Chapter 6
The crowd parts around Kai like the sea.
He’s leaning up against his car, still wearing his Miles Morales costume from the dance.
Sweat dots his brow despite the cool evening chill, and his smile is so radiant you’d think he’d just won the lottery.
Fellow superheroes stop to ogle the detail in his costume—the latex so perfectly molded to his shape it’s like it was created with him in mind.
“’Sup, Peter.” Kai greets the little boy also dressed as Spider-Man with a fist bump, adding a salute for Captain America. The kids giggle to themselves before pulling Kai in for a selfie. He throws up a peace sign and sticks out his tongue playfully, the perfect image of a hometown hero.
While looking over the photo, Kai catches sight of me behind a coven of witches. Even with my hood pulled down over my face, he straightens up and waves me toward him. A new twinkle sparks in his eyes, but I don’t let myself believe it’s because of me.
“Look who showed up after all,” he says once I reach him.
My starry-eyed grin falters. “Sorry, was I—”
“No, no, bad joke,” Kai apologizes before I can finish.
There’s a rosy tint to his cheeks when he ducks his head sheepishly.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he says so quietly I’m not sure if I really heard it or just heard what I wanted to.
But the smile he shoots me as he blinks up from beneath his thick, full lashes makes my heart pound so fast it doesn’t matter if he did or didn’t.
“You look…” I trail off, mouth dry as I struggle to find an adjective that isn’t cringe, creepy, or worse: both.
“Amazing,” I finally settle on, and it’s not an exaggeration either.
The attention to detail in the costume is precise and intricate.
The latex is stretched so tight across his toned body it makes my cheeks warm.
It’s clear from the fabric alone that this isn’t some lastminute Party City costume.
This is something that was made with time, love, and care.
Kai beams as he lifts up his left arm and flexes his biceps. He’s far from the thick-as-a-brick muscles you expect from comic book heroes, but the bulge in his upper arm is still impressive enough to make me gulp.
“Made it myself,” he says with a wink. “Took all of my summer job money and a few fights with Grandma’s sewing machine, but I think it was worth it.” He gestures to the spider emblem on his chest before looking up at me and quirking a brow, as if looking for approval.
“Definitely worth it,” I say around a laugh, body as light as air within just a few seconds of seeing him again.
The sweetness of the moment is soured when I spot a group of kids in matching Minecraft costumes headed our way, heads bowed together as they whisper to one another—their eyes focused on me.
In the rush of seeing Kai in his costume, I hadn’t noticed that my hood had fallen away from my face.
I quickly yank the hood back up, plastering on a too-tight smile for Kai and nodding my head toward his car.
“Ready to go?” I ask, hoping I don’t sound as desperate as I am. I can feel the heat of the kids’ eyes on me against my back. They won’t do anything. They never do. But just because they aren’t lunging at us doesn’t mean they can’t still hurt me.
There’s no way Kai doesn’t know about me, my family.
Yet I’m still holding my breath for the moment he decides I’m not worth the effort.
That one day he’ll hear the whispers and see the way people glare at me and decide that he thinks I’m a monster, too.
But for now, he just nods and says, “Here, let me take your bag.”
After tossing my bag into the trunk, Kai heads to the driver’s seat, and I’m prepared to slide in beside him up front, but a small white box is sitting on the seat.
Kai picks it up before I can accidentally squash it, the flush returning to his cheeks once I’ve sat down and closed the door behind me.
“I know it’s been almost two weeks, but I had to get you something,” he explains before handing the box to me with a sheepish smile.
With my heart hammering in my chest, I delicately pull open the lid on the box, unsure what I’ll find—bracing myself for a prank but hoping for the best. Nestled between layers of wax paper is a purple-and-orange-frosted cookie shaped like a bat.
Above it, a marshmallow speech bubble with “boo!” written in chocolate frosting.
“Happy belated birthday,” Kai says as I stare down at the cookie in open-mouthed shock.
I only snap out of my daze when he nudges his arm against mine, the simple touch making my skin ignite so suddenly I nearly jump out of my seat.
“You’re not allergic to nuts or gluten or anything, are you?” he asks with wide-eyed concern. “I definitely should’ve asked you that first.”
I shake my head softly, answering him by taking a bite out of the bat’s left wing.
It’s delicious. Perfect. And as I break off a piece of the bat’s other wing to share with Kai, watching him accept the offering with a smile that never fails to light up my day, I know that I didn’t make a mistake coming out tonight.
This weekend, and all its risk, will be worth it.