Nineteen.
Shea
There’s a specific joy in watching a six-foot-two mountain man scowl at a bow tie. “It’s crooked,” Rhett says, tugging at it in the mirror of my suite bathroom.
“It’s supposed to be a little crooked. It’s charming.
” I bat his hands away and fix it myself, smoothing the collar of the chambray work shirt I tailored to fit across his shoulders.
It took some doing, since his shoulders are blue-collar made.
I tuck it into high-waisted trousers, add suspenders, and a soft newsboy cap.
Finishing it off with a measuring tape looped at his belt for authenticity.
“There. Did anyone order a classic, old-school handyman? You look good enough to eat, babe.”
He eyes himself in the mirror. “I look like a fella from an expired soup can.”
I can’t stop giggling. “You look like every girl’s fantasy from 1954.
” I step back to admire my work, and my chest does a little flip, because he’s wearing it.
He grumbled the whole way through the fitting last week, held still while I pinned, let me measure his inseam with a straight face and a slowly reddening neck—and now here he is, in a costume I made with my own two hands, because I asked him to.
I haven’t made a ‘costume’ since I was a kid. I’d forgotten how much I loved the freedom in the creativity of it.
Back before my father’s world taught me that the only clothes worth making were the ones with someone worthy wearing them…
“You going to put yours on,” Rhett says, teasing, “or just stand there gettin’ misty over my suspenders?”
“I’m not misty.” I am a little misty. “Turn around. No peeking.”
I catch him watching me in the mirror as I shimmy into a cherry-red halter dress with white polka dots, nipped tight at the waist and flaring out at the knee.
I finish it off with a red lipstick, a silk scarf knotted in my curls, and seamed stockings I will absolutely regret by the end of the night.
When I turn around, Rhett’s gaping. “Baby.” His voice is pained. “You can’t wear that.”
My stomach dips. “What? Why?”
He crosses the room and settles his hands on my waist, thumbs brushing the cinch of it. “Because now I’ve got to walk you down Main Street in front of my entire family and I’ll be spending the whole night aching to take you in it.”
I smile wide. “High praise, Mr. Handyman.”
He steps back, spinning me slowly in front of him. “You made this?”
“Yup. Mine and Callie’s.” I turn to face him, smoothing his crooked-on-purpose bow tie. “We’re matching. Best-friend pin-up solidarity.”
“And mine.”
“And yours.” I meet his eyes, and something soft and dangerous passes between us. “I wanted us to…you know…match.”
His grin is slow, but he doesn’t call me out on the obvious ‘couple costumes’ I made for us. He kisses me instead, full of everything we’re not saying out loud. Until a voice from the living room ruins the moment.
“Seriously? Are you two making out? We’re gonna be late and I am not telling Parker why we missed the ninja meetup.”
We break apart and I press my lips together to fix the lipstick. “We’re coming!”
Tyler’s by the door in the Scream costume he swore up and down was the only cool costume.
He’s wearing the black robe and his Ghostface mask is shoved up on top of his head so he can see his phone.
He’s got a pillowcase for candy, because he refused the bucket I offered.
But he’s here. In costume. Waiting impatiently by the door.
And acting like a kid for once.
“You look terrifying,” I tell him.
“I look sick,” he corrects, flipping the mask down, then immediately back up because he can’t see. “Can we go? Willa said her family’s already there.”
“Ah. You hear that?” I share a look with Rhett. “Willa’s waiting.”
Rhett chuckles, clapping Ty on the shoulder on the way to the door, entirely too amused. “Come on, killer. Let’s get you to your girl.”
“She’s not my—” Tyler groans, following us out. “I hate both of you.”
He doesn’t. And the fact that he can say it now, easy and eye-rolling instead of sullen and armored, makes me smile the whole way to town.
Main Street looks like a Norman Rockwell painting got into the Halloween candy.
The whole strip is strung with orange lights and cornstalks lashed to every lamppost, hay bales and carved pumpkins clustered outside each shop door.
Kids swarm the sidewalks in a blur of superheroes and witches and at least three other Ghostfaces that make Tyler mutter under his breath.
Cup O’ Joe has a cider station out front.
The hardware store has a fog machine going.
Somewhere a speaker is playing Monster Mash and a gaggle of parents are pretending they aren’t the ones who requested it.
I’ve been to Halloween parties that cost more than some people’s cars. Rooftops in the Hills, open bars, celebrity DJs, everyone in couture…
None of it ever felt like this.
“There they are,” Rhett says, and I follow his gaze down the block, and—oh.
Oh, no. Oh, this is perfect.
The Montgomerys have colonized the entire stretch of sidewalk outside the bakery, and they are, as a unit, a lot to take in.
Butch is in full football pads and a jersey, while Cassidy bounces beside him in a cheerleader skirt shaking actual pom-poms, and baby Gage rides Butch’s shoulders in a tiny padded football costume, gumming a foam finger.
Duke and Maci have gone full farmer, overalls and flannel and straw hats, and Olivia is the roundest, reddest strawberry I have ever seen, toddling between them being adored by strangers.
Clayton’s got half his face done up in grey corpse makeup and a bolt through his neck, delightedly scaring passing toddlers. And Julie is…
“Is your mom dressed as Betty Crocker?” I ask.
“Every year,” Rhett replies. “Same apron since I was a kid. Do not ask where she got it or we’ll be stuck here for an hour.”
And then, unmistakably, an inflatable T-rex—roughly seven feet tall, arms uselessly tiny, waddling down the middle of the sidewalk toward us while children scream with joy—heads our way.
“Levi,” Rhett and I say at the same time.
The dinosaur throws up both stubby arms in greeting and nearly falls over.
“Shea!” My name cuts through the music, and then Callie’s barreling toward me in a pin-up dress that’s the mirror of mine—hers in electric blue with white polka dots, red scarf, red lips, the whole thing. “You look amazing. Oh my god, we’re the cutest people here.”
She grabs my hands and we do a little squealing spin right there on the sidewalk, two grown women in stockings and it’s so stupid and so joyful that I don’t even care who’s watching.
At the end of Callie’s leash, Hulk sits patiently with a headband of green Shrek ears and his working vest, which Callie has decided is close enough to an ogre’s waistcoat that she’s been calling him ‘Sir Shrek’ all evening.
“He hates it,” Callie says fondly, scratching his ears around the headband.
Hulk sighs the sigh of a thousand indignities.
Behind her, Beau strolls up in jeans, a long-sleeved thermal pushed up to his elbows, boots, and his usual unhappy expression with, as far as I can tell, no costume whatsoever.
“Let me guess,” I say. “You’re a scary man who won’t dress up.”
“I’m a veteran on his day off,” Beau says flatly, and hooks an arm around Callie’s waist, pressing a kiss to her temple that softens his whole face for exactly one second before the scowl resets.
“He said the pin-up dress was costume enough for the both of us,” Callie stage-whispers. “For the record, he’s very into the—”
“Callie.”
“—costume.”
Before I can enjoy Beau’s ears going red, a small black-clad missile launches out of the crowd and collides with Tyler’s legs.
“Tyler!” Parker, in full ninja regalia, has attached himself to Tyler like a barnacle. “You’re Ghostface! So cool.”
I watch my too-cool stepbrother look down at the six-year-old worshipping him, flip his mask up, and say, “We gotta hit the hardware store first. They’ve got full-size bars.”
Parker’s face transforms in awe. “Full-size.”
“Come on.” Tyler offers a fist for Parker to bump, and the two of them head off down the sidewalk.
Lily calls, “Stay where I can see you!” after them from where she stands, glittering in a full princess gown, looking every inch the former model even with a plastic tiara on her head.
“He’s good with him,” Lily says, drifting over as we watch the boys hit their first spot. “Parker’s been talking about ‘the big kid’ for two weeks.”
I smile. “I think he likes being looked up to for once.”
Lily glances at me, something knowing and a little sad in her pretty face. She nods. “Yeah.”
Rhett’s hand finds the small of my back, warm through the polka dots. “Walk with me?” he murmurs against my ear. “Ma’s got the little ones for a bit. I want to show you something.”
I let him steer me away from the family cluster and down the sidewalk. We walk hand in hand like we truly are together, that I’m his, and he doesn’t care who knows it. After the jobsite incident, the difference is uncanny.
And the town—the town knows me now. That’s the thing that keeps catching me off guard.
Peggy from Cup O’ Joe waves from her cider station and calls, “The usual’s on the house tonight, hon.
Happy Halloween!” The man from the hardware store nods at Rhett and then at me, “Miss Shea,” like I’ve been walking these sidewalks for years.
A woman I helped once, simply held a door while she wrangled a stroller, stops to tell me she loves my dress.
He stops us in front of an old brick building at the end of the street. Wavy, ornate glass and a faded WHITETAIL MERCANTILE sign painted high on the side, barely legible.
“There,” he says, nodding up at it. “1911. Same year as your craftsman. Whoever built your place built half this street.” He slides his hands into his suspenders, staring up at the old brick. “I used to walk past it as a kid and think somebody ought to bring it back.”