“Well, yeah, but then I told him about how Travis was basically stalking me. I may have exaggerated a bit. I also may have embellished a little about him totally feeling me up. Oh, and if my dad asks, my shoulder still hurts from where Travis was about to break it.”
Seth gave me a sideways glance. “You’re quite the little liar, aren’t you?”
“Lucky for you. When I was finished you were basically my Dad’s hero. Until I was forced to use the B word, anyway.”
“Boyfriend, Ellie. The word is boyfriend. Really, I promise it won’t kill you to say it.”
“Whatever. After the B word came up you were number one on his crap list. But you instantly became my mom’s hero, so it balanced out. Plus, it helped that your aunt came over yesterday to plead your case.”
“She did?”
I was surprised that Seth was surprised. “It was a really smart move. She’s really what changed their minds. I thought for sure you sent her over there.”
Seth shook his head. “I had no idea. I was gone all day yesterday.”
“Oh. Well, she worked my parents over really good. She went on about how sorry she was, and how sorry you were, and how much you were so fond of their precious little Eleanor, and how devastated you were that we had to break up—that’s where the B word came in to play. Ugh. That was worse than being arrested.”
Seth laughed at me again, but I chose to ignore it.
“She said you only reacted to Travis so violently because this is the first time you’ve ever been in love, and you’re really overwhelmed by it.”
Seth’s eyebrows flew so high, they practically blended with his hairline. I slapped my hand over my mouth. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I wasn’t gonna tell you that part.”
We had the mother of all awkward pauses and I kid you not, I watched Seth’s cheeks turn pink. I had to get the conversation going again. “After that your aunt went on and on about how hard this move has been for you and how I was really helping you make the transition. Then she asked if she could talk to my parents alone, and Angela and I got booted to our rooms. I tried to listen through the vents, but couldn’t really hear much. I think she was telling them about everything you’ve been through with your parents and all—trying to explain why you even had the knife in the first place. After she left, my parents didn’t say much the rest of the night, just that it was okay that I saw you again, so long as you stop carrying concealed weapons.”
Seth was quiet for a minute. He seemed at a loss for words. Eventually he said, “She really used the L word?”
“Dude.” I nodded gravely. “And it was worse than the B word. A lot.”
When Seth frowned I became desperate to change the subject. “I’m thinking I need to invest in a chair like yours. It looks very comfortable.” I dropped my game controller and moved from my beanbag to Seth’s bed. After a nice big stretch, I looked at the TV screen and said, “I don’t understand your fascination with this game. It’s so slow. I’m a
hockey
player. I much prefer
Halo
, where I can just run in there and blow stuff up.”
“Impulsive, irrational, and impatient,” Seth said. “I’m afraid you’d make a horrible assassin. “I, on the other hand,”—At that exact moment I watched some guy on the game fall to the ground, dead—“would make a great assassin. Not that I want to kill anybody, but I’ve always wished I could try it. Just to see if I could get away with it.”
I choked on the Dr. Pepper I was drinking.
“I’m just saying,” Seth muttered. “I bet I could.”
“And you wonder why my sister thinks you’re the Saturday Night Slasher.”
Seth glanced up at me, startled, so I muttered, “I’m just saying,” back at him.
Seth turned off the game and joined me on his bed. “Angela thinks I’m like the Slasher?”
“No. She thinks you
are
the Slasher.”
When Seth frowned, I shrugged. “I can see it.”
“You can see it?” Seth asked horrified.
“I don’t
believe
it.”
Not now, anyway.
“I’m just saying I can understand how she came to the conclusion. We’ve already been through the fact that there are plenty of similarities between the two of you, and you have to admit there are things about you that don’t add up.”
“Like what?” Seth asked. He was still frowning, like he wanted to argue with me but he was too curious not to ask.
“Well, like how you know so much about crime and stuff. You just admitted to thinking you could get away with murder, but there’s only so much a person can learn from watching
CSI
. When we were at the car dealership, it was like you really knew what you were talking about. Like you understood the mind of a killer.”
“Ellie, ever since I was nine I’ve been living with a woman who eats, breathes, and sleeps murder mysteries.” Seth got up and pulled one of about thirty-five paperback novels off his bookshelf and handed it to me. “My aunt is a best-selling crime novelist. When she’s not busy plotting the perfect murder, she’s researching how to do it.”
“So that explains the boxes in your garage. It’s all her notes and stuff?”
Seth nodded. “And guess who helped her gather all those notes. I’ve basically spent the last eight years as a glorified research assistant—a live-in intern.”
“Aren’t there child labor laws against that?”
Seth laughed. “It hasn’t been all bad. Aunt Janice is sort of a method-researcher. You know, like if you’re going to write a book about a boxer…”
“You go train with Georges St. Pierre,” I finished for him.
“Weapons training, medical training, clinical psychology, criminal court... We’ve researched it all. We’ve spent the day in prison, interviewed convicted murderers, helped perform an autopsy. Boot camp, police academy, the FBI—that was the coolest. We got to sit in at the base of operations for an undercover op. I got to meet the Director of the FBI. He’s an awesome guy.” Seth threw me a sideways glance and added. “Cooler than Chuck Norris.”
“Nobody’s cooler than Chuck Norris,” I argued. “That dude’s so bad-A, he can roundhouse kick a light saber and break it in two.”
Seth burst out laughing and couldn’t resist pulling me into his arms. “If you say so,” he said. “But can you understand now, how I might be a little fascinated with murder? I’m actually thinking about joining the FBI. Maybe being a profiler.”
“Makes sense,” I agreed. “You may not be good at interacting with people, but you really seem to have them figured out.”
Seth either appreciated my compliment, or got bored with the conversation, or just had the hormones of a normal seventeen-year-old guy, because he responded to my statement by kissing my neck. And I don’t mean, like, he kissed it. I mean he was
kissing
it. A lot. All over. His mouth was on my ear, under my chin, at the base of my throat…
Can I just tell you that that is way different than being kissed on the cheek or even the lips? I didn’t expect to feel whatever it was I was suddenly feeling, but man, was it intense. I gasped and then for some reason blurted, “Explain why you moved here.”
“Because you were here,” Seth mumbled between kisses.
He pulled down the sleeve of my shirt and kissed my bare shoulder. This was as bad as kissing my neck, if not worse. I shuddered so violently that I panicked.
“Very funny,” I said, scrambling off the bed. Seth sighed when I sat in his gaming chair and started chugging the nearest soda I could find. “Why’d you really move here?” I asked after I’d downed almost the whole can in one drink. “Shouldn’t you be in some million-dollar house in Grosse Point or something?”
“Research,” Seth said, clearly pouting as he sprawled out on his bed. Alone. “She’s going for a desperate housewives thing with this next book—Suburban Secrets. But she’s never lived in the suburbs. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to leaving Beverly Hills for some random suburb, so she let me pick where we moved. I picked Detroit because of it’s reputation, and I picked this house because when the realtor showed it to us you were doing homework on your roof while eating ice-cream and listening to Social Distortion.”
“I don’t remember seeing you.”
But that was way too much detail not to be true.
“I moved here for you, Ellie,” Seth confirmed, hitting me with the full force of his eyes, and looking very pleased with himself when I blushed.
He got up, picked me up out of his game chair, and plopped me back onto his bed. His eyes sparkled with mischief as he said, “Anything else you’d like to add to this interrogation? Perhaps you’d like to know what I dream about when I sleep?”
“Um, nope.” I had a feeling I knew what he dreamed about, and if I asked, he might just show me. “I’m good now. You’ve convinced me. You’re nothing but a normal, non-serial-killing, teenage boy.”
Seth leaned in like he was going for my neck again, but before his lips touched my skin he sat back and frowned. “Does your sister really think I’m the Saturday Night Slasher? She actually thinks I killed all those girls?”
“Afraid so. Why do you think she’s been so crazy lately? She thinks the only reason you haven’t killed me yet is because you like me, and that I’m dead the minute you get tired of me.”
“That’s ridiculous, you know. For one, I could never get tired of you, and two, I couldn’t kill you, even if I wanted to.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m your boyfriend. If someone killed you, I’d be prime suspect
numero uno
. Serial killers can’t kill people they know, no matter what. It would be too easy to connect them to the murders. If I were the Slasher, then you’d be completely safe.”
“Good to know. I’ll have to tell Angela.”
“I’d be tempted,” Seth said, his mood turning suddenly dangerous. “If I were the Saturday Night Slasher, I’d be completely tortured by you.”
Before I knew what had happened Seth had me pinned on my back on the bed, holding my hands loosely above my head. “You would?” I asked, still a little breathless from the swift change in his mood.
“Ellie, you are
exactly
the Slasher’s type, with one exception—you’re a fighter. Your strength and spirit pose an insanely appealing challenge. Every day I’m tempted to push you to the limit, just to see what you’re capable of. Not to mention, you’re off limits. Or, you would be if I was him. There’s nothing sweeter than that which is forbidden.” Seth lowered his mouth to my ear and whispered, “It’s maddening enough to make even the most controlled man lose his focus,” in a way that sent a chill down my back. Then he started kissing me again.
“I-It’s a good thing you aren’t the Slasher, then,” I stammered, struggling with the conflicting emotions of desire he was creating in me, and the fear I thought I’d conquered, but was my body’s natural reaction to his intensity.
Seth pulled his face back enough to look into my eyes. “And if I were?” he asked curiously.
“Um,” I said, taking note of my compromising position—beneath him on his bed with my hands pinned above my head. “Then this would be really awkward?”
In another flash he laughed lightheartedly, gave me one of his happy sighs with the “Oh, Ellie” attached to it, and then kissed me like he planned on never stopping.
My first make-out lesson lasted about two minutes before the doorbell rang. “Somebody order a pizza?” I gasped, attempting to sit up.
“Ignore it,” Seth answered, determined to not let me catch my breath.
I was surprisingly willing to accommodate his request, until the doorbell rang again several times in a row. Whoever was out there was either panicked or angry about something. “Crap!”
“What is it?” Seth asked when I pushed him off me in a panic and frantically tried to redo my ponytail.
“It could be my father.”
“Would that be a problem?”
“Considering I told him that your aunt was going to be home all night and that we would be downstairs watching movies with her the whole time and most definitely not home alone in your room making out? Yeah, it could be a big problem.”
“Wow. You really are a liar.” Seth laughed, but it turned to a sigh as he sat up and straightened his shirt. “And I finally had you right where I’ve been trying to get you for weeks.”
“Oh, just come on.”
When we got downstairs we could hear Angela yelling through the door. “Ellie! Open up. I need to talk to you!”
I thought Seth was going to go postal. Angela had been getting on his last nerve for some time now, and when it turned out that she was the one who’d interrupted us, he snapped his cap. “You have got to be kidding me,” he said as he flung the door open. “WHAT?”
Angela looked pale. She stared at Seth as if she thought he was going to physically rip her head off if she got too close. She didn’t speak to him, only me. “I just need to talk to you for a minute,” she said desperately. “In private.
Please?
”
She looked legitimately upset, which is uncommon for her, so I decided to take pity on her. “Five minutes.”
“No!” Seth yelled, this time at me.