Page 34 of Raging Fires

Sitting on that little couch with a shirtless Jake? That would be a recipe for disaster. Especially if he really was hot. And a little sweaty. She’d be licking his abs instead of eating popcorn.

“I’ll do 72 for the movie if we can do 76 for sleeping.”

“Deal.” He gave her a sly smile.

Yep. He’d definitely be sleeping shirtless tonight. She was not going to think about such things.

“So, you want a classic?” Jake asked. “Jason? Freddie? How about that zombie cheerleader thing? That was so bad.”

“Whatever you want,” Kelli responded brightly. God, she sounded like a one of those ultra-perky restaurant hostesses. “I’m just going to run to the bathroom real quick first. Why don’t you put on one of the Halloweens?”

“Sounds good to me.” Jake picked up the remote. “You ever notice how you always say ‘whatever you want’ right before you make the decision yourself?”

“No.” She raised her eyebrows, “Just another thing that I do that bugs you, I guess.”

“Nah.” He smiled. “It’s actually pretty funny.”

Kelli’s stomach did a little backflip at his grin and she quickly escaped to the bathroom. She busied herself by washing her hands. She hadn’t even needed to go to the bathroom, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Jake shirtless and he was being so nice and accommodating. Why was he not getting all pissed off about the A/C stuff like he used to? He was just joking around and being utterly irresistible.

Everything seemed like too much right now. Too new and exciting and too old and comfortable at the same time. She pulled in a deep calming breath and let it out. This wasn’t important. There was no reason to be nervous. Just a couple of roommates hanging out watching a dumb movie.

When she came back out, she saw that the Halloween Jake had settled on was H20. She sat down on the couch as casually as she could while also calculating what distance was far enough away that their arms wouldn’t bump together, but not so far away that Jake could tell she was nervous that their arms would bump together.

“Why do we always skip three through six?” Kelli said, just to have something to break the tension in the air. She wondered if she was the only one that felt it. “I mean, we've watched the original, two and H20 way more times than the others.”

“Mostly because H20 is the first one that I found that was streaming. But also because the ones with Jamie Lee Curtis are the best.”

“You just like her because she has big boobs.” Kelli relaxed a little. Needling Jake was something that was fully comfortable, and not in a scary ‘falling into old habits’ way.

“JLC is a bad ass and the ultimate scream queen.” Jake took a handful of his popcorn and washed it down with a swig of coke. “And she has very nice breasts.”

“See! I knew it!” Kelli shook her head. “But you’re not wrong—the new movie with her was really good.” She didn’t add that she’d waited until the it was out of the theater to watch it because she couldn’t stand the idea of not having Jake’s hand to hold in case of a jump scare. And that even at home she’d thought about him the entire time she’d watched it. “Plus, I guess three through six are pretty terrible even for bad horror movies. Not to mention confusing with all the retconning.” Kelli didn’t really care about the continuity of the series, but it had been one of their long-running jokes when they watched horror.

“H20 does a fair amount of retconning, too.” Jake shrugged. “But at least it doesn’t make you wonder what drugs the filmmakers were on and where can you get some to make it through your viewing.”

Kelli laughed. “True. And I guess the new one also ignored everything but the original,” she conceded.

“Yeah. People just want to get back to the good stuff.” Jake glanced at her sideways, the light from the TV dancing across his handsome face. Suddenly Kelli’s stomach was doing the jumping thing all over again.

“You can't just ignore all the bad stuff and expect the good stuff to stay good,” Kelli said so softly that Jake had to lean in a bit to hear her over the noise in the opening scene.

“You can in Hollywood, apparently.” His low tone was even softer than hers, but with the gravelly edge she’d always found so sexy. Kelli forced herself to lean back to her side of the couch.

“Well, I guess there's a reason people prefer fiction to real life.” She crossed her arms over her chest and fell silent as they watched the movie.

But it had been about ten years since she’d watched any of the old Halloweens and part of the fun of watching terrible movies was making fun of their inconsistencies. They might as well be watching an Oscar winner if she was going to have to stay completely silent. So about thirty minutes in, she finally gave up.

“So was it canon that Michael Meyers’ mask was actually a William Shatner mask?” Kelli asked as Jamie Lee Curtis strolled the school campus in the boring-boxy-neutrals-look that had for some reason been so popular in the nineties. “Like are we supposed to believe this kid bought a Shatner mask and some white spray paint, then at 8 years old proceeded to—”

“Six years old.” Jake corrected.

“Six?” Kelli exclaimed. “A six-year-old can't carve a pumpkin without maiming themselves. We're supposed to believe he killed his older sister with a butcher knife and didn't at least lose a thumb?”

“Maybe he was destined to become the greatest pumpkin carver of all time and his family was forcing him to work with one of those little neon plastic carving tools. That's why he killed them on Halloween.” A mischievous twinkle made Jake’s eyes irresistible even in near darkness. “He was like, ‘Screw this, knives or nothing!’”

“Ah, Halloween: the tale of the homicidal Michelangelo of pumpkins... it's so obvious, why did I never see it before?” Kelli grabbed a handful of popcorn.

“Anyway, he was wearing a clown costume when he was six. The Shatner mask wasn't until he escaped from the institution.”