“I did! But I made it better. You’ll thank me, I promise.”
“I willnot.”
I don’t appreciate the euphoric glitter in his great, big, I’m-loving-everything-about-this eyes as he forcibly leads me on a tour. A gate materializes in the fencing, which goescling!as he pushes through, arm looped in mine to prevent me from running away. “It’s a new build, got state-of-the-art plumbing and a Never Runs Out water heater. Catslide roof in the back.” He gestures, grinning dazzlingly. I’m distracted by the cute swoop of his hair, how the ends curl. “Multi-pane sash windows with timber pilasters. What a nice touch! The architect considered a thatched roof but deemed it too ostentatious.”
I emit a murderous grunt.
Christmas string lights, large 1960s bulbs, zigzagging across the front of the house blink intermittently. “I only put up four visible-to-humans strands,” he says, “because I didn’t want to overwhelm you. I did add a few extra strands that only I can see.”
“Extra?”
“Yes. Thirty yards of lights invisible to mortal eyes.”
I poke at one of the enormous Dots candies bordering the pathway up to the front door, which is painted red, with a gold mail slot (made redundant by the milk truck toy, which he’s perched on the fence post and fashioned into a mailbox) and a green wreath with the letterHon it. I don’t ask if theHis forHughesorHallbecause if he gives me the wrong answer I might kick him.
“Two of the chimneys are fully functioning, but the other two are rooftop-aesthetic only. Wait till you see the interior design.”
He opens the door, jostling me ahead of him. “All right, I’mgoing,” I mutter tersely.
My remaining crumb of patience instantly evaporates upon seeing what’s inside. He’s built four stories that are so cramped you can hardly appreciate the height. The first level is the kitchen and bathroom: you edge through the door and are squashed straight into the sink. More of the space would probably be useful were it not for the decorations jam-packed every-which-where—it’s Santa’s Workshop from floor to ceiling. Up the stairs is a sitting room, with a sixteen-inch television I can barely see. Stacked on top of that is the bedroom, outfitted in the wild, inexplicable guess that I might like the color yellow. Gingham yellow bedspread. Sunflower wallpaper. Marigold-hued carpeting.
Hall watches my expression closely. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s a lot of yellow. Can I have something blue?”
Hall brandishes an arm, melting down the wallpaper. He spreads the sunflowers back out, this time making them cerulean. The carpet peels itself up to expose a parquet floor and then vanishes. The gingham bedspread flips over to its reverse side, which is plain white quilting.
“Wow,” is all I can manage. If I had powers like his, I would go around changing the colors of everybody’s vehicles to cause bedlam.
The house smells predictably of sugar, cedar, and old-fashioned ornaments, which the attic contains two trunks of. They’re locked, with no keys in sight (“For the mystery,” Hall tells me). Hall has decided the attic should be creaky, dim, and swirling with dust despite being only a few minutes old. He shows me a strange human-shaped stain on the peeling ’70s wallpaper. “Somebody could have died in here.”
I give him a strangled look. “Did they?”
“Of course not!” He turns to survey his handwork. “But they could have.”
I leave him in his terrible haunted attic to go downstairs,all the waydownstairs, into the kitchen. I open a window and start tossing stuff out to make more room—nobody needs this many jingle bells—then check all the cabinets for wine, which is a futile effort. I don’t miss that Hall’s tacked an extra bedroom off the back of the house for himself, and it’s bigger than mine. Most of the space is absorbed by the magnificent bed, the frame of which is shaped like a solid gold sleigh. Every Just For Men product on the market adorns his shelves, including mustache and beard dye, even though he doesn’t have a mustache or beard.
“So.” Hall appears behind me while my belongings from Eileen’s house appear all around us. His magic mangled my Ocean Galaxy Light Projector and Himalayan salt lamp, combining them into one bizarre light fixture. “Do you love the house or what?”
“It’s not quite what I designed,” I reply darkly.
He nods in agreement. “I know. It’s much better.”
“Better than Eileen’s, I suppose. I’ve been running through under-eye patches like nobody’s business, draining all my youth away worrying that a long-lost relative would claim the place.” I sigh. “Could I at least have the Aston Martin?”
His eyes grow large and eager. “What if I told you that you could have something ten times more luxurious than an Aston Martin?”
“A Rolls-Royce Sweptail?” I know a lot about luxury cars. Every night, I climb into bed and add two or three of them to my Aspirations Pinterest board.
“Cover your eyes.”
“I really do not like the sound of that.”
Hall slips his hands over my eyes, and I suppress a shiver. This will probably sound sad, but I haven’t been touched by another person in a very long time, and the (sort of) human contact is both jarring and more comforting than I would’ve expected.
He bumps me into every conceivable sharp corner on our way outside. “Aaaaaand, you can open them!”
I do.
