Chapter 13
Noelle
I was still in that floaty, post-orgasmic euphoria when we said goodbye to Beau's family for the night and climbed into his truck to go back to his place. I'd had more sex in the past twenty-four hours than the previous year, and I was very eager to get back to his bed.
Until, of course, I got distracted by the main event of the Gloaming Festival as we drove down Main Street.
Since this afternoon, the town had transformed. Paper lanterns bobbed from the trees like will-o’-the-wisps, strung between streetlamps and signposts. Storefronts glowed with flickering candles and painted sigils—symmetrical flowers and corn dollies and arcane spirals.
“What the hell,” I muttered, craning my neck out the window. “Is this…normal?”
Beau slowed the truck, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “More or less. This is the last night of the festival. Everything gets real witchy.”
“Real witchy?” I echoed, eyes locking on a guy juggling flaming torches next to the pharmacy.
“Don’t worry,” Beau said, reaching over to squeeze my thigh. “Nobody’s gonna try to baptize you in moonlight or sacrifice a goat or anything.”
“Great,” I said. “Because I left my goat-sacrificing knife in Austin.”
Beau laughed, but I didn’t. Because just then, we turned the corner past the hardware store—and the city park came into full view.
And Jesus Christ.
The whole place was lit up like some kind of low-budget renaissance fair mated with a traveling circus and gave birth to a pagan fever dream.
String lights crisscrossed the lawn, pulsing soft gold.
Someone had rigged aerial silks between two of the big oak trees, and a girl in a leotard and glitter paint was spinning slowly, upside down, like a spider on a thread.
Fire spinners worked the open space in front of the bandstand, arcs of flame lighting up the night in dizzying patterns.
Drums pounded low and hypnotic, and people danced barefoot in the grass—some of them in flowing costumes, others in jeans and flannel, like this was just another Saturday night.
It was beautiful.
And completely unhinged.
“There’s a fire pit in the shape of a pentagram,” I said flatly, staring through the windshield.
“Yeah…welcome to Willow Grove.”
“Can we stop?”
Beau glanced over at me, then scanned the street for parking space. It was completely packed. “Yeah, but…let’s go back to my place and grab Milo; we can walk.”
“He’ll be okay?”
Beau snorted. “Long as he doesn’t tackle a fire spinner, I think he’ll be fine.”
We pulled into the driveway a few minutes later, Milo already in the window, tail going berserk. By the time we opened the door, he barreled out like a cannonball, nearly taking me off my feet as he wriggled against my legs.
“Hey, buddy,” I laughed, crouching to ruffle his ears. “Wanna go to a pagan block party?”
Milo sneezed in my face.
Beau chuckled. “I think that’s a yes. You wanna take a second to change since our little uh…woodland rendezvous?”
I cocked my head at him. “Why?”
“In case you were um—” he cleared his throat. “You were pretty uh…”
“Wet?”
“That.”
I smirked, standing up to whisper in his ear. “Does it make me a freak that I kind of like how naughty it feels to have your cum dripping out of me?”
He didn’t respond.
I took a step back, finding him staring like I’d just broken him. When he still didn’t say anything, I plucked Milo’s leash from his fingers and gestured over my shoulder.
“Come on, buddy! You want to go to the park?”
Milo barked once, loud and triumphant, like thank God someone’s got their priorities straight, and trotted down the porch steps ahead of us.
Beau caught up to me halfway down the sidewalk, still looking a little shell-shocked. “You cannot just drop shit like that and then act normal.”
I shrugged, feigning innocence. “Why not?”
“Because,” he hissed, “I’m a simple man, Noelle. I got maybe two functioning brain cells left after everything you’ve already done to me tonight, and now you’re walking around with my cum inside you, looking smug about it, and expecting me to behave?”
“I never said anything about behaving.”
“Jesus Christ.”
But even as he cursed, he was grinning…and I was struck once again by how much I liked him.
The noise from the festival was so loud that it reached all the way down the street, making my heart pound in time with the drums that sounded up ahead. Beau slipped his hand into mine, my other hand gripping Milo’s leash, and leaned down to murmur in my ear.
“Hey,” he said. “I didn’t even get to ask…you on birth control?”
I huffed out a surprised laugh. “Yes, God, of course. I have an IUD—so any dirty talk about babies is purely hypothetical for now.”
“For now?”
I chanced a look up at him. “Beau, I’ve known you for three days.”
He shrugged. “Give us three more and we’ll be married with kids, given how fast we’re movin’ so far.”
“Do dogs count?”
Beau chuckled. “You lookin’ to get another dog?”
“I was thinking something a little smaller and less violently affectionate,” I said. “Don’t tell Milo.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know…a chihuahua?”
Beau shook his head with an incredulous laugh. “I’m sorry, have you ever met a chihuahua?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Yes. They’re tiny aliens with Napoleon complexes. I love them.”
“That tracks,” he muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He gave me a once-over. “You’re about five foot nothing, mean as hell when provoked, and you bite.”
“I don’t recall you having any problem with my biting last night,” I teased.
Beau looked like he was about to respond, but then Milo barked as a group of kids raced past us holding what looked like voodoo dolls.
We’d reached the edge of the park.
The crowd had thickened. Bluegrass music meandered across the lawn, blending with laughter and the hiss of fire tricks.
Milo tugged against the leash, trying to chase a man on stilts dressed like a moss-covered forest spirit.
Kids darted between booths with their faces painted, and somewhere nearby, someone was roasting something that smelled borderline sinful.
“This is fucking wild,” I whispered.
Beau grinned. “You haven’t even seen the weird part yet.”
We wandered in deeper, navigating through knots of townsfolk and tourists. Someone handed me a cider slushie without me asking. Someone else tucked a flower behind Beau’s ear. No one seemed surprised to see us.
It was like they’d already written us into the story.
The music shifted as we reached the center of the park—less pagan ritual, more backyard jubilee.
A trio of old-timers with banjos and a stand-up bass had taken over the bandstand, and someone with a fiddle absolutely shredded their way into a reel that made the whole lawn seem to vibrate.
People clapped in time, stomped their boots, and whirled their partners with an enthusiasm that bordered on dangerous.
I sipped my cider slushie, eyebrows raised. “Okay. This is not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?” Beau asked, rubbing Milo’s ears as the dog sat at our feet, overwhelmed but valiantly trying to keep track of everything at once.
“I don’t know,” I said, watching a couple who couldn’t have been older than seventeen swing each other in wild circles near the stage. “Something more…satanic?”
Beau barked a laugh. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Oh, I’m not disappointed. This is objectively delightful. It’s like if a Halloween hayride and a hoedown had a love child.”
Beau nodded sagely. “That’s the brand.”
“You know I could do a whole podcast series about this town,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure no one would believe me.”
“Good; wouldn’t want the place turnin’ into a tourist trap,” Beau said. “Although…a series seems like an awful good excuse to stay.”
I tilted my head, considering it. “You know…that does seem like something that could keep me here for a while. And it gives me a chance to dig into the really tough questions—like why every single man in this town is hotter than any man has a right to be, and whether that’s a government conspiracy or a side effect of exposure to leylines. ”
Someone nearby let out a sharp whistle. A group of dancers parted like a curtain, revealing a large open circle forming just beyond the main bonfire, where two girls had started calling out a square dance pattern in unison—one singing, another signing along in ASL with brightly painted hands.
It was charming as hell. Weird. Inclusive. Cozy.
And utterly surreal.
“You wanna dance?” Beau asked, catching my eyes lingering on the bonfire.
I scoffed. “I do not dance.”
Beau raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
“Very sure,” I said, sipping my slushie with as much finality as I could muster. “I’m a watcher. An enjoyer of vibes. Not a participant in…whatever this is. Plus, I’m not drunk enough for public humiliation, and I still have half a slushie.”
He looked around the dance circle, where an elderly man was twirling a woman in a bedazzled denim vest, then back at me.
“Funny,” he said, sliding a hand around my waist and tugging me a step closer. “I don’t remember you having a problem with public anything a few hours ago.”
I gave him a look. “Dancing and getting railed against a tree are not in the same category.”
He leaned in, voice low and teasing. “So what you’re saying is…I need to take you back to the woods if I want to see you move like that again.”
My face flushed. “You say some pretty inappropriate things for a man who claims to have been raised right.”
“You’re the one who was just talkin’ about certain things between your thighs,” he said—even as he took my slushie and downed it, wincing.
“Jesus, Beau!”
“Brain freeze,” he laughed. “Yikes…but, hell, it takes away your excuse.”
“What?”
He caught my hand and tugged me toward the circle, Milo trailing along behind us as if he couldn’t wait to see what this strange new game was. A couple kids caught his attention and he wagged his tail, barking.
“Beau, I’m serious,” I started—but then the caller’s voice rang out, rhythmic like she was casting a spell.
“Bow to your partner, bow to the corner, swing that girl and never warn her!”
And somehow, impossibly, I was spinning.
Not gracefully. Not on beat. But spinning.
Beau caught me before I could stumble, steadying me with both hands at my waist. I was laughing—god, I was actually laughing—my head tipped back, cheeks aching from the smile that had taken over without my permission.
“See?” he said, breath warm against my temple. “Told you you could dance.”
“I can’t,” I said, breathless.
“But you’re doing it anyway.”
We fell into a rhythm that wasn’t really dancing so much as swaying and half-stumbling with confidence. Milo barked somewhere at the edge of the circle, probably appalled at our lack of form, but Beau didn’t let me go.
Not even when the music picked up.
Not even when I tripped a little over someone’s discarded scarf.
He just kept moving with me like he knew how to catch every fall before I could make it.
And I let it happen.
Let the weirdness wash over me…let the music sink into my bones. Let myself be part of something without asking how long it would last or when I’d leave.
Beau spun me under his arm, pulled me back into his chest, and whispered, “You’re not gonna forget this, are you?”
I looked up at him, breath hitching. “No,” I said. “I really don’t think I will.”