Chapter 14 #2
Mitch raised an eyebrow at him. “Not much of a gamer, are you?”
“Oh, in all my copious spare time? No, I’m not. I’ve been on the road too much.”
“They make portable gaming systems. Like, you know, the Switch.”
“I actually have one of those, but I have to admit I use it mainly for things like Animal Crossing and food cooking games. I need a repetitive task game in order to fall asleep.” His nieces and nephews constantly teased him about his shitty taste in video games, but he couldn’t help it. He liked to play what he liked.
“Well, I like Animal Crossing. I play it with the girls. They love to build things on their islands.”
“See, there’s something else we didn’t know about each other.”
Mitch waggled his eyebrows. “Well, we don’t want to lose all the mystery, do we?”
He bumped hips again on the pretext of hanging a bunch of twinkly lights around the back of the opening of the Suburban. “You kidding me? Trust me, you have plenty of mystery. And even if you didn’t, I’d want to discover you over and over again.”
Mitch cleared his throat. “Now who’s getting a little adult?” He loved it though. His eyes were flashing and his grin was wide.
“I can’t help myself. You inspire me.” Cam finished up hanging the lights and then checked all the candy. “I think we’re set up. What do you think of the monster mouth effect?”
“I love the teeth, and the tongue was a neat touch.”
It was a pink blanket that was Rachel’s, but they had put a stripe of black construction paper down the middle of it and then folded it up so it looked like a tongue.
“All right, so now we hand out candy and make sure your kids don’t run off into the ether.” Cam searched the crowd for said kids.
“Rachel’s with your mom, she just attached herself to her again.
Sarah is with Teresa, wandering around, you can’t miss her inkblot self, and Bekka is with the other older Girl Scouts, over there in the spotlight.
” Someone had set up a wildly swirling rainbow light in a clearing.
Thumping music played from someone’s fancy speaker, and the kids were having a ball.
“I think they’re doing some sort of interpretive dance. ”
“Or maybe a TikTok dance?” Cam thought he had seen this weird jerky thing they were doing wasn’t the floss, but kind of looked like it, on one of the videos the girls had insisted on showing him.
“God save me from all these TikTok dances. I keep telling the girls they have to take dance classes so they can figure out what real dancing is supposed to look like. Standing in one place and jerking isn’t it.”
“Well, it is for a high school dance,” Cam pointed out. “That hasn’t changed.”
“I know, but I think Rachel wants to do ballet and jazz.”
“I had a sister who wanted to do that stuff. She watched that Dance Moms show.” Cam pulled out the fancy-ass folding chairs he’d bought at the Walmart, then put a butt cushion on one for Mitch. “You want a Coke or a glass of tea?”
They were all saving the beer for when they got home, at least on the Halley/Gonzales side of things. Over at the barbecue area, there might be beer. But that had a contained element to it anyway, to keep the kids away from the fire.
“I’d take a diet, man.” Mitch was a weirdo. He loved the taste of Diet Coke.
Leanne wandered by and dropped the baby off in Mitch’s arms without so much as a by-your-leave. Mitch didn’t seem to mind though, cuddling in and rocking her nice and easy. Little Elizabeth was dressed as a puppy—Toto, obviously. Leanne’s family was doing the whole Wizard of Oz thing.
Lori and her family were doing The Addams Family, which was adorable because their Wednesday was Sarah and Teresa was the bubbly roommate from the TV show. It was adorable.
Lizzy wasn’t there. She was working at the hospital, but Ramsey had all the kids up here, and they all did, in theory, have costumes on.
The triplets were Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber, or maybe Tammy was supposed to be Alice—her wig was on one of her brother’s head, and she was wearing a beanie.
The younger set of twins were dressed up as The Shining pair, and, of course, the older set were unicorns dancing with Bekka. He had to admit that was adorable.
His second-to-youngest sister wandered over, a hangdog expression on her face, her shearling coat surrounding her like a cape. She stood there for a minute, shaking her head at him. “Really? I thought you were the cool one.” Then she winked at Mitch and stuck her tongue out at Cam.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am cool. I am the king of the kids trunk or treat. What are you dressed as anyway?”
“Can’t you tell?” She opened her jacket, and the shirt said, Homicidal Maniac across the front. “We look like everyone else.”
“Nice.” Mitch chuckled and shook his head.
Cam waved to the cooler, offering her a drink. “I’m surprised to see you out here. Why aren’t you somewhere having a party?”
She shrugged. “I sort of got broke up with, so I’m absolutely not going to Denver for Halloween.”
“Ouch.” At least she was already home and not stranded in the city.
She shrugged. “That’s what I get for being— it doesn’t matter.” She glanced at Mitch.
“It’s cool, sister. He knows what poly means; he’s bi.”
“Labels, labels, labels.” She rolled her eyes. “I had a married couple I was talking to, and I thought one thing, and they thought something completely different. Don’t tell Momma.”
“I didn’t even want you to tell me.” Cam rolled his eyes at her. “God, you think I’m going to talk to Momma about this? Don’t you have a sister you can discuss this kind of thing with?”
“Are you kidding? Diana is old.”
Mitch started chuckling, the sound barely held back.
“I mean, seriously, she’s, like, ancient, and she’s been married since she was seven. You mean she’s like the most boring, normal queer human being on earth—married, babies, executive job, house in the suburbs.”
“Oh my God, really?” Because he was thirty, poor Diana was six years older. Although he supposed five years and eleven years was a relatively big difference. “Well, you’re welcome to come hang out with us.”
“Yeah, no. Thanks, though. I appreciate it, but I’m going to go find a bar and see what kind of trouble I can get myself into.”
“Cool, no driving,” he warned.
“All right, Dad, I get it. I promise if I have more than a couple, I’ll call Stephen to have him pick me up.”
“That’s my girl.” Cam just wanted her safe. “And God, don’t ever tell me about your love life again. I’ll have to scrub my brain with bleach.”
She giggled, looking happier than she had a few minutes ago, anyway.
She grabbed a chair and sat with them, handing out candy and admiring costumes. It was adorable.
Rachel came and checked in quite a bit, getting hugs and reassurance before finally crawling up into the Suburban and wrapping up in blankets with a couple of the other smaller kids. Soon the back end of that vehicle was filled with little people, but at least they were warm and safe.
Mitch seemed in his element, laughing and telling jokes with people admiring each and every costume, and the son of a bitch knew who every one of them were—every weird pop culture anything, Mitch got it.
Not only that, but he spoke Spanish to all the Spanish-speakers that were there, switching back and forth as easily as he took a pair of glasses out of his pocket.
“Por supuesto, Senora Pecina. Puedo aydarte.”
“Gracias, Senor Mitch.” Mrs. Pecina headed off, leaning hard on her cane, her great grandbabies in tow.
“I didn’t know you could speak Spanish.”
“I work with a lot of people who were born in Mexico. At first, I was just trying to keep up with conversation. Now, it’s good to be able to talk to folks. It’s beautiful language.”
“I probably understand a little bit more Brazilian Portuguese than I do Spanish, I’ll be honest.”
“Bull riders.” Mitch looked around, lowered his voice, and said, “I bet you and Brazilian bull riders get along just fine.”
“Listen to you.” That was true. They did go along pretty good. Some of those men were hotter than fireworks in July, but well, he reckoned he was taken now.
“So what were you agreeing to do?”
“Oh, she has a hole in the roof. I’ve got a couple of guys who owe me a favor and some extra shingles in the shed. I’ll just go have them run up and patch it. They’ll do it for a twenty each, and that way she’s dry and warm.”
“Nice.” Cam liked that, how Mitch might just be getting back on his feet, but he was always happy to help. That was why people had wanted to help him so much, and Cam was starting to get this whole small-town thing now like he never had as a kid.
Sarah came drooping over with Teresa right about the time it really started to get dark. “Can we get in the backseat? We don’t want to wake up the little kids.”
Oh lord. She was so ironic and hand-staple-forehead.
Mitch’s lips curled a little. “Sure, baby girl. There’s more blankets. Once I know your sister is done unicorning and comes to get her bag, we’ll head out.”
“Okay, Daddy. You and Cam are cute handing out candy.” Yawning, she opened the back door and the girls crawled in on the floorboards, because the one seat still had a booster for Rachel, wrapping up and chatting, head-to-head.
Mitch gave him a look full of hilarity and mouthed, “Cute?”
“Right?” He held up his hands as he whispered it, then handed out candy to another bunch of kids, two of which he thought had already been around once. That was okay. There was plenty of candy left.
“Tamales, Cam? Or a hot dog?” One of his sisters-in-law’s sisters—was that what he should call them?—came around with plates of adult food in hand.
“I’ll take the dog.”
“And I’ll have the tamales and we can split both,” Mitch agreed.
“So cute.” Katia handed them the plates.
“‘Cute’. There’s that word again.”
She winked and sashayed off, and he glanced at Mitch. “Am I missing something?”
“I guess word has spread we’re sharing a bedroom.”
His cheeks heated, and he laughed, the sound coming out a little loud and nervous. “Oh, God, is this how my siblings felt when they did this?”
“I would bet so, yeah.” Mitch shrugged one shoulder, which was fab, because even a week ago, that had been too hard. “It’s a hard thing for some folks to accept, and for others, it’s an aww moment. You’ll get the gamut of reactions.”
He guessed Mitch ought to know. He’d had to deal with this with Allison, and then they’d ended up married and having kids. So people had probably done nothing but talk about them for years.
He could handle it.
Mitch was worth it. He was learning that too.
He looked around, because the candy kids were at a trickle.
Most families were now sitting and eating, every so often someone chatting at them as they went by.
Bekka was with the Girl Scout girls in a herd of unicorns, all of them on a blanket with their poufy skirts, all of them munching burgers and dogs, which had appeared at the grill station.
And they were damn good too.
“You want half the dog?” he asked.
“You mind if I just eat these? The green chile is perfect.”
“You go for it, man.” He was way more willing to ditch the hot dog bun if he got too carby than he would be to get rid of the masa on the tamales.
“Cool. I want some candy, too. I admit it. Reeses.”
“I saved out a full-size Snickers and an Almond Joy.” He loved those silly coconut candies with the chocolate. So yum.
Bekka burst into giggles across the way, and Mitch smiled, his expression tender.
“You having a good night, babe?” Cam needed to hear it.
“This is the best Halloween we’ve had since they were babies, hands down,” Mitch told him. “Thanks. It means a lot.”
“Hey, I just work here in support.” He gave Mitch a broad wink, though, because he was tickled as a pig in shit. He loved being able to help.
And seeing Mitch smile like that? That was worth all the weird hoops they’d jumped through.