I would have said more, but his fingers were relentless and I soon lost my breath to waves of uncontrollable laughter. It was torture! I wriggled and gasped and writhed, trying to break free, but his arms created an inescapable circle around me—pulling me tightly against his chest.
“Surrender!”
I shrieked again and doubled over, clinging to the computer like it was my whole life. His chest shook with silent laughter behind me, but he showed not an ounce of mercy. His legs wrapped around mine as his fingers dug into my sides. When my head fell back on his shoulder, gasping for air, he took the opportunity to gleefully bite the side of my neck. Even when the laptop slipped free onto the ground, he continued with his crusade.
It wasn’t until I was sitting squarely in his lap, my hands trapped in his own, that the two of us came to a sudden stop.
Our laughter faded awkwardly, then quieted completely as the air between us became abruptly tense. Neither one of us had mentioned the rather enormous line we had crossed the previous evening. Neither one of us had even come close.
Nick loosened his grip as he made a concerted effort to try.
“Abby, listen—”
But it was at that moment that he put his foot down—unknowingly—right on top of the fallen computer. There was a tiny crunch, as the screen splintered into a million pieces.
That’s one way to break the ice...
The two of us stared down for a long moment, both frozen in surprise, both wondering what to say. Then Nick’s face lit up with sudden inspiration.
“Don’t worry—we can just go online and buy another one!”
Chapter 13
And so the hours passed.
Considering the fact that Nick had never done ‘normal’ in his entire life, I have to say that he took to it quite beautifully. While I retrieved his computer to finish my shopping, he flipped on the television, and under my guidance, began an old school Netflix fest. After taking a full twenty minutes to read the descriptions of every show, he settled—rather ironically—upon Stranger Things, and it wasn’t long before I abandoned my shopping entirely to watch.
“I still don’t understand,” I murmured a few episodes later.
By now, the sun was hanging low in the sky, but we had yet to move even an inch from our original positions. Truth be told, we had yet to blink.
The buzzer rang. I buzzed the pizza guy in and opened the door. I didn’t want to miss a minute so I ran back to the TV set.
“Why doesn’t she just tear the whole house down, if he’s in the walls?”
Nick hushed me without ever breaking his gaze.
“Because the walls are only a single portal. If she destroys that, then he has no way of contacting her and all those Christmas lights were for nothing.”
I sat for a minute, considering this.
“Yeah, but why doesn’t she just—”
“No, I thought of that. But it would require a comb, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” I chewed my lip for a second, thinking. “But what if she just—”
“No more idea, okay sweetheart?”
“But they’re good ideas, Nick!”
“Yeah?” He raised his eyebrows defiantly. “Like when you told Barb to go outside and wait by the pool? That turned out to be a great idea!”
I threw up my hands.
“How was I supposed to know the thing was waiting for her—”
A throat cleared softly behind us, and we whipped around to see the most bashful pizza delivery man in the entire city. He grimaced apologetically at startling us, then gestured to the frozen characters on the screen.