Chapter 54
Ellie's POV
"Oh my GOD," Lily stage-whispered. "You've got to be kidding me."
Megan grabbed my arm, her fingers digging in. "Ellie. ELLIE. Did you two—"
"No!" I practically yelped, face flooding with heat. "I swear, I literally just found out what I was wearing like an hour ago!"
Jackson had spotted us. He was walking over, and I could see the exact moment he registered my costume—his steps faltered slightly, and something warm and satisfied flashed across his expression before settling into that small, knowing smile I was coming to recognize.
"Well," he said when he reached us, his eyes traveling from my veil to my dress and back up to meet my gaze. "Lily definitely has excellent taste."
"You KNEW," Lily accused, pointing at him dramatically. "Ryan told you! This is a SET-UP!"
Ryan appeared beside Jackson, looking far too pleased with himself. "I may have mentioned some details about costume coordination."
"So you deliberately matched?" Megan demanded, looking between us with barely contained glee. "Because from where I'm standing, you two look like a matched set straight out of a Victorian gothic novel."
I was going to die. Right here in the entrance, surrounded by costumed college students, I was going to perish from pure mortification. The heat in my face had probably turned my carefully applied corpse-bride makeup into something that looked more like I was having an allergic reaction.
"Can we just—" I started, desperate to escape this conversation.
But Lily's phone chimed. She glanced down at it, and her expression shifted from playful teasing to pure mischief.
"Oh, this is PERFECT," she crowed, showing her screen to Megan and Grace. "Ryan just sent me photographic evidence that Jackson went to last year's party in literally just a white lab coat. Like, the laziest costume ever. And now suddenly he's here in a full costume that just happens to match Ellie's?"
Every eye swiveled back to Jackson. To his credit, he looked only slightly uncomfortable, a faint pink tinge appearing above his pale makeup.
"I felt like participating this year," he said simply, which was possibly the least convincing defense ever uttered.
"Because of—" Megan started.
"LILY," I interrupted loudly, desperately grasping for any topic change. "Since when are you and Ryan such good friends that you're exchanging messages about Jackson's Halloween history?"
The effect was instantaneous and beautiful. Lily's face went scarlet, her eyes widening like a deer caught in headlights.
"We're—that's—we just—" she sputtered, her usual eloquence completely deserting her. "He sometimes shares information! About stuff! Normal friend stuff!"
"'Sometimes shares information'?" I pressed, grateful to be on the offensive instead of the defensive. "Lily, normal friends don't usually have detailed knowledge of their roommate's past social activities."
Megan latched onto the new target with glee. "Oh my GOD, have you two been talking this whole time? And you didn't TELL us?"
"There's nothing to tell!" Lily protested, but her voice had gone up about an octave. "We're just—we message sometimes—it's not—"
"How long is 'sometimes'?" I demanded, moving to block Lily's escape route. "Days? Weeks? Have you been secretly dating our whole freshman year?"
"We're NOT dating!" Lily's voice cracked slightly. "We're just... getting to know each other. Maybe. Possibly. As friends!"
Ryan, I noticed, had suddenly become very interested in his pirate boots, though I could see him fighting a smile.
"Friends don't blush like that," I pointed out, feeling my own embarrassment fade in the glow of Lily's mortification. Karma was beautiful sometimes.
"Fine! FINE!" Lily threw her hands up in surrender. "Yes, we've been talking. Yes, I think he's cute. Yes, maybe there's potential for something. Happy now?"
A chorus of "YES" erupted from our little group, along with demands for details that Lily tried to deflect while simultaneously looking pleased that we cared.
The attention had successfully shifted away from me and Jackson, and I caught his eye across the chaos. He gave me a small, approving nod that clearly said well played.
"Okay, okay," Ryan finally intervened, laughing. "Can we actually go inside the party now? Or are we planning to conduct all romantic interrogations in the entrance?"
"Inside," Megan declared. "This conversation requires snacks and probably some punch. Move out, people!"
The interior of the warehouse had been completely transformed. Fake cobwebs draped from the ceiling in thick ropes, jack-o'-lanterns lined every surface, and strategic lighting cast everything in shades of orange and purple. A fog machine in the corner worked overtime, creating a mist that swirled around our ankles.
The DJ—some guy dressed as the Grim Reaper—was spinning a mix of Halloween classics and current pop hits. The dance floor was already packed with gyrating costumes, the bass thumping hard enough that I could feel it in my chest.
"Bobbing for apples!" Grace spotted the game station and dragged us over. The setup was exactly what you'd expect—a large metal tub filled with water and floating apples, surrounded by laughing students with soaking wet faces.
"Absolutely not," I said immediately. "Do you know how much makeup Grace put on my face?"
"Come on, it'll be fun!" Lily was already tying her witch hat more securely.
I ended up going third, after watching Lily and Megan both fail spectacularly. The second I plunged my face toward the water, an apple escaped and bopped me on the nose, making me inhale water at exactly the wrong moment. I came up choking and laughing simultaneously, water streaming down my face and probably destroying my carefully applied corpse pallor.
Jackson was suddenly there with a handful of paper towels, his smile soft and amused.
"Smooth," he commented.
"Shut up," I wheezed, accepting the towels gratefully. "Those apples are slippery little bastards."
"Here." He gently tilted my chin up with one hand, using a clean towel to carefully dab at my makeup. The gesture was so unexpectedly intimate that I froze, hyperaware of his fingers barely touching my jaw, his face concentrated as he tried to repair the damage.
He's just being nice, I told my suddenly racing heart. Friends help friends. This is normal.
"There," he said finally, stepping back. "Crisis averted. You still look properly undead."
"My hero," I said, aiming for sarcasm but probably landing somewhere closer to 'breathless'.
"HAUNTED HOUSE!" Jake—another one of Jackson's roommates, dressed as a fairly lazy vampire—appeared and pointed toward the east corridor. "They set up a whole haunted walk-through. It's supposed to be actually scary."
Our group merged with several others as we filed into the makeshift horror experience. It started tame enough—some hanging sheets, spooky sounds, the occasional person jumping out to yell "boo."
Then it got genuinely creative. Motion-activated jump scares. Animatronic creatures that lurched out of darkness. At one point, an actor in full zombie makeup grabbed Megan's ankle, and her scream was so loud and genuine that three people ahead of us also screamed in sympathetic terror.
She latched onto Lily's arm so hard that Lily yelped. "I HATE THIS. WHY DID WE AGREE TO THIS?"
"Because it's fun!" Megan protested, though she didn't let go of Lily's death grip.