“Wow, you actually got your house in order,” I said with genuine surprise.
“Oh shut it,” Oliver snapped, bustling around near the sewing machine.
“I was being honest,” I said.
“I’m sure you were,” he fired back.
I sat down on his perfectly made bed.
“Ah-ah-ah, don’t touch the place I sleep!” he snapped.
I didn’t move. Instead, I crossed my legs. “Why, you afraid you’re going to catch my gay?”
“I’m already gayer than you,” he said, rummaging through the drawers. “I just don’t like dirty farm boys touching my stuff.”
I scowled. “What’s your problem?”
“What do you mean? This is how I show affection.”
Affection? Did he… did he like me?
“You have a funny way of showing it,” I said bitterly.
“You’re not the first person to tell me that, hillbilly boy,” he said dryly.
I pursed my lips and leaned back on his bed so I was lying across it.
He heard the rustling as I moved and turned to see me spreading out. He wrinkled his nose. “Ugh, now I’m going to have to wash my sheets…”
“I’m not even touching your sheets,” I said, spreading out over the duvet. “But I will if you keep being rude to me.”
“Shush, I’m working,” he said as he rushed toward me with a tape measure.
Without even asking me to get up, he leaned over me and measured the distance between my shoulder blades.
Even from upside-down, I could see the hint of a smile on his face. He was enjoying this.
Maybe… maybe he was just bantering with me this whole time?
He clicked the tape measure and went over to one of the mannequins, comparing the length to the shoulders.
I sat up and watched him, fascinated by his flurry of work. There was this wild energy coming off of him in waves; energy that danced on my skin and made me excited.
“How are you doing, by the way?” I asked delicately. “I know it’s been a couple weeks since—”
“Hardly think about him,” he said shortly.
Though there was a stiffness in his shoulders that I couldn’t miss.
“I stay busy. I’m in an amazing Italian village, far away from all of that. It’s easy to immerse myself in my work,” he explained.
A few seconds passed in silence as I watched him pin fabric into the mannequin. His hands were shaking.
“Sometimes I think I hate him,” he said.
My eyebrows came together. This was a side of Oliver I hadn’t seen before.
“Are we back to bitching about our exes? We never really did get to go into detail in that bar…” I said.
“If you’re in the mood for bitching, then I guess I can fill you in,” he said with his lips pursed. “But only if you fill me in about Crimson Sin.”
I froze. How did he know I’d already met the guy? That strange, otherworldly man that shook my entire world with his… oddness.
“What do you mean?” I asked carefully.
“I know you met him. He told me.”
“Wait, you guys already met? What did you think of him?” I asked with my mouth dry. I had to know what Oliver’s reaction was; I wanted to know if someone else saw him too. Part of me had convinced myself that Crim was just a figment of my imagination.
“He’s fucking weird,” Oliver muttered.
A sense of validation washed over me. “Thank goodness— I thought I was the only one. Did he tell you he wants to go live in Iceland too?”
Oliver frowned and looked up from his pinning. “No, he told me he’s going to Prague.”
We shared a look for a few seconds and an understanding flickered between us.
“Did he… did he lie?” I asked.
“He had to,” Oliver said. “If he fed us both different stories…”
“Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” came a voice from outside the door.
Me and Oliver shared a wide-eyed look, then we both looked at the door.
“Mind if I join? Reese’s Puffs was all up on my case, moaning about how I need to spend time with the cast…”
Oliver went to the door and opened it. Standing there, leaning against the door frame as if he owned the room was that enigmatic man.
“Hello again,” he said with a lazy smile.
“Reese said you need to spend time with us?” I asked, trying to ignore the fierce magnetism coming off of him. “Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, rolling his purple eyes and sauntering through the threshold. “Something something publicity.”
“That means he wants photos of us to go online,” Oliver said. “The production company probably wants to milk you for all you’re worth.”
“That’s no secret to me,” Crim said, pulling out his phone. “Say cheese.”
He craned his phone above us, smiled for the camera, and snapped a photo.
“Hey, I wasn’t ready!” Oliver cried.
“Candid is always better than posed,” Crim said simply. “Besides, you look cute no matter what.”
Oliver blushed fiercely and muttered to himself as he continued pinning curtains of fabric onto the mannequin.
Crim swaggered his way to the bed next to me, looked down and smiled. There was something… vampiric about that smile, like he couldn’t wait to get a taste of me.
“Charlie. Long time no see. I was hoping to get a chance to see you again before the day ran out. How serendipitous.”
Before I could reply, he sat down on the bed next to me.
Our hands were propped behind our backs, only a few centimeters from touching. Every single neuron in my brain was concentrated on the spot where our hands were almost together. It was like I could feel the electric charge coming off of him like a Tesla coil, the lightning dancing between us on that one square centimeter of skin on the side of my hand.
Crim held out his phone — which didn’t even have a case — and pulled up his photos app.
“This look okay to you, Charlie? I think we should put it on the ‘gram.”
“Wait, I want to see! I probably look disgusting,” Oliver said, bustling over
