As I trailed off, knowing she could see right through my terrible lying skills, Beryl stood up, still holding the shoes. God, they were hideous.
“Will you put them on for me, Greid?” she asked solemnly.
I glared at her, my ears fluttering madly. “Why don’t you put them on?”
“They’re in your size.”
“That’s just… a coincidence!” I grabbed the shoes with a huff. “Fine.”
Face hot, I shoved the ugly shoes on and straightened. All the bristles immediately bent under my weight, making me topple forward and pinwheel my arms until I managed to catch myself against the wall. “Oh my god, they suck.”
Beryl was snorting with laughter, her nose running and tears leaking from her eyes. “Can you even walk in them?”
“I don’t think—” I tried taking a tentative step forward, lifting my leg high as if that would soften the impact. I wobbled precariously, but it worked, so I did it again.
“You look—” Beryl was practically crying, almost doubled over. “You look like a cat wearing socks.”
“I shouldn’t have showed you that video,” I muttered, but snorted with laughter as I found my stride and managed to make it down the hall, still walking like an idiot. “Did it.”
“Well done,” Beryl said, wiping her eyes as I sat on the stairs to pull them off. “Are you actually gonna use them? What are they even for?”
“They’re for cleaning your porch steps,” I grumbled. “They seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Really?” Beryl glanced back at the front door. “Are our porch steps really dirty?”
My face spikes flexed with pleasure at hearing her call them our porch steps. Beryl saw this as her home—our home—and that made me embarrassingly happy.
It also made me realise that she deserved to see all of it. Sighing, I gave her a resigned look, the ugly shoes dangling from my fingers by their Velcro straps. “I guess it’s time I showed you my Room of Shame.”
“Your what?” She stilled, eyes snapping with excitement. “Wait… the mysterious closet?”
Coughing awkwardly, I admitted, “It’s not actually a closet.”
A closet would have been far less embarrassing than an entire room filled with crap like this. Heaving myself up from the step, I turned to head upstairs. “Come on.”
“Wait.” Beryl pointed at the other package when I glanced back. “What about that one? Is it something similar?” she asked, far too eagerly.
“I can’t actually remember ordering anything else,” I admitted sheepishly. Leaving the ScrubShoes on the stairs, I hurried over and snatched the package up.
Beryl laughed as I turned my back on her to open it, just in case it was something even worse than the ScrubShoes. My shoulders slumped in relief when I tore open the box and realised what it was.
“Okay, well,” I said imperiously as I turned to face her, “it’s actually something for you, but maybe I won’t give it to you now that you’ve mocked me for the shoes.”
Except I was already passing the box to her, because I couldn’t deny Beryl anything.
Her eyes lit up as she took it. “It’s something for me? Is it my own pair of ScrubShoes?”
I huffed. “No.”
Shifting self-consciously, I watched as she pulled out a pair of small, fluffy bootie slippers. “Um, these ones should fit you.”
She beamed up at me, green eyes still a little glassy from crying with laughter. “They’re amazing. Thank you so much, Greid.”
“S’okay,” I mumbled, face spikes flexing with pleasure as she immediately put them on.
“It’ll be nice not worrying about tripping and breaking my neck as I go up the stairs,” she said with a laugh. She hesitated before darting forward to give me a hug. “Thank you, Greid.”
“S’okay,” I repeated in a strangled voice, wanting to clutch onto her and not let go.
She stepped back and fixed me with a stern look. “Okay, show me the closet. Or not-closet.”
“Okay,” I croaked, quickly turning for the stairs to hide my twitching ears. It did things to me when she got bossy like that.
I realised Beryl had grabbed the matches when she stopped on the stairs to start lighting the wall sconces.
“We can just use the lights,” I told her. “Sorry, I took a nap before coming to meet you and woke up late.”
“No,” she said stubbornly, moving to light the next one. “I know you don’t like them.”
My chest squeezed tight. Fuck, I wanted to kiss her so bad. “Thanks,” I rasped.
“Besides, I prefer candlelight now too.” She kept her gaze fixed on the next wall sconce as she lightly asked, “It’s kind of romantic, isn’t it?”
I managed to get out a strangled, “Um, yeah. I’ll help.”
Fumbling to grab a match from the box, I struck it and started lighting candles with her. By the time we reached the third floor, I was feeling less antsy. Doing this always soothed me, and I loved it on the nights Beryl helped.
The nerves returned as we stood outside the door to my Room of Shame. Taking a deep breath, I opened it and felt around on the wall for the light switch. Candles in here were a bad idea, given the amount of cardboard and cheap, ridiculously flammable fabric.
Beryl blinked in shock at the mountain of boxes stacked precariously along the sides of the room. In the centre was a pile of stuff I’d gone through at one point or another while looking for something I’d bought, but a lot of it was still in the boxes, never used.
There were a lot of boxes.
“Greid, is this…” Beryl took a single step inside, eyes wide. “Is this all stuff like the ScrubShoes?”
“Yeah,” I admitted, voice thick with embarrassment. “I have a problem.”
Wandering deeper into the room, she picked up something that looked like a broom with a vegetable peeler attached to the other end. Smoothing out the clear plastic still encasing it, she peered at the label.
“No more dirty chopping boards!” she read out loud. “Sweep up your vegetable peelings from the floor as you’re peeling them!”
Putting it back down, she picked up something else. “The E-B-Phones! Can’t stand the feel of headphones covering your ears? Studies have shown that we can hear music just as well through our eyeballs. Just sit back, pop on the E-B-Phones and enjoy your favourite tunes. Not recommended for use while carrying out other tasks.”
“Okay, yeah, that one seemed like bullshit,” I grumbled. “I couldn’t even find any of the studies online.”
She choked on a laugh, looking around the room before giving me a wary glance. “Do you… actually feel like you have a problem? Like, you wish you didn’t buy this stuff but you can’t stop yourself?”
I cocked my head. “Nah, it’s not, like… an addiction that I can’t control. I’ve just done it for a while, so it all starts piling up and… I dunno. The infomercials get me. I’m a sucker.”
“Well, I mean, I think it might be a teensy addiction, Greid. A lot of this stuff looks like it’s never even been used. Most of it.”
“I’ve used some of it!” I protested. “Our onesies. And slippers. And a few other things.”
She gave me a smile. “Okay. Well, why don’t you donate whatever you haven’t used?”
I cringed. “I’ve thought about it, but then people will know I’ve bought all this stuff.”
Shrugging, she said, “I don’t mind taking it. I don’t care.”