Mummy Dearest: The XOXO Files, Book 1 by Josh Lanyon

Author:Josh Lanyon [Lanyon, Josh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: erotic MM, Romance MM
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2011-10-03T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Believe it or not, when I finished laughing, we went to the movies.

We arrived in time to catch the second feature, which was the 1932 version of The Mummy starring Boris Karloff. I bought a giant tub of buttered popcorn which Fraser and I shared as we watched the film.

“Did you know this was filmed in Mojave?” Fraser whispered.

I shook my head.

He snickered over Ardeth Bey’s “Excuse me… I dislike being touched,” and downright guffawed over “Maybe he got too gay with the vestal virgins in the temple.”

I watched him out of the corner of my eye and smiled. I liked that he shared my same loony sense of humor. I liked his lack of self-consciousness. And I really liked how much he was enjoying himself. I tried to remember the last time I’d had such an uncomplicated good time.

I didn’t let myself think about my article. I didn’t let myself think about Noah. I watched Ardeth Bey try to reclaim his reincarnated true love and concentrated on nothing but the warmth of Fraser’s shoulder pressing against mine, the occasional brush of our hands in the popcorn barrel.

It could have been any first date. But that was also something I didn’t let myself think about.

When the movie was over we walked back to the hotel along quiet and by then mostly deserted streets. The scent of wood smoke drifted in the sparkling night air. Every so often someone in costume appeared in the distant peripheral of our vision, as though at the far end of a telescope. Kids. Teenagers. Milking the last few minutes of the spookiest night of the year.

“What time is it?” I asked as we walked past a house where a jack-o’-lantern sat on the porch steps, eyes glowing eerily, yellow mouth laughing silently.

Fraser checked his wristwatch. “A quarter to midnight.”

“The witching hour.”

“Yep.”

After that we seemed to be out of things to talk about. I was coming down from the booze, and I felt tired and depressed when I remembered the fight with Noah. Which was every couple of minutes.

Fraser seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts.

It took a while for the dull, shuffling noise behind us to register. In fact, I don’t know that I would have registered it if Fraser hadn’t stopped walking.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?” I stopped too.

“That.”

I listened. I could hear the power lines buzzing softly overhead, leaves scratching along the sidewalk…

“I don’t hear anything.”

“It’s stopped.”

I expelled a long breath. “Not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be funny. I heard something.”

“Like what?”

“Like…something scraping, no…dragging along the sidewalk.”

I shook my head and started walking again.

Fraser caught me up in a few steps. “I’m serious!”

“No, you’re not.”

“Wait.” He hooked a hand around my arm, halting me. “Listen.”

Once again I listened. Once again there was nothing to hear but the whine of the power lines and the wind shaking the trees lining the street.

I made a sound of impatience. “Not funny, Fraser.”

“I’m not being funny!”

“You’re right about that.” But then I heard it too. A sound like a bag of wet cement being dragged along the sidewalk.

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