Chapter 18
Ethan
My truck turned a corner, and Lily’s jaw just about hit the floor.
The line of cars appeared as soon as we reached Main Street—headlights stacked for blocks, radios clashing in the warm night air.
Pickup beds packed with kids rolled past at a crawl, arms dangling out windows, someone hollering every few seconds just to hear it bounce back from the next truck down the line.
She slapped a hand to the dashboard. “What in the world is this?”
I bit back a laugh. “Friday night cruising. Willowbrook tradition.”
“Cruising?” she echoed, eyes wide as another truck crept past.
“Every Friday,” I said, easing us into the stream. “Been going on for decades.”
She turned in her seat, watching a group of girls wave from a convertible, then whipped back to me. “You’re telling me the entire town just… drives around in circles for fun?”
“Pretty much,” I said.
Her laugh bubbled out, loud enough to draw a couple of curious looks from the next car over. “You cannot be serious.”
I was, though. Completely serious. We crawled forward with the line of cars, Lily craning her neck to take it all in. She waved back at a group of kids leaning out of a truck window, and they cheered as if she was the grand marshal of the whole thing.
She beamed, loving every second, her laughter lighting up her whole face. She was adorable—utterly, irresistibly so—and for a second, I was grateful for the dark, because it meant she wouldn’t see the way I was grinning like an idiot just watching her.
A red Chevy idled alongside us with half the football team wedged in the bed. Someone spotted me and slapped the side panel. “Calloway! You bring the city girl?” More whoops. Lily flashed them a pageant wave.
She shot me a look, eyes bright. “Do we… honk? Is there a honking protocol?”
“Light taps,” I said. “Anything more and you’ll start a stampede.”
She immediately hit the horn twice—dainty, ridiculous. A convertible ahead of us answered with a toot-toot and a fist pump. Lily beamed, already in on the joke.
We inched past the courthouse. I pointed.
“Parade starts there. Lines up along Oak, follows this same route… and then keeps going straight out to the fairgrounds. Whole town ends up there by noon. You can smell the caramel corn from half a mile away when the breeze is right.”
She went quiet for a second, soaking in the mess of it—the bass thump, the laughter, the rolling aquarium of faces. “Okay,” she said, decisive. “This is utterly ridiculous.”
“Yep.”
“I love it.”
I huffed out a laugh I didn’t mean to let slip. “Figured you might.”
She leaned half out her window to wave at a pack of girls in a Civic. “Hi! I’m Lily!” The girls waved back and hollered in that way only girls can.
Lily nodded toward the courthouse lawn. “If this is the parade route, where do the floats stage?”
“High school lot. They crawl up Elm, join the loop by the hardware store. Townsfolk will be setting up lawn chairs at sunrise to get the best seats.”
Lily snorted. “Of course they do.”
We crept another half block. Windows down. Warm Friday air. Somebody behind us started a call-and-response honk, and three cars joined in, a dumb little symphony you couldn’t buy anywhere else.
She turned toward me, hair lifting in the breeze, grin still stretched wide, and for a heartbeat, I forgot how to breathe. There was something about the way the moonlight caught in her hair, the pure, unfiltered joy on her face, that made it impossible to look away.
“Okay, coach. Lesson learned. Willowbrook is one of a kind.”
She laughed, big and unguarded, and the whole night felt lighter than it had any right to. I let the town carry us around the square one more time, just so she could wave at everyone like they were long-lost friends.
We made the loop twice before I spotted an open spot on the corner by the courthouse. I eased the truck in, and the stream of cars kept crawling past us, windows down, kids hollering loudly.
Lily hopped out, eyes darting everywhere, still grinning in disbelief. “So… what’s next on the crash course agenda?”
Before I could answer, a familiar voice boomed across the street.
“Calloway!”
Nate, Ben, and Matt came swaggering down the sidewalk, looking way too happy for men about to be publicly humiliated. Rachel, Maggie, and Sarah trailed behind them, kids in tow, all grinning.
Lily gasped, covering her mouth. “Oh my gosh. The bet.”
Maggie planted herself in front of us, arms crossed, chin tipped up. “Rules are rules, boys. Time to pay up.”
“Now?” I groaned, dragging a hand down my face.
“Yes, now,” Rachel said, already bouncing on her toes. “The square is packed. Perfect audience.”
Lily leaned close, whispering through her laughter, “You mean they actually have to—”
“Perform the whole Yellow Jackets fight song,” Maggie cut in, clearly savoring every word. “And if I don’t see some jazz hands, I’ll call for an encore.”
The guys exchanged looks similar to men headed for the gallows. Nate muttered something about moving to another state. Matt swore under his breath.
“Let’s go,” Sarah urged, clapping her hands and herding them forward.
We walked the block together, swallowed by the noise of honking horns and thumping bass. By the time we hit the town square, we were pushed front and center, standing on a picnic table under the streetlights, half the town slowing their cars to watch.
Matt cleared his throat, then we launched in:
“Here’s to Willowbrook, we raise our voices in song—”
Nate kicked a leg high, nearly toppling off the table. Ben threw his arms out as if he was leading a marching band. Matt just yelled louder to make up for being off-key. And me? I clapped overhead in a rhythm that didn’t match anyone else’s, because hell if I was breaking into jazz hands.
“Hark to our battle cry, we sing it out a thousand strong—RAH RAH RAH!”
Half the square joined in the “rah rah rah,” honking horns in rhythm. Lily was frozen in shock, barely moving with her jaw dropped.
“Here’s to our victory, we play with all our might—men of orange and black, spirit you’ll never lack so fight, fight, fight!”
On ‘fight, fight, fight,’ Ben shadowboxed like Rocky, Matt windmilled his arms, and Nate attempted the world’s saddest crane kick, nearly clipping me in the head. I stuck to a stiff-arm punch and a half-hearted kick, praying the table didn’t collapse beneath us.
The square erupted—horns, cheers, a chant of “YEL-LOW JACK-ETS!” rising from a group of teens hanging out of a truck bed.
And there was Lily, right at the edge of the crowd. She had both hands pressed to her stomach, shoulders shaking, laughing so hard she could barely breathe. Tears glimmered at the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t care who saw.
And for a split second, I forgot to sing. Because I’d never seen anything like it. God, she was beautiful. And standing there in the middle of it all, I realized just how badly I wanted to be the reason she looked that happy.
The fight song wound down with a ragged “fight, fight, fight!” and we bowed dramatically. The crowd wasn’t letting us off that easily, though.
“Encore!” Rachel hollered. Maggie wolf-whistled, and a whole line of cars leaned on their horns in agreement.
And just when I thought it was over, some kid in the back yelled, “SLOOPY!”
Like someone had lit a fuse, the square exploded.
A pack of teenagers in a pickup bed started pounding the sides in rhythm as “Hang On Sloopy” crackled through the night—raspy, joyful, pure Ohio pride.
The beat was infectious, that kind of clapping, stomping tempo that got into your bones before your brain could catch up.
Within seconds, windows rolled down, car horns honked to the rhythm, and the whole town square was alive.
From the first beats, Matt was already sliding down from the picnic table, Nate right behind him. They hit the bricks ready to dance, fists in the air, half-shouting the words everyone knew by heart, Lucas toddling after them in chaotic little hops.
Matt threw an arm around Sarah and mock-serenaded her like a lounge singer, while Ava twirled beside them, hair flying. Ben pointed at Rachel dedicating the “next one” to her.
Nate was clapping overhead, Maggie egging him on, Ian bouncing at her side, and the rest of the square fell right into sync—drivers drumming their steering wheels, old-timers clapping from their folding chairs, kids yelling themselves hoarse from the truck beds.
Someone cranked the real song through a car stereo, the speaker warbling that raw, garage-band sound that still somehow worked.
I caught Lily’s face as she stumbled into the circle—laughing, bright-eyed, flushed with the kind of joy that strips away all the polish.
She threw her arms up and shouted along with the crowd, her voice swallowed in the pulse of “Hang On Sloopy” echoing off the brick buildings and night air.
For a second, I just watched her, letting myself soak in the picture—the way her skirt hugged her hips, the moon catching in her hair, the confidence in every line of her body.
By then, it wasn’t just a sing-along. It was a small-town anthem. A heartbeat. A reminder that for one wild, perfect moment, everyone in Willowbrook was moving to the same beat.
Any other day, I'd have died of embarrassment.
Twenty-seven years old, jumping around on a picnic table, belting out lyrics I hadn't thought about since high school. But watching Lily laugh until she couldn't breathe, I realized that I hadn’t thought about the mortgage notice sitting on my desk. Hadn’t thought about Dad's empty chair at the bookstore.
For those three minutes, I wasn't the guy who shouldered everyone else's problems. I was just part of something alive and electric and real.
And that was dangerous. Because I knew this was only Day One. Tomorrow, there’d be more, more pieces of Willowbrook I’d promised to show her. Pieces of myself, whether I meant to or not.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and fell into step beside her as the crowd started to thin.
She was still laughing under her breath, humming the chorus like it had lodged itself in her bones.
The sound sent a slow, hungry ache through me, and I had to fight the urge to reach for her, to close the space between us, just to see if that warmth would spark against my skin.
And against my better judgment, I found myself hoping the rest of the weekend would leave its mark on me, too, especially if it meant staying this close to her.