~*~

It was Friday afternoon and I saw that I had a text from Jimmy; he was asking if I had made a decision about going to the haunted hotel tonight.

I knew I was going to regret it, but I replied:

ughh fine, I'll go ☹️

Jimmy replied almost immediately:

Don't sound too excited 😂 I'll pick you up at your apartment at 7

Why was I doing this?

~*~

I wasn't about to "dress to impress" for this, considering we were just going to be spending the night there. I just wore a pair of leggings and my baggy MrBeast hoodie that I had stolen from Jimmy.

I got a text a few minutes before seven that evening--Jimmy was here.

I scrambled to grab all of my stuff and shove it into my bag; of course I wasn't ready until the last possible minute.

I ran downstairs and saw Jimmy waiting in his car. I might have been mistaken, but I swear his eyes lit up when he saw me.

"Hey," I greeted him as I opened the car door.

He chuckled. "So that's where that hoodie went... I forgot about that. Well, it looks better on you anyway, so keep it." His eyes quickly traced my body--from the hoodie down to my leggings (which made my ass look great, by the way).

I blushed as I sat down in the front seat of his car. "Thanks."

It was about a half hour drive to the haunted hotel, which gave us plenty of time to catch up.

"Are you ready for your finals?" he asked.

I groaned. "No. I'm so exhausted from everything that I don't even have the motivation to study anymore."

He seemed to be thinking for a moment. "How about... if you pass all your classes, I'll buy you a car."

We were at a red light, so I laughed and playfully slapped him on the shoulder. "You're too funny."

"I'm being serious."

"I'm sure you are, but the laptop was already enough. No car," I said, trying my best to sound serious in between my laughter.

While a car would be absolutely amazing, he'd already spent so much money on me. I felt kind of guilty that he kept picking me up to hang out; I said that I'd be fine taking an Uber, but he insisted that he didn't mind picking me up.

I kind of liked him picking me up, since it gave us an excuse to talk together alone.

"Got it. No car." He didn't sound like he was being serious.

"That doesn't sound very convincing," I pointed out.

He laughed. "True, but you know me."

Eventually, we pulled up to the supposedly "haunted" hotel. The building looked old and kind of run-down, but somehow it was still in business. I'm sure it was probably pretty cheap and also attracted people because of the tourism value as a "haunted hotel".

"We booked room 666; apparently that's the most haunted one and we need good content," Jimmy explained.

Of course they chose room 666: the devil's number.

I already felt sick in my stomach as we got out of the car and took the elevator up to the room. The elevator was rickety and felt unsafe, but there was a sign that said it had passed inspection (somehow) just a few months ago.

Chris, Chandler, Garrett, Jake, and Tareq were already upstairs in the room. When we got in, the room was still pretty dark, even though the lamp in the corner was turned on. There were two full-size beds in the room.

"You made it!" Chris sounded excited.

"Unfortunately," I grumbled, attempting to hide my smile.

~*~

For the next several hours, we were exploring the hotel. It was dimly lit, and the floorboards and the stairs kept making a creaking sound wherever we walked, but I was still alive.

"What was that?" I asked as something made a bang sound. I'm sure I sounded terrified, but the guys just laughed.

Meanwhile, the trees right outside of the windows kept casting moving shadows along the wall that looked like it could be a person or a spirit. It was windy outside, so the branches from the trees were also brushing against the window, which sounded almost like whispering.

Needless to say, I was absolutely terrified.

Of course Jimmy suggested playing hide and seek. "Whoever finds me in the hotel gets $1,000."

I laughed. "Yeah, I'm not wandering this hotel alone."

"Then hide with me!"

I blushed as I imagined Jimmy and I in a small, cramped space--just the two of us--while we scared the other guys if they came anywhere close to us. "Okay."

The rest of the group went back to the hotel room while Jimmy and I hid. We took the elevator down to the ground floor; when the elevator door opened, it was clear we were probably not supposed to be down here. It wasn't furnished or anything, and it mostly just had cleaning supplies, likely for the housekeeping crew. There was a small light that kept flickering, a lot of creaky floors, and a lot of shelves with cleaning supplies.

We hid behind one of the shelves, and Jimmy texted the group that we were hidden.

Jimmy started recording us with his phone, whispering about how if the guys got close, we were going to jump up and scare them.

We both heard the sound of the elevator door open on the ground level, and I could hear the sound of Chris and Garrett's voice.

Suddenly, we heard a click and the lights went out. It was pure darkness, but we heard Chris and Garrett laughing, so it was obvious that they had turned off the light.

My heart started racing, but I felt Jimmy right next to me. I hesitantly reached out and put my hand on top of his. He didn't say anything, but he looked over at me briefly. It was too dark to see his face clearly.

"We know you're down here, guys. We can smell the $1k." That was Garrett's voice.

The lights went back on, and we heard their footsteps coming towards us. I moved my hand off of Jimmy's, and then suddenly, I saw Chris' face peering over the shelf.

Chris sounded excited when he spoke. "Perfect! $500 each."

I felt like I was going to throw up from how scared I had gotten, but I didn't say anything.

We all went back upstairs to meet up with the rest of the group to figure out what to do next.

They had already used one of those "ghost-detecting meters" earlier. One of the closets in our hotel room made the meter go absolutely crazy, and there were several parts of the hotel, like one of the balconies, where the ghosts were clearly trying to communicate something.

"Let's use the Ouija board and see if we can get anything good with that," Jimmy suggested.

Chris took the Ouija board out of his bag and set it up on the floor in one of the areas where the ghost-detecting meter had gone crazy. Everyone sat down on the floor around the board. Hesitantly, I also sat down, cross-legged, farther away from the board than anyone else.

"I'm going to cry," I stated, half-jokingly. I didn't need to see what the Ouija board did.

"Come here," Jimmy said softly.

I looked up at Jimmy and saw that he looked concerned. I scooted over to him, and he put his arm around my shoulder to comfort me. Heat was emanating from his body like he was a human furnace, and I subtly moved a little closer to him because the room was ice cold.

Instantly, I felt more relaxed and a lot safer with Jimmy's arm around me. Luckily, none of the guys made any comments about it.

Jake started with the Ouija board, asking, "Is there a spirit there?"

The planchette moved over to "yes", and then it paused for a moment.

"Are you going to kill us?" Chris asked, (hopefully) jokingly.

The planchette started moving back and forth, and it was only after paying a little more attention, it started to make figure-eight patterns on the board.

"I wonder what a figure-eight means," Chandler mused.

We all tried to Google it at the same time, and I'm pretty sure we all went pale. The figure-eight meant that there's likely an evil spirit trying to take control of the board.

"Maybe we should stop," I suggested. Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly), no one questioned it, and we packed up the board and headed back to the hotel room.

~*~

It was about 2am when we got back up to the room. There were only two full-sized beds, and there were seven of us. Two people could probably fit to a bed, and there were a few sleeping bags for whoever didn't get a bed.

Chris smiled. "Ladies first."

"Thanks!" I jumped right on one of the beds.

Jake and Tareq claimed the other bed.

Nobody seemed to want to share the bed with me, which I guess would be a bit weird for everyone involved. "I feel bad taking the whole bed to myself."

"You heard her, Jimmy; go join her," Garrett said, laughing.

Chandler looked over at me and grabbed a sleeping bag. "The floor is more comfortable anyway."

"If no one else wants the bed," Jimmy started to say.

I'm pretty sure Jimmy's face was just as red as mine as he went to lie down on the bed, right next to me. There was an extra blanket folded up on the bed, so at least we didn't have to share the blanket... not that I would've minded, but this was already a lot.

Once everyone had settled in to their bed or sleeping bag, we turned the lights off.

"Sorry in advance, but I move around a lot in my sleep," I whispered to Jimmy.

He chuckled. "Same."

~*~

I woke up to the feeling of Jimmy's arm wrapped around me, and our faces were maybe three inches away from each other. His touch felt so, so good, and it was so comforting. I was careful not to move; I didn't want him to wake up and take his arm away from me. It felt so right.

It was still dark outside, and everyone else was still asleep. I was able to sneak a peak at the clock on the nightstand in the hotel room and saw that it was a little after 4am.

It was cold and Jimmy was so warm. I adjusted my blanket a bit and then fell asleep again, a smile on my face.

~*~