Page 56 of Squad Ghouls

“This looks cosy,” Adriana said, looking around the room as she set her bag down.

“The bathroom is through that door, and everything you might need is inside,” I said. “We serve breakfast from seven until ten and you’re free to let me know if you’d like to eat lunch or dinner here as well. We have a very nice menu!”

“Oh, I could eat something,” Adriana said, and as if on cue, the most delicious smell of roasting meat filled the air around them.

“That…” Benjamin sniffed the air like a bloodhound.

“We have a roast dinner planned for the evening,” I said. We most certainly had nothing of sorts planned but plans change. Adaptability was key. You had to allow for some wiggle room. Wiggling was crucial.

“We should wait for Seth and see if he’ll eat as well,” Adriana said.

I nodded. “That sounds great.”

“I’ll freshen up a bit and meet you downstairs,” she said and I realised it was a dismissal when she walked toward the bathroom.

She opened the door and yelped in shock as piles of towels and tiny travel packets of shampoo and body wash tumbled over her like an avalanche.

“What the…” Benjamin rushed to her and I was hot on his heels, gripping one of her hands and pulling her out of the peach-scented mountain.

“Shit,” she said, slipping on a bottle of conditioner and flying into Benjamin’s arms, knocking them both over into the nest of towels.

I looked up while they rolled around, trying to disentangle themselves, and found Harri and Larri staring at me from inside the bathtub, chains drooping just like their apologetic faces.

What in the world? I mouthed to them, and it kick-started the world’s weirdest game of charades.

Harry showed me three words. The third one was a noun. The first one was something about the two of them because he pointed furiously between him and Larry, who clearly wasn’t feeling charades and preferred Pictionary as he uncapped a tube of toothpaste and started writing with it on the pale blue tiles.

We were trying to help!

Well, stop, I told them, hoping they could read lips. They couldn’t. But I made a shooing motion with my hands, and that they understood, because they fought and yanked and pushed their way out of that bathroom before the couple found their way off the floor.

“Sheesh,” Adriana said. “You are severely overestimating our cleanliness here.”

Her tone was kind but she was obviously bewildered.

“I apologise,” I said. “We have a new housekeeper and he was clearly distracted while restocking and left everything in your bathroom,” I said. “Let me clean that up for you.”

“HUMANS!!!!” another screech ripped through the air just as I bent down to pick up the towels and I nosedived right into the pile, bum in the air.

“Well…I’d know that arse anywhere,” a new voice said, and recognised it instantly, head buried under fabric or not.

I scrambled up and came face to face with my ex-boyfriend. The one who’d left me with literally a note stuck to my nightstand after he claimed I cheated and lied and flirted my way through his entire friend group. The one who’d said I was a great fuck and nothing more than that.

“Seth,” I said stiffly, and he winked, making my insides turn. I didn’t want him here.

“Hey there, hot stuff,” he said.

“Wait,” Adriana said. “You two know each other?”

“Oh, we go way back,” Seth said. “Don’t we, sweetness?”

“We went out for a bit, years ago.” I smoothed my hands down my clothes and smiled at Adriana, who I’d genuinely started to like. I knew the smile was forced and I knew she could probably tell.

“What a coincidence,” she said, glancing at Seth with a tiny frown on her forehead. “Seth and Benjamin started working together about four years ago and we’ve gotten really close since.”

“That sounds nice.” I smiled. It didn’t. Nothing about Seth was ever nice.

“Not as nice as seeing you again,” Seth said, walking closer, and in a move I absolutely did not see coming, he reached out and smacked my bum. It was nothing more than a tap but it made me gasp and turn away from him. “I see your best attributes are still just as glorious as I remember them…if a little redder than I remember.”