44. Ethan
ETHAN
The Butcher’s Den always felt different on the last night.
Halloween was tomorrow, and the season was over.
Something shifted in the energy—the actors moved faster and pushed harder, because they knew it was the last time they’d get to do this for at least a year.
Lights flickered on and off as final checks were completed.
The low hum of machines blended with voices, footsteps, and the occasional test scream from somewhere down the hall.
I felt like I was moving through water.
Since I had decided not to sell the house or the store, I had felt good, steady. Clear. But tonight that clarity had a gap in it: the size and shape of a specific person, and no amount of moving through corridors and checking props was going to fill it.
I pressed the radio. “Miles. You good on the west side?”
“Yeah. Fog machine’s working again. I think it just needed a good kick.”
“Glad you have the diplomatic skills.”
“I also have the brawn,” he yelled, too loud for the radio.
“Sure thing, buddy.”
“You coming in the back?”
“In a minute.”
I clipped the radio back and looked down at the mask in my hand.
I hadn’t put it on, hadn’t gotten dressed.
Wasn’t going to tonight. I’d decided somewhere between arriving and now that I was better suited to crew—checking lights, running the radio, making sure everything held together from behind the scenes.
I handed the mask to Paul as he jogged past.
“You’re not wearing it?” he asked.
“Not feeling it. Staying crew tonight.”
He grinned and pulled it on without missing a stride. “Your loss. This one gets reactions.”
“That’s why it’s my favorite.”
“I see permanent dibs on it didn’t last long,” he said, moving away. “I’ll make sure to radio you if someone pukes.”
“Always the friend.”
He laughed and disappeared down the hall, already in character.
I exhaled slowly and went back to checking lights and adjusting props. Small things that kept my hands busy without doing anything useful for my head. Every time I stopped, she came back.
I pushed it down and kept moving.
I was heading toward the operations room when I remembered—Camera Six. Still unplugged from the electrical test earlier. I changed direction and jogged to Hallway Six, hoping to get there before the guests filtered through.
The building was fully alive now, dark, loud, and electric. Again, Miles forgot the damn music. I rounded the corner into Hallway Six—
And stopped.
Salem stood a few feet down the hall with her back to me. She was gripping my jacket behind her back.
Paul was in front of her, my mask on his face.
“I know this is going to sound…” Her voice was thinner than I’d ever heard it.
Paul tilted his head.
I didn’t move. What was she talking to Paul about?
Salem stepped closer. “I messed up.”
The words didn’t come out defensive or rushed—they came out quiet and certain.
“I thought I was being smart. Like I was getting ahead of something before it turned into a problem. That’s not what I was doing.
” Her voice softened into something more honest. “I was running. Lucy’s words in that text sent off an alarm in my head, but it was not for the reasons it looked like.
I panicked and put that on you. That wasn’t fair. ”
My chest tightened.
“I really did have an amazing night.” There was something raw in her words. “I’m sorry I bolted like that.”
I realized Paul and I usually looked a lot different, but with his black zipper hoodie unzipped at the chest, you couldn’t see his tattoos, and our hair color was the same.
“I was scared,” she admitted, quieter. “Not of Lucy. Not really. I was scared of how it felt to be with you, of how fast it happened, of how you didn’t date and how you were moving away.”
Paul held very still.
“I told myself I was being direct, that I was making a clean decision, that I was protecting us from something messy. I wasn’t. I was avoiding it. I was avoiding you.
“I should have stayed. I should have stayed. Asked you what I meant to you instead of pretending I didn’t care about the answer.
I should have known my reaction was about my own shit and not about yours at all.
” Her breath hitched. “I cared. That’s the truth.
I cared the second this started, and I know it’s only been a month, but—
“And when I left,” she continued, quieter but somehow heavier, “I thought if I walked out first, it wouldn’t hurt as much.
Like I could control it. Like I could leave before you had the chance.
I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to walk away from this just because it’s complicated or because I’m scared of what it could turn into.
“…I’m in love with you.” She shoved the jacket at Paul. “And I wanted to return this. Sorry about that, too.”
Everything in me went still.
Slowly, like he was trying not to break something already fragile, Paul pulled the mask from his face. “I am extremely flattered… and also deeply uncomfortable. And if I’m being honest, I think you’re really great, but …”
Salem blinked. “You’re not”—her voice caught—“you’re not Ethan.”
“I am not,” He confirmed gently, stepping back. “Were you—was all of that meant for Ethan?”
She covered her face with both hands, the jacket crumpling against her cheek, a sound escaping through her fingers that was somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Oh, my God.”
“Hey.” He held up his hands. “For what it’s worth, genuinely excellent speech.”
“Please stop talking.”
“I mean it. If I were Ethan, I’d have kissed you already.”
She dropped her hands, her face flushed, and her expression was caught somewhere between mortified and completely undone. “I need to”—she gestured vaguely—“find the actual Ethan.”
“I feel like he heard you?” Paul pointed past her shoulder.
She turned and stopped.
There I was, leaning against the wall, trying to hold my expression somewhere between calm and the smirk I couldn’t keep off my face.
Her expression shifted—shock, then softer, then something that looked a lot like fear. Her gaze dropped to the jacket still crumpled in her hands, and she held it to me. A single, wordless, completely defeated shove in my direction.
I took it.
Neither of us spoke.
It felt exactly like the first night—the two of us in this hallway, the fog and the dark and the charged air between us, neither of us pretending we didn’t know what this was.
Except now, we knew what this was.
“You heard,” she said.
“Yeah.”
I set the jacket on a prop shelf behind me without looking, crossed the hallway, and kissed her before she could say anything else. There was nothing left to say, and everything left to do. I had been waiting long enough.
Salem made a small sound against my mouth, and then her hands were in my collar. She kissed me back like she had been carrying that too and was finally, finally setting it down.
When we pulled apart, she pressed her forehead to mine. Our breaths were uneven, the hallway still dark and loud around us.
“I can’t believe I told Paul I loved him,” she whispered.
I chuckled. “He’s never going to let that go.”
“Ever,” Paul said from somewhere behind us, entirely unbothered.
She laughed—the full kind, surprised out of her—and I pulled her closer and held on. Her heart beat against my chest, steady and real.