Page 159 of The Internet’s Most Haunted Influencer

Leo took a bow. Nate couldn’t look at him, and the camera couldn’t hear him, but he bowed anyway.

He had standards.

They’d shot three videos in the past four days, going at a fast pace. If anyone had asked why, Leo would have said the channel needed it, and that would have been true.

But it would not have been the reason.

Filming was easy. Filming had rules. Everything unexpected was planned, and for the length of a take, the week’s worth of things they weren’t saying to each other could sit quietly in the corner and wait.

Nate’s back was turned to him.

Leo wished he could stop looking at it.

He couldn’t.

That evening, Nate sat at the kitchen table with his laptop while Leo floated behind him, keeping a sensible distance, reading the comments come in.

@reecescup: THE PEEL. subscribed since the bungalow days and this channel is still finding ways to give me that one perfect sheet

@Jezzebelle: feels like the wall waited until his back was turned. how is he not seeing how creepy this is?

@punkfish: my grandmother would be crossing herself rn

@casey342: is nobody going to talk about how happy he looks lately. this man is thriving in his haunted house era

@ghostwatcher_kel: clearly ghosty and nate are in this together

“Creepy,” Leo read. “It wasn’t creepy. It was elegant.”

“She means the timing.”

“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. None of them can appreciate how difficult a proper haunting is.”

“Mm.” Nate kept scrolling.

Leo drifted closer to the screen. “What about the comment saying we’re in it together? It’s got a lot of… what do you call them? Likes?”

“They say that every week. Rigged, staged, hired an effects guy.” Nate didn’t sound worried. “As long as they’re arguing about it, we’re fine.”

“If you say so.”

The comment stuck in Leo’s mind, though. Strangers had watched a strip of wallpaper come down and concluded, correctly, that the two of them had planned it. That the man at the table and the thing in his house were… a team.

Leo puffed his chest.

Then he noticed what he was doing and stopped immediately.

“You’re silly,” Nate said, evidently having seen what he was doing out of the corner of his eye.

“You’re the silly one,” Leo argued. “Everyone says so. Look how happy he looks,” he quoted. “This man is thriving in his haunted house era.”

“It’s like you said. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Leo had to concede the point.

They really didn’t know. Nate didn’t always look happy. Sometimes Leo caught him looking very not-happy.

Nate shut the laptop. “I’m going into town tomorrow. Need to get some lumber. Do we need anything for the garden?”