18. Ethan
ETHAN
By mid-afternoon, the front lawn of the Butcher’s Den had turned into the kind of chaos you paid other people to manage.
Kids wove between tables with painted faces starting to smear, sugar on their fingers, and their Kool-Aid cups sloshing dangerously close to disaster as they ran past each other without any real direction. Their parents followed a step behind.
Gray Harbor had let the sun out today. The coast carried warm, salty air through the carnival in soft bursts, golden light sitting over every booth and table, the kind of October afternoon that almost made you forget what the season usually felt like.
Music played low through the speakers.
I sat behind a folding table with a brush in one hand and a paper towel in the other, trying to salvage what had started as a spider and had quickly devolved into something I could have produced in third-grade art class on a bad day. The kid in front of me stared into the mirror.
“Is it supposed to look like that?” he asked.
I glanced at the mirror, then back at him. “Depends. You ever seen a spider before?”
He didn’t smile. “I said vampire.”
I looked at what I had drawn. Then back at him. His mom covered her mouth with her hand.
“You did,” I said, reaching for a wipe. “But your vampire sounds suspiciously like a spider.”
I steadied his chin and redrew the lines. When I handed the mirror back, he studied it for a long moment, his doubt easing into approval.
“Okay,” he said, grinning. His missing teeth lined up like the black keys of a piano. “That’s better.”
“I aim to please.”
He slid out of the chair and ran off, and I set the brush down and flexed my fingers, letting out a quiet breath. The repetition had settled in—paint, wipe, adjust—simple enough that I didn’t have to think too hard.
“Nice vampire.” Salem stepped up beside me. There was paint on her hands, a streak of color across her wrist, and glitter catching faintly in the afternoon light along her forearm.
“Careful. You’re dangerously close to sounding impressed.”
“If the hardware store doesn’t work out,” she said, glancing at my setup with a smirk, “looks like you found your calling.”
“I think I’ll leave face painting to the professionals.”
She glanced at the line stretching past my table, then back at me. “Hand cramp?”
“Little bit.”
“Take a break.” She pulled the chair closer. “I can fill in.”
“I’m fine.”
“I know. Move.”
I stepped aside. The next kid climbed into the chair across from her, and she shifted instantly—leaning forward, elbows on her knees, voice dropping into something softer.
“What do you want to be?”
“A butterfly.”
“Perfect. Excellent choice. Close your eyes.”
I leaned back against the table, arms folded, telling myself I was taking a break.
I wasn’t.
I was watching her. The way her hands steadied the kid’s face, thumbs light at the jaw.
The way she tilted her head when she focused, brush moving in short, deliberate strokes.
The way she didn’t rush, even with the line stretching well past the table.
There was a steadiness to her that I kept noticing in different rooms and different lights, and it kept landing the same way every time.
“I am significantly better at this than he is,” she whispered to the kid, with a glance at me.
“Hey.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
I didn’t, because she wasn’t.
A few minutes later, the kid ran off with a butterfly spread across her face, and Salem brushed her hands together, tidying the brushes into their row. A volunteer beside us stepped in.
“I’ve got this for a bit,” she said. “Go take your state-mandated lunch.”
Salem looked at me, her brows lifting.
I picked up a clean brush. Pulled a chair around so it faced hers, sat in it, and held the brush up.
“Your turn,” I said.
She looked at the brush. Then at me.
I pulled my chair closer, so our knees were nearly touching, the folding table to my left within reach of the paints. The afternoon sun was full on her face from this angle.
I dipped the brush.
“No penises,” she said immediately, her gaze locked on mine.
“I’m not twelve.”
“The jury remains out.”
“Close your eyes.”
She did. I steadied her chin with my fingers—carefully, the way I had in the hallway that first night, though this was nothing like that.
That had been dark and loud and charged with adrenaline and the whole manufactured world of the Den.
This was just autumn light and the smell of paint and her sitting completely still three inches from my face.
I started with a small black heart along her cheekbone. Then two more beside it, spaced evenly. She wasn’t a Halloween person—she’d made that abundantly clear—and she was doing all of this anyway. The hearts felt right.
I leaned in to sharpen the edge of the last one with the fine brush, my left hand resting lightly against her jaw to keep her still.
“Hold still,” I said softly.
She didn’t move.
The brush was barely touching her skin at this point. I was aware of that. I was also aware of the warmth of her jaw under my hand. We’d been this close before, and it had never felt like this. I finished the line, set the fine brush down, and then I ran out of things to do.
My hand was still on her jaw. There was no next step that required me to be this close, no technical reason for my thumb to be resting just below her cheekbone.
Her eyes opened.
Found mine.
The distance between us was nothing. Not the accidental proximity of a crowd, not the manufactured tension of a haunted house hallway. Just the two of us, close enough that I could feel her exhale, with nowhere to hide and nothing to blame it on.
Her hand settled against my wrist, and my chest dropped.
I looked at her. She looked at me. I closed the remaining distance between us.
I kissed her.
I’d been circling this since the first night, and I was done circling.
She made a small sound against my mouth—surprise or relief or both . Whatever had been wound tight in my chest since the haunted house hallway released all at once, and I felt it go.
My hands moved to cup her face properly, and she leaned into it rather than away from it, her fingers finding the back of my neck, and I stopped thinking about anything at all.
I kissed her like I’d been standing at the edge and finally just stepped off it, and she kissed me back the same way.
Like we were both done pretending this wasn’t where we’d been headed since the beginning.
Everything since that first night collapsed into this one uncomplicated fact: her hands on me, my thumb tracing her jaw, paint-stained fingers, and the two of us finally, finally not pretending anymore.
I thought, distantly, that I would remember this rickety folding chair for the rest of my life.
“Ew, they’re kissing,” a child yelled. “That’s gross—”
We pulled apart.
The world came back all at once—noise, movement, sun, the obvious cluster of people standing a few feet away who had apparently been witnesses to most of that.
I sat back and dragged a hand through my hair. Salem looked at me.
And smirked.
That smirk. Unhurried. Unbothered. The same one she’d had since the first night, the one that had been giving me problems ever since, and I was realizing with absolute clarity that I was going to be in serious trouble for a very long time.
“Do you want to find some food?” I asked.
“I really do.”
Salem stood up, and I held out my hand
She took it without hesitating.