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“Fine, but I’m not using that word.” Frank sniffed. “I’ll write ‘butthead.’ We don’t think that word should be used as an insult. We love our buttholes.”
“Mine looks like a beautiful sunbeam,” Beans said, now carefully applying dark red lipstick.
“Get me the fuck out of here,” Vince groaned under his breath, scrubbing his face and smearing green paint everywhere.
“Here.” Frank held out the pool noodle, a message now written messily along its length in lipstick.
I snatched it out of his hand. “Great. Thanks. Uh, if you ever go near Rafe again, I’ll kick both your asses.”
Beans snorted as if that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.
My nostrils flared. Jerking my head at the door, I said to Vince, “Let’s go.”
“Hold on there.” Suddenly, Beans was in front of us, blocking the door. “What do we get?”
“You get us leaving your house of horrors and never, ever coming back,” Vince said flatly, gripping my arm tight.
Frank slunk over to join him, both of them crossing their arms. “Nah. We want something else.”
“What?” I snapped, on the brink of exploding.
Beans jerked his chin at Vince’s groin, which made us both step back in horror. Vince whimpered, cupping his hands over his junk.
“Zipper,” Beans said.
“What?” Vince squawked. “You weren’t serious about that.”
“I’m always serious, turd.”
“Vince, give the man your zipper,” I muttered. “Just do it.”
He looked between us and groaned, reaching for his fly.
A minute later, we were finally walking out of the worst house in existence, both of us shaken and dazed and covered in paint. I was clutching a pool noodle with lipstick on it, and Vince no longer had his pants.
In silence, we walked off the front porch and across the lawn. We both flinched when the yodelling music started back up again in the house.
As we reached my car, Vince turned and fisted my shirt, gazing up at me. “We can’t ever tell anyone about this, Dan.”
I nodded and croaked, “I know.”
“No one. Ever. We’re bound by something stronger than blood now, man.”
I nodded again quickly, still dazed. He exhaled a shaky breath and slowly released my shirt, then flung his arms around me.
“I love you, man.”
“I love you too, bro.” I squeezed him tight, admitting in a small voice, “That was so scary.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Dan’s Head Pops Off
Dan
By the time I’d dropped Vince off and pulled onto my driveway, the adrenaline rush from the horrors we’d endured had crashed and completely wiped me out. I barely had the energy to climb out of my car, and when I finally did, I found myself automatically dragging my feet over to Rafe’s house.
I knocked weakly on the door, then rested a hand on the wall to keep me upright. I was clutching the paint- and lipstick-covered pool noodle in the other.
