3. The Bet

THREE

THE BET

JASON

Pam was a sweetheart who I've known for eight years now. She was the first person to deliver gas when I took over the station. I knew little about the gas business back then, and although Pam raised her eyebrows at me when I didn't even know where to get the meter ticket, she was kind enough not to treat me like the greenhorn I was.

At most gas stations across the country, truckers were treated like casual workers who come and go in a matter of minutes. Their job was on the road, not where their product was sold. Since my gas station wasn't part of a larger franchise but was family-owned—which sounds ridiculous, considering it was just me—it didn't take long for the drivers to know the weird, eye-patched mountain man. And I got to know some of them who made the trip regularly, too.

Whether they were Seastone veterans or new to the area, everyone got the same treatment. They had just endured a terrible ride through the mountains, so a hot beverage on the house was the least I could do to make their day a little better—which was probably one reason I got to see Pam every other month.

Confident that I knew the drill, she handed me four orange cones. I did my part by arranging them around her so that anyone who came by wouldn't drive into her. Meanwhile, she took the lid covers and caps off the drops. I placed the last cone to the left in case someone came from behind the gas station and glanced inside to check how Nicholas was doing, holding down the fort.

The counter was empty.

I searched the aisles for his face, but there was no sign of him.

Where was he?

"Pam," I said as she pulled a stick three times her length out of the side of her truck. "I'll be inside. Do you want anything?"

"A winning lottery ticket and a new husband. But I'll also take a latte if you don't have the rest, sweetie."

My feet had already taken me halfway to the pumps. "I see what I can do."

I wanted to make sure I didn't let my dick influence me negatively when it told me to hire Nicholas. I didn't think he was up to anything, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

He seemed like a nice guy, and his former bosses sang his praises. They even cleared up any doubts I had by telling me they had similar experiences with him. He just turned up out of nowhere and asked if he could apply without even having an address in the city. Everyone was suspicious at first, but within hours, he proved to be an asset. They were all sad when he left after a few months to seek new opportunities, but he always gave them four weeks' notice and worked hard until the last day.

But what do I know?

The bell above the door rang as I hurried inside. Our coffees were still on the counter, steaming and waiting for us to return. My eyes darted around, but all I could see were Halloween decorations and snacks.

"Nicholas?"

"Here."

His voice led me to the hallway behind the counter where the restrooms were. I walked past the coffee station, and as I turned around the corner, his head popped out of the women's stall—which might have given off the wrong impression if Jack hadn't texted me last night that they had run into each other and it had been confirmed that Nicholas was gay.

He beamed at me. "Do you have any tools in the shed?" My face must have spoken volumes because he quickly lost the smile and pointed to the restroom. "I noticed the dripping faucet and tried to turn it off, but the seal was leaking. If you want, I can fix that. It's probably a worn washer or gasket."

My chest felt lighter after his explanation.

Maybe it wasn't a terrible decision to give him a chance. I can't deny that I agreed for all the wrong reasons, but to see that he took the job seriously and tried to be of help this soon was a pleasant surprise. Still, I narrowed my eyes out of habit.

"Oh, sorry." Nicholas hid his hands behind his back. "I just wanted to make myself useful and explore the shop to familiarize myself with everything."

"Don't let my grumpy face discourage you. Sometimes, I'm just an idiot who can't control his facial muscles." I tried to put on a smile that I was sure looked like a frowning, forced mess. "Come on, let's make a latte for Pam, and then I'll show you where the tools are."

This was going to be an interesting day.

An hour later, the faucet was fixed, and the break room door no longer sounded like a dying cat when someone opened it.

Three hours later, the shelves were fully stocked, and the coffee station was as clean and organized as if we had bought a whole new one.

And after five hours, I was completely in love with him. By then, he had already learned to work the register by himself, had somehow become best friends with three of our regulars, and was smiling at me whenever he saw me as if I were his best friend and we were seeing each other again for the first time in years.

"Nicholas," I said after the fourth of my regulars left, giving me a thumbs up as if to say I had hit the jackpot with him. "Where have you been my whole life?"

I wanted to pat him on the shoulders, wrap my arms around him, and kiss him on the cheek—which I didn't do because it would have been unprofessional. However, I had figured out how to smile again, and giving him one seemed to do the trick as he blushed and waved it off.

"I've worked a similar register before. So, this wasn't that hard," he said.

"Don't play it down. If you keep this up, I might soon take my first vacation in years." And maybe even think about dating again after years of being married to my work.

He closed the register. "Just trying my best." His head hung lower than it had this morning, as if all my praise had humbled him.

"No, really," I said, looking down at the floor for a moment, searching for the right words. "I just want you to know that you're doing well. And I hadn't had this much fun at work in years."

I lifted my head again, and our gazes met. His eyes were soft and filled with an inner glow.

Another ring announced the next customer. A woman in her forties held the door handle with a handkerchief. Her eyebrows knitted together as she took in the store. She paused in the doorway, stepping only her right foot inside, and fixed her eyes on Nicholas.

"Good morning, ma'am," Nicholas said with the same smile he used to greet everyone who came in.

As with the other customers before her, I stayed in the back but watched their interaction, ready to jump in if he needed help. With her, it was probably only a matter of minutes before she asked for the manager. After years of dealing with the bad side of this job, I developed a sixth sense for people who would cause trouble.

She clicked her tongue. "I need you to fill up my tank."

"Sure, ma'am. How much money do you want me to put on the meter?" He spoke to her much more calmly than I would have—as if it wasn't rude for her to refuse to put both her feet in the store.

She rolled her eyes. "Do you understand what I'm saying? I need you to fill up my tank. All of it. Until it's full."

Nicholas kept his smile. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I can only put a fixed amount on the meter. If you want to fill it up completely and have a credit or debit card, you can just swipe it at the pump?—"

"Are you stupid? I'm not touching anything out there. I'm asking you to come outside and fill up my tank ." She gave me a disdainful look. "God, and what are you looking at?"

I puffed out my chest and took a deep breath, ready to tell her to get out of my store.

"Ma'am, I'm happy to help you," Nicholas said before I could reprimand her. "But I will need you to speak to me and my colleague more respectfully."

"Do you even know who I am?"

"No matter who you are, you can still be a decent human being," he replied with a smile that sent shivers down my spine.

The woman's head snapped back as she searched for words. "What is this? Am I in the wrong movie? Don't think you're going to get a tip with that attitude." She looked at me again as if considering trying her luck with me but shook her head as soon as she laid eyes on my eye patch. "You," she waved at me. "Take off that stupid Halloween costume and do your job?—"

"Ma'am," Nicholas interrupted her, his voice raised now, though he somehow managed to keep his smile. "I won't let you talk to him like that. He's wearing the eye patch for medical reasons."

"Sure, he does," she scoffed.

"It's not his fault that he slipped as a kid with a lollipop in his mouth, and the stick went through the back of his head and into his eyeball. He's lucky to be alive today. So would you please be so kind and shut up?"

I stared at Nicholas, who was glaring at the woman. Her eyes darted back and forth between him and me. "Is this a joke?" The muscles in her face stiffened.

My heart beat faster. I couldn't believe he stood up for me like this. For years, it had been just me dealing with people like her. I would've said similar things to her. But hearing them from Nicholas made me realize what it was like not to have to put up with that bullshit on my own.

"Do you need to see his empty eye socket?" Nicholas kept a straight face, though his fingers curled around the countertop. "I'm sure he's more than willing to show it to you if you don't believe me." He looked at me, and I raised my arms to take the eye patch off. This was too funny not to play along.

She raised her hand in a defensive posture. "There's no need for that." She grunted in disgust and turned away. "Thanks for your help," she mumbled and walked back to her car.

"Bless your heart," Nicholas called after her as the ringing of the door announced her departure.

He let go of the countertop, his hands shaking and searching for each other. He turned to me, and his eyes met mine just before they dropped to the floor. "I'm so sorry." His voice broke. "I shouldn't have…" He glanced at me but looked away just as quickly. "That was unprofessional."

"No, it wasn't. She got what she deserved." I took a step toward him. "I would've told someone like her to fuck off, too. As soon as she realizes that this is the only gas station for fifty miles, she'll be back, and I promise she will behave differently."

"Still, I shouldn't have used your…" He didn't say it, but I knew he was talking about my missing eye. "My brain didn't realize it might offend you until the words left my mouth." He propped himself up on the counter, scrunching his neck into his shoulders. "Please accept my apology."

"Nicholas—" I paused for a moment. Why was he beating himself up like this now? "Don't apologize for standing up for me." I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder without thinking. "You have my full permission to keep saying things like that if anyone ever makes stupid comments." My hand stayed on his back for a second before I realized I was touching him. I pulled it back, though the beaten smile on his face as he looked at me now made me want to leave it there.

He pushed himself up again, his neck reappearing. "It still wasn't right. But of course, I'll stand up for you. I can't bear people like her. She attacked you for literally no reason."

Damn, how I wanted to hug him. I expected anything, but not that he would beat himself up so much.

"As your boss, I hereby make it company policy that you have to tell people that story if they ever ask again."

His eyes closed for a second as a laugh left his mouth that could have easily turned into a cry. "Thank you." When his eyes opened again, he still looked at me like a beaten dog, but at least he didn't avoid my gaze anymore. "Was it gory enough for you?"

"I couldn't have come up with a better story."

I know I shouldn't, but I patted him on the shoulder again. "Thanks for standing up for me. You're a good guy."

"You're welcome." His shoulders slumped back. His eyes wandered outside, probably eager to see if she was still there.

I looked past him and found her talking furiously on her phone.

"Do people like her come here a lot?" Nicholas asked.

"Once in a while, but not every day. Most of the customers are people from Seastone, and you've met some of them. They're very open."

"Yeah," he turned back to me. "More open than I expected from such a small town." His smile differed from the ones before. His eyes were downcast, showing that he was still ruminating on what had just happened.

I leaned against the counter next to him. Since he's been so diligent all day, we had nothing to do but wait for more customers. "You're head is still spinning, isn't it?" I asked.

"A little, but it'll be over soon, I promise." He crossed his arms and drummed his fingers on his elbow.

I had to redirect the conversation and make sure it was clear that I honestly wasn't mad at him. "So, did you have time to see Seastone yesterday?" It wasn't the best subject, but I just couldn't think of anything more casual.

"Yeah." His fingers tapped harder against his skin until he finally let go of his arms. "I went downtown, if you can call it that, and took a lot of videos and pictures."

"On a scale of zero to Seastone, how disappointed are you?"

"Not at all. It's still as intriguing as it was yesterday."

"What do you find interesting about a dead town where eighty-five percent of the people are over sixty?"

His chin dropped to his chest. He stared at the floor for a second before looking at me. He tried to hide a grin by biting his lip and shaking his head, but it was too late. I had already seen it.

"Come on, you can tell me." I nudged his shoulder.

"I…" He exhaled deeply. "It was merely a gut feeling at first when I followed the signs to Seastone. It's what I do, you know. Everywhere I've been, I've just followed my gut."

"That's—" I searched for the right word.

"—super weird. I know. I told you I was."

"I was going to say cool because you must have seen a lot of places that others would never get to see, but okay, let's go with weird instead."

He raised his eyebrows to his hairline. "You don't think it's weird?"

I raised my left eyebrow as well. "Why would I?"

"Many people do. Even my mom keeps bugging me about when I'm finally going to settle down and get a house and stuff. Most guys I dated thought it was weird."

My heart skipped a beat. I tried to avoid the subject of dating. He wasn't just a hot customer anymore. He was an employee now—although it felt more like we were colleagues because the whole boss image just wasn't my thing. "I think what you're doing is…" I put on a smile. "… intriguing."

Just like that, we were back to flirting. We tried so hard not to do it for the first half of the shift, but it was obviously only a matter of time.

"Intriguing? Okay." Nicholas nodded slowly. "So the idea of going out with a weird guy like me wouldn't scare you?"

"I'm hardly afraid of anything." I shook my head. "But that's a different subject. So, no, that idea wouldn't scare me."

"Wait, wait, wait." He held up his hand. "You're telling me you're not scared of anything? After you screamed like crazy yesterday when you first saw me?"

"I only screamed because I poked the door handle in my back, and it hurt."

"That's a lie."

"No, it isn't."

He opened his mouth but paused for a second. "Okay, then, what about horror movies?"

"They're fun. But, like, in an I-laugh-a-lot-when-I'm-watching-one kind of way."

"Spiders?"

I shook my head.

"Not even the dark? Everyone's afraid of the dark."

It was true that I couldn't see well at night, but it wasn't something to be afraid of if you were prepared for it. It was more annoying than anything else. "Not really."

He stared at me in disbelief. "That's… I can't believe that nothing scares you."

"Why?" My head snapped back. "And why do you want me to be scared?"

He held his breath for a moment as if I had caught him red-handed. "It's not that I want you to be scared. I just… I was so afraid of so many things before I started facing them. It's hard for me to imagine someone not feeling that way."

"Aren't those two different kinds of being scared?"

"Yes, and no. At least, they feel similar to me." He put both his hands on the counter and pushed himself up slightly, lifting his feet off the floor for a second. "I'm sorry. It's stupid."

"No. Now I want to know. Even though I've forgotten how we got to that subject."

He turned fully to face me. "Okay. What do the types of scary have in common, you ask? Simple." He spoke with such confidence now, as if he had just accepted that I needed to be taught a lesson about why I should crave this feeling. He brought his hands in front of me, palms up. "There is the kind of ‘ scary ' for things that are actually a threat." He raised his right palm. "That's the ‘scary' that tries to keep you alive. And then there's that kind of ‘scary' that you deliberately seek out." He raised his left palm. "Like in horror movies and stuff. That's the ‘scary' that makes you feel alive."

"Still doesn't sound like the same thing to me."

"I like to think of the second as a good training for the first. My brain knows that nothing can happen to me right now, but it gets to practice for the moments that are real-life scary."

He locked his eyes on me, and I couldn't help but feel a powerful wave of affection for him wash over my body.

" That, I understand. Though I still have to admit that it doesn't change the fact that I just don't get scared."

"Neither way?"

"I'm sorry."

For a moment, we both stared at the counter in front of us when?—

"Boo!" Nicholas threw up his arms as if he was a monster and roared so loudly that the trees on the other side of the parking lot shook.

I just raised my eyebrows.

"Nothing?"

"No."

He lowered his arms and shook his head. "This is unbelievable."

"This is me."

His eyes stared ahead of him for a second before they glanced at me. He took a deep breath. "Then how about this?" He stood up straight and took a step toward me. "If I can scare you enough to make you scream, flinch, or break out in a sweat, will you go on a date with me?"

My head jerked forward. Did I just hear him right? I couldn't take my eyes off of his as they remained focused on me. His lower lip quivered.

He was asking me out?

I could've just agreed to go on a date, but the twinkle in his eyes when he suggested this bet made me want to see how far he would go. "You'll have to try hard to make me sweat."

The corners of his mouth turned up. "I've seen enough horror movies to be inspired."

"You can pretend to be murdered by a serial killer for all I care, and I won't even flinch when I know it's just an act to scare me."

His eyes narrowed as if he was already thinking about how to make that happen. "I'll make you scream, sweat, and beg for more in the end, I promise." He held out his hand for me to seal the deal.

"You're still talking about scaring me, right?" I stared at his hand for a moment but then took it.

He nodded until his eyes widened as he must have realized how his last sentence sounded.

My heart was racing. I couldn't shake off the feeling that with this bet, we'd just postponed a date we both wanted to have, but who cares ? The way we met was weird. The way we got talking was weird. Why shouldn't the way we got to go on a date be weird as well?

The bell ring of the main door made us both look up to find the woman and her suit back with us. We let go of each other's hands and locked our eyes one last time as if to confirm that this bet was on.

He's going to have a hard time scaring me, but man , I was excited—and rooting for him more than I probably should have.

Nothing happened for the rest of the day except for him being charming with the regulars and telling another stranger a bloodcurdling lie about my eye. Of course, with furtive glances to see if I was still cool with it.

"A barber slipped and cut open his eyeball," he said, followed by another pat on the back from me after the man had left.

When I asked him how he got the idea, he laughed and said, "It was from this old movie that's not even a horror film, by Salvador Dali," who was not only a surrealist painter but also made movies, as I learned seconds later. I got a whole lecture about how there was a scene where they cut an eye open and how they did the shot without having CGI back then. I'll spare you the details.

What he told me was both fascinating and disgusting. But seeing his face light up as he talked about it made it hard to take my eye off him.

Other than that, the last hours of our first shift together were more or less business as usual. There was no attempt to scare me, and I wasn't sure if it was because he had to come up with something first or if he wanted to drag it out until I stopped expecting anything.

At the end of the day, I quickly introduced him to one of my other employees, Gary, who took over the evening shift, and then Nicholas and I went our separate ways. He, after all, didn't scare me enough to make me sweat, flinch, or scream, so we couldn't just hang out.

The next morning, he was waiting for me in the parking lot, a burlap bag on his shoulders, sitting on the hood of his minivan. We didn't talk much, except that he insisted on opening the store so he could internalize all the tasks. No mention of the burlap bag or of what was in it. I knew it had to have something to do with our bet, but I wasn't going to be afraid of a bag. So after I unlocked the security system and opened up the safe so he could get the till, he hung the bag on a hook in the break room and went through each step just as I had shown him the day before, this time with me shadowing him.

He checked the restrooms, turned on the lights and the coffee machine, fired up the pumps, and made me a black coffee.

And me? I was always waiting for something to happen—some attempt at a scare—while he did his job as if we had never had this conversation.

"So, what do you have planned?" I finally asked after we unlocked the front doors.

We stood behind the counter, waiting for Jack to bring fresh donuts and for the first customers to arrive. Nicholas counted the change in the register.

"Doing a good job?"

"You know what I mean."

He closed the register. "Well, if you're so eager," he said, squeezing past me.

Having worked most shifts alone for the past eight years, I had never realized how tight the space was. But as he walked past me, I had to press myself against the counter so he wouldn't have to brush his whole body against mine to get through—not that I really would've minded at that point.

He jumped into the break room and came back with a package wrapped in rainbow-colored paper. "It's not much, but I thought you might like it."

"What is it?"

"A gift," he said, holding it out to me.

The paper rustled as I took it. I knew whatever was in it was meant to scare me.

"I'm not legally allowed to accept gifts over ten dollars from employees."

"Don't worry. I found it on a street corner." He pursed his lips as if to hide a laugh.

Not sure if this was the truth or a joke—he seemed capable of both—I took a deep breath and ripped open the wrapping paper. An old doll with a light blue ruffled dress and curly blonde hair tied up in two braids smiled at me as if she wanted to kill me.

"Is this your attempt to scare me?" I shook the doll to see if it would do anything, but only its braids wriggled a bit. "Because that won't do the trick."

"We'll see."

The door rang, announcing Jack with three dozen donuts in his arms. I hid the doll under the counter, as no one needed to know about our little bet, and that was the last I saw of her for an hour. The morning got pretty busy, and I forgot all about her.

The next time I went into the break room, the doll was sitting in the chair in the back where I usually sit to eat lunch. Finally, I knew what Nicholas was up to.

As expected, the doll also greeted me in the storage room, the restroom, and lurked behind some water bottles in the freezer—each time, with Nicholas innocently peeking around the corner or sneaking up behind me to see if I was already scared.

"I'm honestly surprised by your effort and your skill in moving it without me noticing," I said, "but I'm gay. I'm not afraid of dolls."

"I don't know what you're talking about. What doll?" he replied, forcing the corners of his mouth down.

At the end of the day, after Nicholas had said goodbye and left, I went to my car, only to find the doll sitting in the driver's seat .

I turned my head so fast, trying to catch him watching me, because I couldn't believe that he had somehow managed to take my car keys from me to put the doll in it. But he was nowhere in sight.

I was tempted not to take the doll home. Who knew if Nicholas had somehow manipulated it to do scary things at my place? At the same time, I was dying to find out.

Nothing like that had happened. The doll didn't move around my house by itself, nor did it suddenly start talking to me. It just sat on my couch until I went to bed, and it was still there when I woke up.

When I returned to work, Nicholas was in the parking lot again before me, eating a banana, although this time without the burlap bag.

"Morning," he said, a mischievous grin on his face as I approached him. "How was your night?"

"I slept like a baby," I replied, now grinning myself. "And I wanted to thank you for your gift. The doll looks so good on my couch."

The smile on his face grew wider as he demonstratively ate the last piece of banana. "You're welcome."

I went to the back door and slid the key into the lock. When I put my hand on the door handle, I didn't feel the usual touch of cold metal but something soft and rubbery. I pulled my hand back, and a black toy spider fell onto the asphalt.

"You enjoyed your trip to the toy store, didn't you?" I asked, squatting down to pick it up.

He came up behind me, smiling, self-satisfied. "I did."

"Nice try." I held the spider out to him, and he took it before I turned back and yanked the door open. I hit the switch next to the door, and when the light turned on, the smiling face of the doll I had definitely left on my couch at home was staring back at me. I stopped in my tracks and glared at it lying on the floor.

How did it get here?

The doll rose onto its legs as if it was haunted, its dead giant eyes glaring at me as if its moment had finally come. Without a warning, it rushed toward me.

It would have been frightening if I hadn't known that Nicholas was the master of this stunt.

So, I squatted down and greeted the doll with open arms. "What are you doing here, sweetie?" I asked it, and as I picked it up, I felt some resistance. I searched for the reason and found a fishing line hooked to her arm, revealing how Nicholas did this trick.

"Oh man," he huffed from behind me. "I've worked so hard on this one, and you didn't even flinch."

I turned to him, just as slowly as the doll had stood up seconds before, to find his mouth upside down. Even though it didn't work, the effort he had put in impressed me. A whole two days of preparation for one specific moment.

"Did Gary help you?"

Nicholas nodded. "He's such a kind man, and as far as I can tell, he's rooting for us."

I didn't know what to make of that, but I just shrugged because it didn't matter. Gary knew I was gay and was always supportive, so this didn't come as a surprise.

"Well," I handed the doll back to Nicholas. "Good luck with your next attempt." I went inside because we still had a gas station to open up, but as I entered the break room, I felt bad that his trick hadn't scared me.

Should I pretend to be scared at one point? Not that he would get discouraged and give up in the end.

No one had ever gone to so much trouble to get me to go out on a date. He was quite a prize. And to put it bluntly, I wanted to go on a date with him too and see what his lips could do besides smile.

At least he wasn't discouraged that his morning scare didn't work. I found the spider in the cash register later that day—which didn't make me flinch. After lunch, he held up his phone to take a picture of us at work for his mom when a filter on it pretended that a spider was crawling across my face—which was cute but not scary. An hour before the end of our shift, he tried to scare me by appearing behind me wearing a zombie mask—but instead of screaming, I laughed hard at the weird noises he made.

"I feel bad that you bought all this stuff," I told him as he took it off. "Mask, fake spider, two dolls? How much did you spend?"

"This may sound strange, but I already had the mask and the spider. And to ease your conscience, I only paid four dollars for the dolls at a thrift store in Ashbourne."

I couldn't watch him try anymore. The whole thing was fun, but it clearly wasn't working out the way we both had thought it would. "Do you have any plans for Saturday?"

"Why?"

"Because it's Halloween, and I wanted to ask you if you?—"

"Wait." He held up his index finger to stop me and shook his head. "You can't ask me out now ."

"Why not?"

"Because." He stared at me, his eyes blinking hard. "A deal is a deal, and... I've got another one." He drew in a deep breath. "The last one. If it doesn't work out, I'll pay for all the drinks."

"So, let me get this straight. You want to keep trying, but either way, we're going out on Saturday?"

"Yeah?"

It was just too damn hard to say no to his face. "I don't think it has ever taken two gay guys this long to finally go on a date."

"We've already established that we're weird. And that way, we'll be past those awful first date situations where you don't know what to talk about because you know nothing about each other."

"Can't argue with that," I replied. "So, when are you going to try and fail for the last time?"

He shook his head. "I won't fail. At least you'll break a sweat. I'm sure of it."

"Turning on the heat doesn't count."

He wrinkled his nose. "Soon, you'll wish I'd turned on the heater instead."

There was no sign of anything happening. He just came to work the next day, did his job, and didn't even try to do anything scary—no spider, doll, or mask. I was tempted to ask if the bet was still on because it didn't seem like it was. But the way his eyes were constantly searching for me, the way a smile appeared on his face whenever we talked, and the way it became more and more common for us to stand close to each other behind the cramped counter, I couldn't complain. Our date was going to happen, and I knew we both couldn't wait.

On Friday, I was still on the lookout throughout the shift, but even when Gary showed up fifteen minutes before he was supposed to take over, nothing had happened. What was Nicholas waiting for? Was he not trying anything? This was his last chance.

Gary was hiding in the break room to change into his company shirt, and Nicholas was ringing up a packet of chips and a chocolate bar for a lady who couldn't take her eyes off her phone when the bell above the door announced another customer.

I looked up and saw Jack standing at the door. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he also narrowed his. He usually never came by this time of day.

"Everything okay?" I asked.

"You tell me," he said, his gaze darting to the only man who could have an explanation for this.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Nicholas said to the woman, placing her credit card back on the counter before completing the transaction. "I'll be right back with you." He turned to me, but his eyes darted past me. "Gary?"

"Now?" Gary's head popped out of the break room. "One second."

The soft background music stopped, and after a moment of silence, cheerful orchestral music echoed through the room.

With a shy smile on his face, Nicholas stepped in front of me. "Jason," he said, taking my right hand.

What the hell was going on? He announced he wanted to scare me, but… what was that?

"I know, we've only known each other for a week," Nicholas continued, squeezing his fingers closer around mine. "And I know this is crazy, but hasn't our relationship been like this from the beginning?" He dropped to his left knee. "And it's probably stupid, but I wanted to have at least a few people close to you to be part of this exciting moment. That's why I invited Jack," he turned to him, "Thanks for coming, my man."

Everyone turned to Jack, including the woman who was now grinning from ear to ear, her smartphone in her hand, filming the whole thing.

"I wouldn't have wanted to miss… this ," Jack said with a face like he was witnessing a car crash and didn't know whether he wanted to look away or keep his eyes fixed on it.

"Gary," Nicholas went on, "you've become almost like a father to me in this one week. Making my first evenings in this town so much more pleasant."

"You're welcome, my friend," Gary replied, who was now standing behind us, watching the whole thing. "You're so welcome ." He bit his lips together, sobbing softly as if this was the most beautiful thing he had ever experienced.

Nicholas shifted his eyes back to me. "I wanted Jack and Gary to witness the beginning of something truly extraordinary."

If I didn't think he was about to do the craziest thing ever, I could have melted seeing his face so full of love, but… what the fuck?

"Do you, Jason Taft,…"

I broke into a sweat. A minute ago, it had been very comfortable in here, but now the whole place felt like a sauna.

"…want to…"

The muscles in my shoulders clenched. The music seemed to get louder as it reached a climax that made me flinch. I stared at Nicholas, but it felt like I couldn't see him anymore.

"…be my Ghoulfriend this Halloween?"