Page 70 of Squad Ghouls

Andrew stiffened. “I don’t.”

I frowned. “It was a joke, mate.”

Andrew began wringing his hands, practically vibrating with discomfort. “I’m going back to my room.”

“Sure,” I said slowly. “I should head back in too.”

He didn’t even wait for me to finish my sentence.

There was something off about Andrew, but I didn’t have time to work it out now.

As Andrew sped ahead without me I sauntered back toward the house, catching a sliver of a shape near the front porch. I detoured that way and caught none other than Popty looking at my phone screen again.

“Hey!”

There was a horrified-sounding PING, the gaps where Popty’s eyes would have been widening into comical circles before he vanished from sight, leaving my phone dangling in the air.

“Wait!” I called and the shadow reappeared before the phone could hit the ground. The brightly lit screen with Ted’s face on it disappeared into the swirly folds.

A questioning ping followed.

“I might need some backup tonight,” I said, and Popty morphed into something humanlike, shaking the shadowy head no. “For Owain.”

Another head shake.

I ran my hand over my face.

“It might be nothing,” I said, as calmly as I could. “But just in case something needs to be done, can you just be on standby?”

Popty took a moment to contemplate. And then my phone emerged from the shadow and Popty pinged at me in question.

I reached out to take it but he snatched it away before I could. I frowned.

“You want to keep my phone?” I asked, and he let out a ping that sounded way too excited. “For how long?”

Popty formed a long arm out of his shadow and made an all-encompassing gesture with it in front of his face.

“Forever?” I asked and he pinged happily. “Yeah, no. How about you help me out and you can borrow it sometimes? If you ask nicely.”

He stood still for a moment before pinging in what I thought was approval and popping out of sight again.

My phone lurched to the ground.

I dove to catch it, sliding on my stomach and sticking my cupped hands under it. I caught it with an oof just before the screen could hit a sharp-looking rock.

“Fuck my life.” I managed to force the words out of my compressed and bruised lungs, then straightened up with some effort. I brushed the dirt off myself and headed back inside.

There was a prickle at the back of my neck, but I couldn’t really see anything so I decided to just leave it be for the time being and focus on getting Owain through dinner without getting himself into any sort of chaos.

Futile, maybe. But, well, he was worth it.

twelve

4 glasses of wine and some pet play

Owain

Ryan came back in just as the puppets were wrapping up and the soup had already been slurped down. He sat down next to me, patted my knee, piled his plate high with the main course, and watched the grand finale.