I cocked my head to the side, examining the chain of tiny shops decorated with orange and black lights. A few stores even had carved pumpkins with cat patterns and witches sitting on their steps, but none showed such festivity as Macabre. To others it may have stood out like a sore thumb, but I found it quite pleasing and very festive. The carefully placed cotton webbing, with plastic black spiders scattered in it, clung to the corner of the display window, and just beyond that window, inside was a dry ice grave yard. Complete with skeletons and seriously real looking RIP gravestones. In the corner, opposite the spider webbing, was a black pointed coffin with a silver pinstripe going down and horizontally forming a cross over its surface. It was fully adult sized.

"Wow," I said in awe, taking a slightly exaggerated giant leap over the side walk curb to get a closer look through the window. "How is this place empty?"

Maggie peered in, cupping her hand over her forehead to avoid the glint of light as she scanned the inside of the store. "This is Nah'lins," she said, trying to mimic the accent. "People are highly superstitious of this stuff."

"Not everyone is," I said.

Maggie shrugged, reaching towards my arm, she tucked her own in mine, locking our elbows together, before tugging me towards the door. "We didn't grow up here A.B., we don't know that. It's a different area, people believe different things here. They eat different too," she said, absent mindedly patting her slightly rounded stomach. "I've gained over ten pounds since we moved here."

"God, I thought it was just me," I said with relief and patted my own stomach, wiggling my eyebrows at Maggie as she rolled her eyes.

She reached up with her free arm and flicked the tip of my nose. "You should've put your nose ring in. It's the one place people find it acceptable."

I couldn't wear the septum piercing at work so I had to take it out, but Maggie didn't exactly give me a lot of time when I'd gotten home to put it back in. I'd barely managed tennis shoes and a jacket. I shrugged and pushed the door.

The door opened and a ding sounded above our heads. On instinct, I glanced up only to be greeted by a dropping spider. I let out an eep of surprise, but Maggie squealed loudly and ran towards the middle of the store, which happened to be next to a stand that advertised fake vampire teeth and key chain coffins. Laughter trickled out and vibrated my throat as I calmly, yet smugly, sauntered over to her. She looked frazzled as she clutched her chest, her pink mini pocket t-shirt bunched in her fists, and her cheeks flushed with a mixture of fear and embarrassment.

"It's not funny," she said with a whine and then stomped her foot childishly. "I hate spiders."

"Actually, it was hilarious. And I'm going to buy one."

Maggie scoffed and turned towards the miniature silver key chain coffins. "So you can buy stuff, but I can't?"

"Mags, that spider's like ten, fifteen bucks tops. You're talking about over $600 dollars. Don't forget that mandatory physical either. That's about $54 a piece too, maybe more considering Macabre is probably getting a physician from a privately owned practice. Think about it, would you pay over $700 for a fake purse?"

My financial reasoning was sound and it had saved Maggie more times than not from her father and her own insane spending habits. It was also probably the only reason Maggie's father allowed her to be friends with the Podunk girl from the wrong side of town whose parents lived pay check to pay check and allowed their daughter to get a nose ring. Not to mention the hair...the day I met him I happened to look like a bad version of Sailor Neptune. Even now I colored my normally black hair, but working in a nursing home requires it not be as vivid. So I settled with coloring the bottom tips of my long curly hair. This week was purple.

She shrugged, pouting her lips. "Maybe."

I shook my head. "No, you wouldn't, because we both know you're a name brand girl. So why pay for a fake scare that's out-of-this-world expensive?"

"Because."

I ignored her answer and turned away from her, needing to focus my attention on this delightfully eerie boutique. I shifted my head looking at the different sections, slightly surprised that each area was clearly designated for certain supernatural creatures. There were four main, generalized sections: Vampires, Shifters/Werewolves, Fairies, and Witches.

I expected costumes and plastic cauldrons, which were there, but I didn't expect cast iron cauldrons, or bottles of weird looking ingredients, in each section. It was a mixture of strange, slightly questionable, objects and stereotypical things, like garlic strings. And it wasn't like a regular store with isles, clearly. Everything was spread out in the open. At first glance I hadn't expected such a tiny looking store on the outside to be so wide on the inside.

Another thing that surprised me was that every thing was a deep bloody red. I figured it would be all black. Black carpet, black walls, but instead the walls were a shade darker than brick red and the carpet a shade lighter than crimson. The only black was the curving sketches of words in a different language. The words covered at least two inches on all four walls, stopping just before it touched the ceiling.

I'd almost completed my full circle assessment from the middle of the store when my eyes landed on the man behind the glass encased counter with another display of silver tipped knives and other weapons I didn't recognize. An old black cash register with worn buttons shimmering in gold lay on top of the glass counter, off to the side of the man behind it.

He sat in a chair, bent over the counter, his black hair ruffled and loose, dipping down his forehead into his eyes as he read a coverless black book. But the binding wasn't completely blank. I squinted slightly as I noticed the single gold letter, similar to the designs on the wall, etched on the front of it.

My mouth dropped open slightly when the book sagged in his hands as he flipped the page, revealing the rest of his flawless face. His nose was straight, but not too long, his charcoaled eyebrows seemed arched yet bushy, almost like he occasionally plucked out a few hairs. His lips, a pinkish rose color, were luscious and pouty. His upper lip slightly less full than the bottom and there was no sign of the stubbly shadow across his strong, square chin or up the sides of his face.

He's probably younger than I am.

"I think I fully understand the meaning of the world delicious now," Maggie whispered next to my ear.

"Maggie, he's probably sixteen, working after school for pocket change."

Maggie stepped forward and turned her face towards me, giving me a very blatant expression of I-don't-care. "So?"

I tsked my tongue against the roof of my mouth and shook my head with amusement. "Cradle rob when I'm not around."

She raised her own perfectly arched brown eyebrow. "Don'tcha haveta pee?"

"Really?" I asked dully.

She dropped her arms and placed her hands on her hips. "Fine. I'll stop, but let's go ask him about those brochures."

I shook my head defiantly. "No."

"Not to buy or anything, just to pretend we're interested. Then we can hear his voice."

Now that wasn't a bad idea. My fingers were tingling to run through his hair to see if it was seriously as soft as it looked from over here and the obnoxious flapping in my stomach was beckoning me forwards before I even agreed. Since I wouldn't run my fingers through his hair I could definitely settle for hearing his voice. I had a thing for guys who had black hair, but hopefully he didn't have blue eyes. I'd be ruined if he did.

"Ugh, you are so easy, A.B.," Maggie said, a tinge of laughter staining the tone of her voice.

I ignored her, licking my bottom lip before sinking my teeth nervously into the flesh. I was smitten and he hadn't even looked up yet. Maybe that was an over exaggeration, but if his eyes were really blue I was definitely done for. That thought alone had my knees weakening and I almost stumbled as I continued slowly towards him.

Luckily, Maggie was there to grab my arm. "So predictable," she mumbled. "You always get like this."

It was sad, but true. Black haired, blue eyed men were my kryptonite, which is probably why I've never dated one. Well, that wasn't entirely true, but it had been such a klutzy embarrassing disaster that after that I'd sworn off tall dark and ungodly sexy blue eyed men.

It had been a blind date set up by Maggie hoping to get me over my strange behavior whenever I encountered men with those particular physical characteristics. It seriously backfired when all I did was look like a fish gasping for air every time I tried to talk. He'd been a pretty decent guy too, for dealing with me through dinner. I found if I didn't look at him I could talk to him better, so we spent dinner talking to the table. He caught on eventually when I wouldn't look at him and when I told him why after he'd asked he didn't seem too thrilled by my confession. I wasn't exactly subtle about it either.

"You aren't special. I respond like this to everyone that looks like you," I'd said, keeping my eyes solidly on the tacky white lace linen table cover.

He'd taken me to that restaurant, which I didn't mind because it was all I'd known back in high school. You know that restaurant that attempts to be classy, but is just trashy. Anyhow, he'd been a little peeved with my nonchalant response and instead of taking me to a movie, he took me home.

"It's just not gonna work if you can't even look at me," he'd said when he pulled up to my house.

He was the only 'tall dark and ungodly sexy' that I'd tried and it hadn't worked out. Now there was one in front of me. I was definitely going to try talking. Of course, I didn't know how well that would turn out.

Maggie became impatient with my slow pace and dropped my arm like a dead weight as she stepped around me and sauntered over to him, swaying her hips with every step. She rudely inserted her hand into his line of vision, directly over his book, and he paused, the tilting frown forming on his lips making me drool slightly.

"Hello, I'm Maggie," she offered, smartly not including her last name.

He inhaled as only his very blue eyes shifted upwards; his head remained turned towards the book. "Hello Maggie. I'm James."

Thankfully, I'd gotten to the counter before he'd spoken. My fingers dug into the silver lining of the glass as his bottomless cerulean colored eyes locked with mine. I took a quivering breath and it was so obvious that I wanted to run to my room to hide my head forever under my pillow. When I inhaled again the chopping catch happened again and his eyes twinkled as the corner of his mouth lifted.

"Hello," he said softly to me.

"Uh."

It was all I could manage. If I could move and not collapse I would've banged my head into that glass counter over my stupidity. The teasing hint of a smile that had been twitching at the corner of his mouth finally released into a full blown grin as he set the book down, keeping his attention on me.

Maggie took the opportunity to embarrass me more as she smacked my back so hard I jolted forward with a gasp. My black, purple tipped hair, slipped from behind my ear, and curled around the front of my shoulder as I practically crashed into the counter. James remained still, in the same position he'd been in when we'd come over, minus the book in his hands. This brought my face so close to his I could smell him. He didn't have strongly scented cologne on either, which bumped him up on the perfect list. It was a subtle ocean smell with maybe a hint of a sweet honeysuckle.

He even smelled perfect. The only thing that kept me from closing my eyes so that I could have an intelligent thought was the black tribal looking tattoo curling around the side of his neck, continuing down past his collar. I quickly held my breath and gave him a timid smile, showing a little teeth, before pulling away awkwardly. I tried to casually turn around so that I could lean against the glass with my back towards him. It seemed mostly successful and I turned my face away from them, bending my arms up to fist my hands against my mouth. It was a nervous habit of mine that I'd been trying to break. No luck as of yet.

I could hear the smirk in Maggie's voice as she spoke. "We're interested about these advertised special events happening," she said and leaned down towards him, cupping one hand over her mouth trying to keep me from hearing. "We want the full Halloween experience too."

I held my tongue, reminding myself that this was just a ploy to hear his smooth, creamy, hypnotic voice again. That Maggie wasn't really going to spend over $700 dollars. I took a deep breath, feeling the air rushing into my lungs, expanding my shoulders. Now that I wasn't looking at him I felt better and was able to drop my hands. Instead I settled for folding my arms across my chest, my ear remained perked waiting for him to respond though.

"Which ones were you interested in?"

"It's buy one get one free, right?" Maggie asked and he must have just nodded because she continued. "Good. We're going to buy two. We'll both do the werewolf and vampire ones. Do you take Mastercard?"

"Wait, what?" I asked twisting around so quickly I almost lost my footing.

He was a sight to be reckoned with, but right now I was more concerned with how Maggie had managed to get that Mastercard so quickly into his hand. I jolted forward going for the card in his hand, just barely missing it as he pulled it slightly out of reach with an arched eyebrow.

"W-way too much," I cried out, fumbling over my words.

He gave an amused smirk and leaned forward. With his free hand, and my eyes as wide as the moon, he tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ears, curved his finger down my jaw, and tapped my chin playfully. "I'll give you the student discount and another 15% for being so delicious," he said.

Delicious. There's that word again.

"Th-that's a really big discount. I don't want you to get fired or anything," Maggie said, clearly being the only reasonable one in the room.

And it's Maggie to boot. Talk about shocking.

I was stunned, my eyes wide, my mouth slightly open and he still smiled down at me, his eyes seemed to caress my face as he gazed at me. Even when he pulled away to swipe the card, I stayed in the same position. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that he'd touched me. His skin was like fine silk against mine and I could feel the goose bumps rising up my arms, the hair on the back of my neck standing at attention.

"Well, since I own this boutique, I don't think it'll be a problem."