The memory of this party could haunt him forever ... Dragged along to a haunted house by his mates, Sam’s at the Halloween party from hell -- the guy he fancied has turned out to be a bigot, and Sam has just outed himself to his whole football team. Escaping to the garden, he meets James, an enigmatic stranger with a mischievous smile, and the evening soon takes a turn for the better. The night may be chilly but the heat between Sam and James is hotter than Hades. But James has a role to play in the evening’s ghostly entertainment, and it’s a story with a deadly ending. Unless Sam can change the script and stop history repeating itself, “till death do us part” will come sooner than he thinks.

Trick or Treat

“Listen,” Sam said, before his brain could catch up with his mouth and tell it to shut up. “That was bloody amazing—I mean, you’rebloody amazing. I thought maybe we could, you know, keep seeing each other? If you want to?”


James looked stricken. “I’m sorry—I can’t—I have to go.” 


Sam watched in disbelief as James just turned and ran through the tall grass and weeds, back to the house.


It hit him with all the force of the bleeding obvious. Christ, James was with someone. Someone at the bloody party, had to be.


“Fuck!” he shouted, kicking the nearest tree. That it happened to be the one they’d just had the best sex of Sam’s life against seemed painfully fitting.


Sam had planned to stay in the garden until he’d finished the bottle of vodka, but every drink he took reminded him of the taste of it on James’s tongue. After a while Sam just chucked it in a patch of stinging nettles in disgust.


Chapter 4