Page 1 of A Very Gay Halloween
Chapter 1
THE GRIM REAPER hates me, and it's my fault.
I poke my head from around the corner, scanning the inside of the old, industrial warehouse. Elaborate, glow-in-the-dark spiderwebs loom from every corner. When I don't immediately spot him, I step out from the tiny, musty nook I've been occupying for the past twenty minutes. It's risky, but I need to stretch.
I shake off my limbs, groaning. The white apron I'm wearing must weigh at least twenty pounds, mostly because the blood smeared all over hasn't had a chance to dry yet. Such is the fate of a butcher, I guess.
We still have some time until showtime, so I pace back and forth in the narrow corridor that wasn't here just two weeks ago. There's a black plywood wall to my left, and two barred gates to my right, separated by a rusty faucet leaking blood. Fake blood, of course, but the sound makes me shiver all the same.
If I had known things would turn out this way, I would have never agreed to this in the first place.
It was a fun idea on paper. A horror house experience to kickstart a night of drinking, and trick or treating, and pumpkin-shaped everything, meticulously designed to bury the hatchetbetween two fraternities. It was Jason's idea, and he's spent the past two weeks organizing, planning, and bossing everyone around. It was supposed to befun. But of course nothing in my life can ever go smoothly, and two days ago Jason twisted his ankle, passing the baton to none other than—
"Butcher!"
I stop dead in my tracks, my body going rigid. I count down from three, taking deep breaths that do fuck all to calm me before I turn around to the source of the voice.
Cooper.
Drunk on his newfound power, he glares at me, face partially covered by the massive hood of his black robe. And he has the audacity to point his scythe at me.
"Why aren't you at your post?"
Because we still have ten minutes, you absolute dimwit, I almost say, but stop myself at the last second. It's not worth it. "Sorry," I mumble instead and make my way to my designated nook.
He huffs before disappearing around the corner.
Yes, the grim reaper hates me, and even though it's absolutely of my own doing, I can't help but mentally stick several needles into my imaginary Cooper-shaped voodoo doll.
It all started during rush week.
***
"COOPER," HE'D INTRODUCED himself as we stood next to each other in a large, half-circle of freshmen, eager, hopeful, and scared shitless.
"August," I'd said, and with the handshake that followed, a new friendship began. A friendship that never was.
For the next few days, we were inseparable. Us against the world. Against all the other people we were yet to meet, against places we didn't belong in, against classes we didn't understand, against the entire Greek system we were so desperate to be a part of.
Until Thursday.
It all went to shit on Thursday. I remember—I've journaled about that Thursday for weeks after.
That one bloody Thursday when we stood just a little bit too close. When I noticed the body heat I had no business noticing. When his smile, bright and genuine, did something to me, something I didn't understand. Or didn't want to.
Something dangerously fucking close to sparking the type of appreciation for that smile that I'd always reserved for women and women only. And I wouldn't have minded, if I'm being honest. College, right? Perfect time for experimenting, for inconvenient crushes, for writing long lists of pros and cons and reevaluating who I was and who I wanted to be, even if those things fell on opposite sides of the spectrum. I could have dealt with that just fine.
And I was fine all the way until that evening, when Cooper'sgirlfriendshowed up to visit, giving him a long, sloppy kiss and grabbing his ass right in front of me.
And that, I couldn't handle.
It took me about zero-point-three seconds to decide right then and there that I was straight, damn it, and straight guys don't get fucking butterflies in their stomachs for other straight guys, and that all of it was a massive bout of confusion caused by a new chapter, anxiety, and lack of sleep.
I turned into a monster.
As if possessed, my brain decided to handle what I wasn't ready to face in the most fucked up way possible: hostility.
I told him to fuck off the same night. No reason given.
