Chapter One-Hundred and Seventy-Seven
John picked up a safety pin from Mary's sewing basket, pulling Claire closer so that he could pin her dress up. "Come here." He pinched the fabric of her neckline together, pinning it together so it wasn't so lowcut. "There. Now you're not on display." He smirked, kissing her soft lips.
She giggled, touching his trimmed mustache with her fingertips. "I only like being on display for you."
He chuckled, nipping at her fingertips. "I love you, Sweets."
"John!" Amelia rushed up to him, twirling around to show him her costume. "I'm you!"
He swept her onto his hips, grunting at her growing weight. "You sure are!" He laughed, noticing that she had his tattoo drawn on her arm in sharpie. "Looks good, Squirt." He brushed her hair back, noticing that she'd taken one of her new earrings out? "Shit. Amelia, did you take this out?"
"Yeah… I wanted to be just like you." She stated, not understanding his distress.
"Fuck, Amelia, those aren't healed yet. You're gonna need to get it pierced again."
She touched her ear, remembering how Dominic had held her while his friend Dustin had pushed the needle through her lobe. "Again?"
He sighed, setting her on the floor as Claire straightened his tie. "Yes. You're supposed to leave those in for six weeks before you change them and at least two months before you leave them out." He touched his own piercing, feeling how bare it was without Claire's earring in it. "I'm gonna need to pierce mine again too."
Claire kissed his cheek, handing him a plastic pumpkin bucket and walking with him and Amelia out the front door. "Let's go. You can worry about piercings later."
John held Amelia's hand tight as he pushed the girls away from a hedge, not noticing he was using that old habit until Claire said something.
"We're not sheep John." She smiled, knowing that he was only trying to protect her and Amelia from the demons in his past. "And this is a great neighborhood. We're not gonna get jumped out here." She combed her finger's through his slicked back hair, rubbing some of the gel off on her fingers. "At most we might get mugged by a couple little ghosts who want our candy."
He breathed a laugh, jumping as a herd of princesses, pirates, ghosts, and goblins thundered out of the bushes toward the next house up the street. "Not sure about the mugging, but maybe trampled to death would be an option."
Amelia peeked into John's candy bucket, noticing that he didn't have very much, despite how he was carrying the candy for both he and Claire in the one tote. "Where's all your candy?"
He smiled down at her, trying to hide the fact that he'd eaten a lot of it and whatever he didn't like he'd been tossing into her bag. "When you get as big as me, people don't give you much candy."
"HA!" Medusa's voice barked behind them. "Please, you've been eating that shit since the first house."
John turned, pushing Amelia and Claire behind him. "What do you want Medusa?" He asked, noticing that she was dressed up like a sexy mermaid with everything except for her nipples and ass on display.
She fluttered her fake eyelashes, and moved closer to him. "I thought that since I'm just a lowly mermaid, that perhaps Poseidon would welcome me to his tower." She purred, using what little she knew about Greek mythology to try and lure him to her.
"Listen, Siren, I may be Greek, but water isn't my thing. I can't even take a bath without freaking out, so I'm definitely not Poseidon." He thought for a moment, wondering exactly what god he would be. "Hephaestus maybe. But Poseidon, definitely not."
"Isn't Hephaestus ugly though?" She asked, reaching toward him as if to touch him. "Because, you're anything but, Sweet cheeks."
He slapped her hand away, leaning toward her with pitch-black eyes. "Don't call me that." He snapped, pointing a finger in her face. "Ever." He took Amelia and Claire's hands in his, pulling them down the street as he tried to stomp out the memories under his shoes. "Fucking bitch." He growled, his eyes only going darker as his anger neared its peak before it deflated and he pulled Claire into a strong kiss.