"This store is better than I imagined! I could live here!" I exclaimed when we had driven the hour and a half into the city. The store was in an old converted warehouse, and it was filled with Halloween. "I want all of these things," I said.
"You want to live in a Halloween store?" Garrett asked as I picked up a Halloween snow globe. "Why would someone even make that?" He sounded confused.
"Look, they have a ton of creepy costumes!" I said, hauling him around the store. "There’s the bunny from Donny Darko."
They also had a lot of sexy costumes, I noticed, in another area of the store. There were sexy versions of any animal imaginable, which was really just the same corset with the tails and ears swapped in and out. I held one of the costumes up to my torso.
"Have you ever fantasized about…" I checked the tag. "A sexy capybara?"
"The giant rodent?" Garrett asked with a frown.
"Maybe let’s not," I said and put back the costume.
Another section held more mainstream sexy outfits, like a 1950s pinup girl.
"You like this one?" I asked, holding up one of the costumes. It was black leather with lace accents. There was a face mask that looked like a Batgirl mask.
Garrett’s face was perfectly neutral.
"Sorry," I laughed, putting it back. "I keep getting distracted."
Garrett followed me through the store. There was a whole section dedicated toThe Nightmare Before Christmas.
"This is what I need!" I found Sally's dress and tights, which made it looked like she was stitched together. "They even have the sewing basket and the bottles that she used to spike her evil master's soup."
Garrett carried all my selections as I looked through the shelves. I found Jack's bat bow tie.
"Unfortunately, they don’t have any of Jack's pumpkin-head masks left," I said.
"Thank God," Garrett muttered under his breath.
I squeezed his firm buttocks. "I’ll just have to put makeup all over you then," I said, sticking my tongue out.
He kissed me. "I don’t want to ruin my suit."
I felt a little sick when the clerk rang up the purchases. I knew the Halloween Emporium was high-end, but I had only bought a few things. How was it so expensive? I fumbled for my credit card. Hopefully I had enough to pay for it.
But Garrett handed over his credit card.
"You don’t have to," I said. "This was my idea."
"Let people do nice things for you, Penny. You deserve it," he said as the clerk bagged up the costume items.
"This day has been awesome!" I said, putting the bag in the back seat and starting the car. "Where to now? Your mysterious condo?"
"Turn at the next street and keep going straight. I'll tell you when to turn."
Garrett navigated me to a nondescript brick building. I parked in the garage and followed him to the lobby. He nodded to the doorman and swiped a key card at the elevator.
"So how does that work?" I asked. "One person on each floor? You must never see your neighbors."
"All my neighbors are my brothers. This was the first major real estate investment Greg and Hunter did together."
"A real piece of Svensson history right here," I quipped.
The elevator dinged, and we stepped out into a private lobby. I was starting to internally freak out. Private lobby before the condo? The Svenssons were really living large in Manhattan if they had that. The lobby held plants in front of a large window and a little bar area with refreshments.
"This is nuts," I muttered.
