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She stood up, and I followed her to the front door.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Stacey needs some help unknotting the chain of the necklace she wants to wear on Saturday. Despite my best efforts, it seems to have gotten knotted up on my flight. I’m not going to take a key in case someone else wants to leave. Do you think you could keep the door open for me?”
“I can arrange for that. I can give you a ride over there if you want,” I offered.
“Thanks, but it’s not a long walk, and the fresh air will do me good. And one of the gals will bring me home. Also, thanks for being a good sport earlier. I know that a lot of those activities aren’t really up your alley, but it means a lot that you were willing to join in with all of us, and – I think – you actually had some fun,” Maria said with a smile.
“I… well, seeing how much fun you were having inspired me to give it a try,” I admitted.
She laughed a little as she put on her shoes.
“Then, I’m glad to see that there was something there you enjoyed,” she said.
“Have a safe walk to Stacey’s,” I stated. “And text me if the door locks on you for some reason.”
She nodded and walked out the door.
Chapter six
Maria
Iwas able to return a lot earlier than I thought I would. When Stacey called me to help her unknot a necklace, I had imagined it was knotted in with a whole bunch of other necklaces because her jewelry box fell over. It was literally knotted up on itself and took me all of five minutes to untangle.
The rest of my time at Stacey’s was spent talking to her and Caleb about various things for the wedding: confirming that they had heard back from the little classical quartet that would be playing the ceremony, confirming that they had everything set with the pastor and other little things that we needed to know before Friday came around.
When I returned to the Airbnb, it was only seven in the evening. As I walked into the kitchen, Maverick came in from the patio.
“Thanks for keeping the door unlocked for me.”
“I thought you were going to be later, Maria,” he said as he looked at me.
“I thought so, too, but the knot wasn’t nearly as bad as I had imagined from Stacey’s desperate plea for help,” I replied. “Hey, since it’s not so late, why don’t we watch a horror movie together?”
“A horror movie?” Mav raised an eyebrow at me. “You want to watch a horror movie?”
“It’ll be fun,” I said, teasing him a little.
Then, I motioned to the patio. About half of the men were outside, and I assumed the other half were in their rooms.
“Besides, it looks like everyone else has already headed to bed or gotten caught up in that card game again,” I continued. “A horror movie will certainly pass the time.”
“You’re picking it, then,” he said, holding his hands up in faux surrender.
I walked into the living room and over to the movie cabinet I had looked through earlier and sorted through the movies. Hidden behind the first row of movies was The Ring, a movie I had wanted to watch for many years but hadn’t quite gotten the nerve to watch yet. No better time than now, I supposed. Besides, there weren’t any other good horror movies in the cabinet. I’d seen most of the others already, and the ones I hadn’t seen that weren’t The Ring were ones that I hadn’t enjoyed the premise of.
Horror movies had to have more than just slashers to amuse me.
“Here. This one,” I hollered to Maverick, still in the kitchen.
He wandered into the living room, looked at the movie title, and rolled his eyes. But he didn’t say anything to discourage me as I put the movie into the small DVD player. The TV didn’t have any cable. It literally only played DVDs.
I had always been intrigued by the idea of a movie centered on a journalist who had to investigate a cursed tape – and that was exactly what The Ring was all about. Even the menu on the DVD was a little spooky as I started it up with some subtitles.
I sat down on the couch, pulling my knees to my chest as the movie started.
“If you get scared, don’t you start hiding in my shoulder,” Maverick warned.
