Nico's POV

"The snow is still coming down hard in all parts of New York. Folks are advised to stay inside, as the roads are extremely icy and dangerous. There has been talk of closing the streets, so tonight would be a good time to curl up with your family and watch that movie you've been dying to see. That's all the weather for now. Next, Kirk with sports."

I groaned, sweeping up a pile of dust into the blue plastic tray I was using to clean the small convenience store where I worked part time.

"You don't really think they'll close the roads, do you?" I griped to Will, my coworker.

"I don't know," Will sighed, poking his head out from isle three, where he was restocking the swiss rolls. "It's coming down pretty hard out there, and I haven't seen a plow truck all day. I heard it was getting to about three feet." he paused for a second, then grinned goofily. "Hey, aren't you about that tall?" I threw a bag of chips at him and he ducked, the chips hitting the far wall.

"Why do you want to know?" he asked, coming out completely from isle three. "Do you have someone to get back to?" He didn't look me in the eyes when he asked the question, almost as if he didn't want to know the answer.

"Yeah, my dog, Mrs. O' Leary. We were going to watch Labyrinth together, but if the roads are closed than I guess I'll have to stay here all night with you until the roads are cleared."

"That could be fun," Will said. "We could hang out together, just the two of us. It would be like a slumber party!"

"Yeah, just me, you, and your bad jokes," I muttered, rolling my eyes. "Not my idea of a good night."

"Well," he shrugged, walking over to the radio systems and turning up the volume. I could hear Kirk the sports guy talking about which basketball teams were in the lead this season."I guess we'll just have to see how it plays out, won't we?"

I was putting today's profits in the safe when I heard it, the fateful sound that would determine the course of the next twelve or so hours. The low, cheerful voice of the weather man boomed out of the speakers on each corner of the store.

"This just in, folks; the roads are indeed closed tonight, and will most likely be closed until tomorrow afternoon. Cozy up with your blankets and hot chocolate, because this is going to be a long night."

I groaned, not bothering to put the last hundred dollars or so in the safe. No one was going to rob the store tonight, not with the roads closed. "This sucks!" I bellyached.

"Oh, come on, it's not so bad, is it?" Will said. He unclipped his small oval name tag from his shirt and tossed it on the counter as if he were a customer waiting to ring something up. "Haven't you always wanted to spend the night in a convenience store?"

"Why, have you?" I snorted.

"Loads of times. I've always told myself that if there was a zombie apocalypse, I would barricade myself in a convenience store."

"Well, I don't see any zombies around, so being stuck in a store for the night is kind of pointless, don't you think?" I asked sarcastically, gesturing to the street to prove that there were no zombies roaming around in the snow.

"Well, unless you want to walk to the nearest motel in below zero weather which, might I remind you, is twelve miles away, you're not going anywhere." I wanted to complain but I knew Will was right. I was stuck here for the night whether I liked it or not.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," I sighed. Will's face lit up with a smile the size of Russia.

"Awesome! So, what do you want to do first? I figured I could make little tiny braids in your hair. I've braided my sister's hair before, so I'm pretty good at it." I chuckled, thinking that he looked sort of cute, with his golden blonde hair falling in his eyes and his smile that of a kindergartener's about to play in the mud.

"We're not braiding my hair, but there's an old VCR that we use to show new employees training videos. I bet if we looked hard enough, we could find a good movie. That, food and soda will make for a pretty good night."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Will grinned. "Come on!"

The only movie we could find was an old horror movie from the '90s, called Jeffery James and the Birthday Party of Terror. It had a picture of an eight year old kid wearing a party hat and holding a handful of balloons, being scared by something casting a shadow over him.

"This looks terrible," I said when Will showed me the old tape. "The special affects are going to be terrible."

"We've been looking for nearly an hour, you know there's nothing else," he reminded me. i considered the movie, wondering if it was better than doing nothing. Eventually, my brain ruled in its favor.

"Alright, let's do it."

We set up the VCR in the break room, a small, cramped space with nothing but a single wooden chair and a water fountain that always dispelled warm water. Will and I got rid of the chair and put the VCR at the front of the room, both of us laying down on the floor in front of it. At Will's request, we kept the lights on. We had a giant bag of doritos, and we were ready to start the movie.

"Are you scared?' Will asked, scooting his body a little bit closer to mine. "I'm a little scared."

I chuckled at his voice, and the way his bright blue eyes stared up at me. "Relax, it's just a horror movie. You'll be fine."

"If you say so," Will said, turning to the movie screen. The title slowly faded off the screen, and the movie began.

"Nico, I'm scared," Will whispered to me twenty minutes into the movie. I turned to look at him and saw his eyes wide on his freckled face, clutching the half empty bag of doritos to his chest.

"What are you scared of?" I asked him gently. Without talking, he gestured to the screen, where a clown was viciously murdering the little sister, the annoying one with the peanut butter around her mouth. Red food coloring mixed with water splashed onto the screen, slowly dripping down the camera. "You're scared of bad fake blood?" I asked.

"No," Will said. "I'm scared of clowns." I glanced up at the clown on the screen. This one was of the creepier variety, tall and thin, leering over the children with a long silver knife held tight in his over- sized glove. His painted on smile was less here have a pink balloon unicorn and more I'm going to murder you in your sleep. Even so, the clown wasn't the scariest I'd ever seen, but Will looked scared, like he was about to go down the drop on the biggest roller coaster in the world.

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

"I- I get it if you don't want to, but cuddling always makes me feel better," Will said tentatively. I wasn't the cuddling type, but there was no way I could say no to Will. Besides, it wasn't like he wasn't good looking, as well as extremely adorable.

"Yeah, sure," I said. I opened my arms and Will crawled inside my embrace. He was warm, and he smelled like flowers. He smiled as I wrapped my arms around him, almost triumphantly. It took me a minute to get understand what his end game had been this entire time.

"This was your goal, wasn't it?" I asked, my speech muffled by Will's mop of hair. "To get me to cuddle with you?" I have to say, it was ingenious."

"Thank you very much," Will chuckled. "I am scared of clowns, though."

"Yeah, I could tell. That was pure, uncut fear in your eyes." he flicked me on the back of my head.

"Oh, shut up, you," he giggled. "What time is it?" he asked, giving a huge yawn. I checked my phone, the movie still playing in the background.

"Ten o' clock," I responded. It got late fast."

"It really did," Will said, nuzzling his face into my chest.

"Are you tired?" I asked. I could feel Will nod against my chest. "You can sleep, if you want," I told him. "I'm not going anywhere." I could feel Will nod again and within minutes he was asleep, warm puffs of air hitting my chest. I turned back to the movie, arm still wrapped around Will protectively lest any killer clowns try to kill him during the night. I would never let that happen.

The final shot was of the dog, the only survivor of the birthday party. The bodies of the children laid around the scene, eyes wide open and staring. I'm pretty sure I saw one of them blink, though, ruining the illusion. As the dog trotted out of the house in search for a better family, preferably one with less deaths by clown murder, the footage cut to black. It was a pretty bad movie, but at least the dog survived. I hated it when the dog died. I turned onto my side, now pressing up against Will. I didn't bother turning off the light, and I let Will's steady breathing lull me to sleep.

I woke up to a pop tart next to my face, sitting plaintively on its cellophane wrapper. A cup of warm coffee sat next to it, and Will was sitting straight up on the floor, grinning proudly at his meal.

"I made you breakfast!" he said, gesturing to the breakfast sitting right by my nose.

"Well thank you, Chef Solace," I said, taking a bite of my pop tart.

"Oh, and, well, the roads are open again," Will said, awkwardly looking down at the cold tiled floor. "I thought you might want to know, in case you wanted to go, or..." he trailed off, not making eye contact. I wanted to tell him not to worry, that there was no way I was leaving, not after last night.

"Actually, I'm having quite a bit of fun with you," I told him. He looked up, eyes shining with glee. "I think I'll stay awhile."

Hi, guys! I hope you like this one!

Nina