“You are, yes.I can hear the exhaustion in your voice.Let Dunham drive you home.”
He was tired.Ross could easily admit that even to himself.And if Dunham drove, he could power nap on the way back to the house.A power nap might give him enough energy to make it from car to house.Which meant sleeping in a bed instead of conking out in the car.
#sleepgoals
The seatbelt wanted to hold him hostage—he had a bit of a fight there—and Dunham was forced to help release him.Then he blearily climbed out and stood for a long second with no memory of what to do next.Why was he standing on the side of the road?
“Come on, lad, I’ve got ye.”Dunham took him by the elbows and steered him around to the other side of the car.“There ye go, slide in.”
Ross settled back in with a happy hum.He put his seatbelt on—safety first!—and then pulled the lever to let the seat recline.He had no memory of closing his eyes.
The next thing he knew, he felt a draft of cold air and someone unbuckling him with a click and a hiss of the seatbelt retracting.
“He went to sleep in seconds,” Dunham said and why did he sound apologetic?“I dinna know he was so sleep deprived.”
“We, as a clan, will talk about this,” Glenn answered in a cool tone.
Oooh, someone was pissy.Ross found that funny but couldn’t seem to laugh aloud.He snickered in his head instead.Took less energy.
Two strong hands maneuvered him out and Ross was suddenly airborne.He blinked a little, trying to focus, but not a single eye cooperated.Damn traitors, the both of them.He hummed, trying to get a question out, but his throat had also mutinied in favor of sleep.Whole body was betraying him left, right, and center.
“Shh.”A whisper against his forehead, soothing and gentle.“I have you.You can sleep for as long as you like, alright?”
Ross liked the sound of that.He snuggled in further, hand draped over a broad shoulder, and settled in.He wasn’t aware of much else until he felt cool sheets under his back and a pillow under his head.He rolled into it with a happy sigh because he’d missed his bed, and here it was, welcoming him.
A bundle of fur tucked itself under his chin, purring at him.Ooh, kitten.Where did the kitten come from?Wait, he had a cat, didn’t he?He’d forgotten about the kitten who had adopted him and kept sneaking into his house—a fact that had annoyed him all this week, but right now kitten cuddles were…something.Awesomesauce.That’s it, they were awesomesauce.Life was looking up already.
“Glenn, ’m tired.Need g’night kiss.”
Before his sleep-addled brain could acknowledge what he’d just said—or feel mortified for it—he felt the gentle pressure of a kiss grazing his forehead.
“Sleep,” Glenn crooned against his skin.“Sleep, and dream only of delightful things.I’ll handle everything today.”
It was such a delightful promise that Ross smiled, even in his sleep, and skipped right into dreamland without a single care in the world.
Incident 5: Welcome to My Lair
Ross gave a knock at the door.“Everyone decent?”
“Not morally!”someone in the room called back.“But we’re wearing pants, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Fair enough.Ross hip-checked the door open, using his elbow to turn the door knob, and shuffled through, his arms full of yet more body glitter.
One of the reasons why Ross had been so exhausted the past several weeks was because of the haunted house, and he was relieved to be finished with the prep-work.Today was opening day, and it would run for a week, ending on Halloween night.
The clan was beyond excited about this.Halloween presented the one time of the year where they could unabashedly be themselves and people would just roll with it, assuming they were playing some character.
They weren’t on clan territory.They’d rented out a warehouse on the outskirts of Salem to create their spooky vision.Ross was running around behind the scenes, picking up last minute supplies and making sure they were all ready to start on time.The haunted house was apparently famous in Salem as being THE place to go.They already had a line out the door that wrapped halfway around the building.
Inside the changing room, it was chaos.Productions on Broadway probably looked like this—people running willy-nilly around the room, half in costume, others calling out for black eye liner, and was that a chorus line in the back corner?Someone was singing Monster Mash, and really?Really?
Ross rolled his eyes and let them be.Instead he headed toward the group of vampires.“Delivery of body glitter for my favorite bloodsuckers!”
All of them turned and the nearest, Bryn, immediately turned to make gimme gimme hands.She was the ‘youngest’ of the vampires, appearing to be ten-years-old, but in fact she was the oldest of the lot.That he knew of.Ross had been reliably informed she was three hundred and twenty-two this very Halloween.
“Perfect, we needed more,” she told him happily.“You got the white sparkly kind only?”
“Of course.But someone needs to explain to me why you’re slathering on glitter?”It made no sense to Ross whatsoever.
