Page 63 of Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
“Thank you. In the version I saw, the evading party was confined to a couch, and the blindfolded person had a squirt gun, and while I suspect that Ellie would murder me if I proposed that—”
“You would be correct,” I chime.
“—I think that having everyone trying not to bite it on the floor will be challenging enough.” He looks around at each of us. “Y’all in?”
All eyes turn to me.
Regular Life Me rails against the idiocy of the proposed activity. My mind floods with visions of busted chins, cracked teeth,blood on the couch. But I also haven’t joined the guys in any non-gym nonsense so far. This is what these six months are supposed to be about.
I press up from my spot on the couch. “I’ll get some socks.”
Silence and Sabotage is more fun than it has any right to be.
We’re all treating it with the same deathly seriousness that Mark had when introducing the game. Heather is ruthless, sliding up beside other participants and making a noise, only to skate away while whoever’s It closes in. She got me caught that way, which is why I’m standing with Alistair’s backup—as opposed toprimary?—sleep mask on, listening for a player to give away their location.
Someone in the room clears their throat nominally, the wet rumble coming from my left. I’m edging that way when I pick up on something else: footsteps on the porch. Heavy. Distinctive. I lean in the direction of the sound. “Is Ian here?”
Across the room, Diego mutters, “She knows his feet?”
A double knock sounds at the door, and then I hear it open. “Hey. You guys ready to go eat?” He pauses. “What is this?”
I wheel toward him, tugging off the eye mask. He’s on the doormat, in faded jeans and a baseball tee with navy sleeves. I don’t dare look at Heather; we’ve long championed the baseball tee as superior to all other male casual wear. It strikes the perfect balance of universally flattering crewneck and forearm-baring sleeves that demand some degree of musculature to fill out. Why all the love for the Henley, which, frankly, sits awkwardly on theneck and shoulders of all but a select few male forms, when the baseball tee is already doing the Lord’s work?
Instead, I glare at each of my roommates, who studiously avoid my gaze. “Did you recruit him to take you out?”
Grant’s focus is somewhere near his toes. “Maybe.”
“I—” Ian begins, and starts to take a step forward, off the doormat. The entire room cries “No!” before his foot makes contact with the floor. He hops backward.
“We got a little overzealous cleaning the floor,” I explain. “We’re making the most of it.”
“Ah! I was told that you’d come up with a way to keep them entertained for free.” He eyes me. “And that you were being a fanatic about their entertainment budget.”
“They’re supposed to be learning how to manage their funds,” I say, cutting my eyes at the guys again. “But it seems they’ve only learned to be sneakier when turning to you.” I sigh. “And I’m afraid you’re going to have to join in, now that you’ve been duped into undoing all my work toward molding these ding-dongs into financially responsible young men.”
“I wasn’t duped,” he counters, face almost convincingly stern. “I was being a good brother.”
“Pushover.”
“Tyrant.”
“Are we going to get back to the game, or do we have to wait for the sexual tension to diffuse, first?” Heather calls.
I elect not to dignify that with a response and ask Ian, who has somehow maintained a straight face through all of this, “You in?”
“Do I get to wear the eye mask?”
“No!” Diego calls. “I’m tired of hiding. I want to be It.”
“Hey, Ian!” Heather shoots me a wicked wink. “Nice shirt.”
My knee pops.
The unmistakable sound is like a gunshot in the silent room. Diego’s head whips around like a predator catching a scent on the wind, and he grins. “Ellie!”
Shit.
He stalks toward me, posture hunched. Each step is taken in exaggerated slow motion, with Diego losing his footing every few inches and scrambling to recover. It’s like watching a moose cross a frozen pond. I hold back a laugh. Across from me, Heather is convulsing with the effort not to let hers out, a hand over her mouth, eyes watering.
