“Errr…,” I said again.
“I can take you; it’s okay,” Rachel assured me. “Y’know, I’ve been so used to having Adrian pick you up that I’ve forgotten you have places to go. What time?”
I looked at her, feeling torn. “Trish says dinner’s at six?”
Rachel nodded. “Okay. You’ll be there at six.”
I smiled at her. “Thanks, Rachel.”
She smiled and returned to her paperwork.
“You in?” Trish asked.
“I’m in.”
*
“Mystic! You made it.” Trish took my bag out of my hand and dragged me inside. I waved good-bye to Rachel as the door began to close.
“Just to warn you, my brothers are home for Christmas, so it’ll be kinda loud until they pass out.”
She dumped my stuff in her family room and led me into the kitchen/dining room, which was jam-packed with people. I noticed Meghan, Stephanie, Laura, Jenny, and Trish’s parents. But there were also three guys I didn’t recognize.
“Yo, Paul, Mark, Jimmy, say hi to Caitlin.”
As one they turned to face me, and though I instantly saw the family resemblance, my stomach clenched with dread that anyone of them might be Adrian’s dad. They seemed nice enough, and they didn’t have glowing eyes or anything. I told myself to chill.
“Jimmy’s on the left there, Paul’s in the middle, and Mark’s on the right,” Trish clarified.
Jimmy was easily the shortest of the three, maybe five ten or eleven. He had medium brown hair and broad shoulders and kind of just looked like he was happy all the time. Paul was at least six foot and stood with a lazy sort of grace. I wondered if he’d picked that up in law school.
Mark stood a little shorter than Paul, and had the same hair as Jimmy, except longer and gathered into a messy, hipster ponytail. If I remembered correctly, he was the art and music guy.
“Hot Sloppy Joes coming through!” Trish’s dad warned, setting a huge platter in the center of the table.
“Wait your turn, Jimmy!” Mrs. Fields exclaimed. “Ladies first.”
Jimmy withdrew his hand sheepishly. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw Mark staring somewhere past my shoulder with a curious expression, but I couldn’t tell what he was looking at.
“Dig in,” Trish said, breaking my thoughts and taking a burger for herself. “Also, how was everybody’s Christmas?”
“Aka what loot did everybody score?” Meghan translated and then dug into her burger.
The conversation revolved around the table until the food was completely gone, and we dragged ourselves off to the family room, which had been designated as Girls Only for the night. We unrolled our sleeping bags and spread them across the floor, flopping down amid bowls of chips and candy that Trish had brought in earlier.
Meghan popped in a horror movie (which made me cringe—it would just add fuel to the fire for my nightmares) and we munched on the snacks until eventually I heard the rest of Trish’s family wander off to their respective rooms.
“Come on, Mystic; you gotta watch this!”
“No,” I said stubbornly.
It was the last twenty or so minutes of the movie, and I had my face covered resolutely with my pillow.
“Ronnie, watch out!” Meghan called to the main character’s best friend right before I heard what sounded like a metal baseball bat connect with his skull.
“Oooh!” Meghan and Trish groaned in unison.
I peeked to my left and saw Laura sitting with a horrified expression on her face as she systematically ate popcorn one buttery piece at a time. On the fringe of our little circle sat Jenny, who sat looking at the TV with her usual passive expression. I almost wondered if she was asleep, except she blinked. Stephanie was clutching her pillow to her chest, looking extremely concerned.
“Caitlin, Caitlin, he’s about to find the”—but she was cut off by a loud crashing noise, a splash, and Shia LaBeouf screaming in revulsion—“dead bodies,” she finished a moment later.
I shuddered. I was not a horror-movie person, especially not the last couple weeks.
“Tell me when it’s over,” I called from underneath my pillow.
“Is that Disturbia?” someone asked from across the room. I peeked out and saw Trish’s brother Mark. He was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed across his chest.
“What part of ‘girls only’ do you not understand?” Trish asked, eyes glued to the screen.
“I’m not technically in the room.”
Trish rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything else. Fifteen minutes later, the movie ended. Finally.
I took my head out from underneath my pillow and saw that Mark was still standing in the doorway, but sometime while I’d been hiding under my pillow, he’d changed into sweatpants and a white V-neck with a loose flannel shirt over it.
“Good night, Mark,” Trish called to her brother, her tone a warning to leave.