Page 73 of Haunt the Mall

I scratched his side. “The movie’s starting.”

“I know. I started it.” He set his phone by his leg and focused on our cuddle-movie combo.

The movie slid into a scene with a faux-idyllic suburban family.

“Oh, but there’s a ‘bad kid,’” I noted. “You can tell because they wear plaid.”

He snorted. “Is that the giveaway?”

I nodded. “And the unwashed hair.”

“Oh. I thought that was reflecting their mental state.” His gaze slipped from the screen to his phone.

“Plaid is a gateway fabric,” I joked, nudging him with my knee. “They tend to make the punk kid a pot-smoking, pill-swallowing kleptomaniac. But they also have sex, so, plus for them.”

“In a horror movie, that can get you killed,” he murmured.

“Yes, but that’s mostly if you’re not careful. I’ve seen a few now where the 'bad kid' repents and lives.”

He brushed his thumb across my leg. “Were you the ‘bad kid’ in your family?”

“Yeah.” I laughed. As if any of us was bad.

He tilted his head and tugged on my shorts. “You wear plaid.”

“I…” Well damn. I hadn’t expected him to psychoanalyze me like that. “I guess. I’ve tried pot, but I didn’t like it. It made me too relaxed, so then I got anxious, which is kind of the opposite of the point of it. I think my parents were more annoyed when I pierced my ears with a safety pin because, hello, infection, and I was always fighting with my sister.”

“The older one,” he clarified.

“Yes,” I said. Tori was too sweet to fight. Plus, she’d cry, and no one wanted that.

He stroked my thigh. “What did you fight about?”

“Um, everything. We could fight about the day of the week. Once, we had a slap-fight over who was breathing too loudly.”

He chuckled and squeezed my leg. “I happen to like it when you pant in my presence.”

Chest tightening, I pinched his side. “What about you, Mr. Prankster? Were you the ‘bad’ kid?”

He raised his shoulder. “I suppose, in comparison.”

“You just have one sister, right?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice even.

“Older?”

He nodded and trained his half-lidded gaze on the screen.

Okay, he wasn’t giving much here. “What did you two fight over? Did you prank her with spiders or anything?” I wiggled my fingers against his stomach.

He snorted and stilled my hand. “My sense of humor isn’t for everybody, but we rarely had reason to squabble. Occasionally, she got on me about math homework, and I’d call her annoying, or we’d accuse each other of hogging the good TV.”

“So, nothing your parents were overly concerned about?”

He twisted his bangs. “They’re therapists. There’s always something for them to care about.”

“Oh, shit,” I blurted.