Page 51 of The King of Halloween
“Adam Stein, of…here. Well, not this café in particular. I was born in Minneapolis on a frostbitten night in February.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Stein.” Raj held out his hand as if this were a job interview.
Adam didn’t just take it, but cupped behind Raj’s hand while spelunking into his eyes. Licking his lips, Adam leaned closer to whisper, “I bet it is.”
Thankfully, Raj laughed at his foolishness—though his gaze did canvas up and down Adam for a flicker. His entire body zapped like he’d touched a downed wire. Adam drummed his fingers on the table to keep from reaching for Raj’s hair and pulling him into a kiss.
We’re in public with lots of nice and very gossipy locals. For god’s sake, man, keep it contained.
Steadying his breath, Adam leaned back in his chair so he could escape that intoxicating myrrh he wanted to lick off of Raj’s skin. “Which of my secrets have you ferreted out?”
“I saw you ran track.”
“Oh.” Adam groaned and collapsed his hands on the table. “Going right for the jugular five minutes in?”
“Being on a team is something to be proud of.”
“I’m sure it would be for anyone who’s talented at their sport. People saw this spindly young man with the gait of a newborn fawn and, for some reason, thought, ‘Yes, he is a runner.’ Spoilers, I am not.” Adam shook his head, trying to escape the embarrassing truths lurking in his past. “It was like my feet were in another timezone. I could no more control them than I could a flock of crows. I’m fairly certain I broke every record for worst time at the school.”
This many years out, Adam could laugh at his gangly youth. Back then, he’d have run-stumbled off in a huff. But now that he’d finally figured out how to control his legs and arms with very few complaints, the wound didn’t sting.
Poor Raj looked slightly mortified at having brought it up, and Adam wanted to assure him he was fine. But as he reached over to take his hand, Raj asked, “Why’d you stay? If you hated track, why didn’t you quit?”
“An entire team of young men in short shorts and tank tops? Can’t imagine why I’d stick around for that.”
“Not to mention the locker rooms.”
“No,” Adam interrupted, his voice catching. “Even in the hormone muck, I knew better than to…”
Both men silently stared around the café. Absolutely no one was looking at them. It was doubtful anyone cared to listen in, but that little fear never vanished. It squatted in his heart like a fat tick, reminding him to stay vigilant.
Adam twisted in his seat so he mostly faced the wall. “I was still waiting for that moment when I’d wake up and care about breasts.”
Suddenly leaning closer, Raj sighed. “I had to listen to a three-hour discussion about cup sizes with my cousins when I was fourteen. If I weren’t already gay, that’d have made me.”
It was such an innocuous word. Just three little letters that meant happy. People liked being happy; they should like being gay. But Adam couldn’t stop hunting, waiting for the rage to take hold and come swinging at him.
Being in public was a bad choice.
“Movies. You’ve done a lot of movies,” Adam said, doing his best to focus.
“A few.”
“Like, ones from the late nineties. How?” At first, he thought someone had confused two Raj Choudhary’s on IMDB, but one of them was a Burt Soup film, so it had to be him.
Raj stirred his torte instead of eating it. “I lucked out into an internship. I’d spend a summer, or even a fall semester learning all about special effects with some of the great schlock horror maestros of the seventies and eighties.”
He did what?Adam’s jaw hit the table. Clinging to his chair, he hopped it closer to sit right up to the table. “I am positively seething with jealousy right now.”
“There was a lot of getting coffee, making copies. But on occasion, I’d get to fill a blood pool, or even be a corpse. Never looking at the camera, though. My father he…he worked for a smaller studio and got me an in. I tried to make the best of it.”
Why in the world was he acting sheepish about this? If Adam had spent his teen years flinging blood at Jenny Kurt instead of getting gut-punched by hurdles, he’d have it on his business card. No, he’d have his entire IMDB page printed on shirts that he’d hand out at his store. “That’s amazing,” Adam gulped. Instead of bitter, his jealousy tasted like Pop Rocks in cotton candy. With every taste, he had to have more. But Raj grew quiet and kept taking careful sips of his coffee.
Don’t get heavy on a first date. I need a change of topic.
“Tell me about your family,” Adam said. When Raj looked at him, he added, “You already met mine.”
“Fair, I suppose. I have two sisters and a brother. Two of them are doctors.”
