I held the door open, pulling her into the ladies’ bathroom and turning on the lights and my flashlight off.
“My sister and I did it at our house and once again at the pizza parlor,” I told her.
We were like fourteen, but I remember it being pretty funny.
Oh, how times had changed and what made me smile.
“Here, hop up on the counter,” I told her.
She did, and I dumped my duffel bag in the sink, digging out some air horns, wooden sticks, and duct tape.
Diving into one of the stalls, I measured the stick’s length from underneath the toilet seat to the button on the horn, seeing how it fit.
Perfect.
Good.
I came back to her at the sinks and put the bottle in her hand, fitting her fist around the can and the stick, to hold it in place.
“Hold that right there,” I instructed. “Hold it tight.”
She nodded, and I got busy making the can, wrapping tape to keep the stick in place on the button, so when someone put weight on it, like sitting on the toilet seat, for example, it would sound off, creating an ear-splitting cry loud enough to shake the foundations of this whole fucking place.
And make every single person inside choke on their coffee.
“So you have a sister,” she inquired, continuing our conversation.
“Yep. Not an only child,” I corrected her and her assumption about my lack of manners in sharing.
“How old is she?”
“A year younger than me.”
The roll of tape screeched as I wrapped it around the bottle and then set it down, grabbing another can and stick and putting them in her hand to do the same thing.
“And how old are you?” she asked, playing for information.
“Older than you.”
She laughed. “You’re not like sixty, are you?”
Sixty? Did I feel sixty when she touched me?
I stopped what I was doing and got down in her face. “Old enough to vote, not old enough to buy liquor,” I told her. “But I can still get liquor. If you want.”
She just grinned and let it go.
It was amazing she hadn’t figured it out yet, but I was careful to take off the rosary when I met her, and I always showered before I came. I thought it would be tough, not smoking to give myself away, but when I was around her, I just wanted to stay around her. My nic fit wasn’t worth leaving her until I was damn good and ready.
I’d also never worn my mask, because then she would know I was a horseman.
But if I told her I was nineteen, she’d figure out which class I graduated, and with my lurking and scaring her just like Damon did in the janitor’s closet and in the lunchroom, she’d eventually have to face the reality of who I really was, and for now… I liked that she liked me.
I wasn’t trying to get her into bed. I wasn’t trying to prove how tough I was. I wasn’t angry or weighed down or tired of my stupid, fucking life. I was the only place I wanted to be.
Everything was new to her. She was an escape. I could feel anything and feel things again for the first time in her words, her body’s reaction, and her face.
It had been hard to stay away, but I knew I had to. The closer we got, the sooner I’d hurt her or she’d find out, and then it would be over.