smoothness. Custom made. My heart fluttered at the thought of how expensive the dress must have been.

In an effort to be helpful, I threw off the towel and attempted to start putting the dress on.

Just as I was slipping it up over my stomach, footsteps thundered on the stairs. I turned partially, not too in a hurry because I thought it was Gabriel.

North stopped short at the top of the stairs. His intense eyes focused on my face. His lips parted and those eyes drifted down, following my body, the exposed bra and the dress I was pulling up.

I’d frozen in shock at seeing him, and heat trailed through my body. We’d been in our underwear together before. Was this different?

“Sorry,” he said, turning his head away. It looked like he was going to turn around and head back downstairs.

“Don’t be,” I said quietly. I started tugging the dress up further, finding it a bit difficult to get the narrow part up over my hips. “Did you need something? Did Gabriel send you up here to shower?”

He stood quietly by the stairs for a minute, watching me struggle with the dress.

Slowly, he moved forward. I paused in my movements, looking up at him, curious as to what he wanted.

North slowly reached out, taking hold of the ties to the dress and hooking his finger into them. He loosened the corset part, and with his other hand, took hold of the dress to help me lift it up.

He did it without talking, but his eyes intensified.

His knuckles traced my skin along my sides as he lifted the dress.

I started to say thank you, but his touch tickled and by the end, I was giggling.

North smirked and then chuckled. He reached for my chin, clutching it between his fingers and lifted my head. He stared at me a long moment, and then dropped a firm kiss on my lips quickly before pulling back. “Sang Baby,” he said. “I should ground you for last night. And probably for a lot of other things.”

“But...” I said, ready to defend myself, worried at what another grounding would mean.

His thumb slipped over, until he was clamping my lips shut. “Just this once,” he said quietly, “I’m going to let it go. Silas is still here with us. I’ve got you to thank for that.”

I nodded slowly against his touch. “We both did it,” I mumbled against his thumb.

The corner of his mouth lifted, and he smiled enough to reveal some teeth. “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. We’re going to need it.”

“You mean with Silas?”

“Not just with Silas,” he said quietly. He released me and then turned toward the bathroom. “If Gabriel comes up here, tell him I’m in the shower,” he said.

I nodded, staring after him even after the door closed. My heart thundered, and my lips still felt warm with his touch.

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I
t was Luke who came up with the idea of how to scare the others tonight without too much effort and differently than he’d done in prior years. It turned out we did need Gabriel for it.

After I had the dress on, Gabriel brought out stockings and a pair of black heels for me to wear. Luke brought up a stool, and I sat on it for a while as Gabriel applied layers of makeup.

“I wouldn’t normally do this,” Gabriel said. “But given it’s Halloween...”

“It’s for a good cause,” Luke said. He pointed to my chin. “More blood there.”

Gabriel was just finishing up when there were footsteps on the staircase again. They both jumped in the way of me, preventing the view.

It was Dr. Green with Victor. They were both in their suits, Dr. Green with a purple tie and Victor with his white one.

I peeked through a small bit of space between Gabriel and Luke. Dr. Green stopped at the top, looking around. Victor almost bumped into him.

“Where’s Sang?” Dr. Green asked. “We brought her choker necklace thingie.”

Gabriel chuckled. “We were just doing her makeup. Want to see?”

“You put makeup on her?” Victor asked. “I thought you said you didn’t like it.”

“Just for tonight,” Gabriel said. He shifted lightly on his feet. “Ready?”

They both nodded, curious.

Luke and Gabriel both side-stepped in opposite directions. I winked, revealing the full scene on my eyelid to give the full effect like they told me.

Dr. Green and Victor both reacted instantly, recoiling their heads and taking a step back, knocking into each other.

“Ugh,” Victor said. He made a face, shaking his head.

Dr. Green burst out laughing, putting his palm on his forehead. “Oh god, I thought that was real. I thought you killed her. I was about to...” He blew out a breath and then stepped forward until he was right in front of me. He bent at the waist to examine my face. “Up close you can tell, but that distance away, it looked like her eyeball really was hanging out.

I was giggling, nearly rocking on the stool. Luke was laughing, as was Gabriel.

“Good,” Luke said. “Worked great. Now for the others.”

Dr. Green pointed at my face. “You know, if you put some yellow here,” he said, pointing to about where the eyeball was. “It’ll look grosser.”

“Where?” Gabriel asked.

I giggled while Dr. Green continued to educate Gabriel on what a real rotten face looked like and Gabriel touched it up.

“You’re all insane,” Victor said. He sat down on the bed. “Are we almost done?”

“Put the choker on her,” Dr. Green said.

Victor popped back up again, bringing out a black box.

He moved around, looking at my face, but then looking at the dress more. I guessed the makeup was really grossing him out. Good thing I’d be wearing a mask most of the night. Still, the looks he made told me scaring the others would be pretty easy.

Victor opened the box to reveal a lace and ribbon choker. The center was a large, hot pink stone.

My mouth opened. The stone was striking against the black. I thought it resembled a heart.

“Like it?” Victor asked.

“Look at that face,” Dr. Green said. “Of course she likes it. I mean if you look past the dripping blood and torn flesh and gross stuff, she clearly likes it.”

I started to giggle again. Dr. Green beamed.

“Yeah, yeah,” Victor said, waving his hand and looking away. “You made her gross.” He put the choker on me and then stepped away. “Are we almost done? We need to get going.”

“Let’s go, Trouble!” Gabriel called. “Go down. I’ve still got to get dressed.”

“Hurry up,” Dr. Green said. He took my hand, helping me off the stool until I was standing and stable in the heels. He grinned at me. “Well if Victor doesn’t want to be your escort at the moment, I’m happy to do so. Let’s go scare Erica and Jessica.”

I’d forgotten about them. Were they still downstairs? I hoped the makeup wouldn’t be too much for either of them.

Downstairs, Kota was talking to Erica in the kitchen. Erica had a witch costume on, complete with hat and a fake mole on her nose. Kota was in his black suit and green tie already.

Dr. Green nudged me to stand in the doorway to the kitchen, and Luke nudged me on the other side, encouraging.

I wasn’t sure what to do, so just to draw their attention, I said quietly, “Kota? Are you ready?”

They both turned to me, and their mouths dropped. There were different reactions going on at the same time, the dress and the makeup. The dress was pretty, but the makeup was spooky.

Erica burst out laughing. She reached for her phone and then snapped a picture of me. “Oh, Kota. That’s amazing. How come you didn’t do a zombie like her?”

“Must have been a last-minute decision...Gabriel,” he said.

“Luke!” I said, giggling. “And Gabriel.”

“Oh is that how it’ll be now?” Kota asked, but he was grinning. “You three are going to be the pranksters now.”

“She’s getting pretty good,” Luke said, and then patted my head gently.

“Hang on,” Erica said. “Jessica!” she cried out. “Come see!”

A moment later, Jessica came scurrying out from the living room. She wore a Katniss outfit, complete with a Mockingjay pin and a bow strapped to her back. She still wore her pink glasses, but it really was cute.