Under the Influence

Chapter Eight: It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Crawford

   “Okay, so what kind of costume do you want?” I asked, getting back to the main topic at hand.

   “I don’t know yet.”

   “We should get matching costumes!” I said excitedly.

   “Matching costumes?” he echoed slowly.

   “You know, like Mario and Princess Peach, Clark Kent and Lois Lane, Buffy and Angel, Mulder and Scully—“

   “Dean and Sam Winchester?” Hunter interjected with a laugh.

   “So is that a yes?”

   “We’ll see,” he said with this mischievous glint in his eyes. I hoped that meant he would at least consider it. Matching costumes made everything ten times better.

   “Whose costume do you want to look for first? Yours or mine?”

   He shrugged. “I don’t really care… Actually, let’s do yours first.”

   “Sure,” I said. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of costume I wanted, so I just meandered though racks of clothing that reminded me of some kind of mini labyrinth. Occasionally I would stop and examine a few costumes before moving on. Every time I placed a costume back on the rack I got it from, Hunter would exhale deeply. Obviously he wasn’t much of a shopper.

   Finally, he spoke up. “Okay, let me help you. What do you want to be?”

   “That’s the problem. I don’t know yet.”

   “Hmm…”

   We continued ambling around the store (this time I was following Hunter, not the other way around). He must’ve wandered into the adult costume section (whether it was accidental or on purpose, I had no idea) because all the costumes seemed to gradually get skimpier. Hunter’s eyebrows hiked up at this, and I tried to suppress the urge to drag him out of this section of the store.

   He smirked. “You know, maybe shopping isn’t so bad after all.”

   I involuntarily rolled my eyes, but he didn’t notice. He was too absorbed in all the possible costume options for me.

   “Ooh, look at this,” he said a little too cheerfully. “How about a slutty angel costume?” He held up some fabric that looked more like lingerie than a Halloween costume.

   “Um, no thanks.”

   He returned the costume back to the rack and replaced it with another. “Slutty devil?” Anything that lacy should be considered illegal.

   “No.”

   “Slutty nurse?” Hunter waggled his eyebrows at me. He was having way too much fun.

   I shook my head.

   “Slutty schoolgirl?” This time he licked his lips and threw me a wink. When he noticed the expression on my face, he laughed heartily and said, “I’ll take that as a no. Oh! How about a slutty cop?”

   I shook my head strenuously. “I don’t want anything…like that.”

   “Slutty?”

   “Yeah. That.” My cheeks must’ve tinted at least a few shades darker, because I could feel the blood rush up to my face.

   I grabbed Hunter by the hand and pulled him back to the front of the store where the more…appropriate costumes were. I didn’t trust him in that section. Somewhere along the way, I spotted a headband with reindeer antlers in them. Halloween and Christmas? Now this was a two-for-one deal I couldn’t pass up.