“Stop talking,” I said, reaching up to kiss him. “It’s amazing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed. He was making me become a softy. “Thank you.”
He smiled, hugging me tight into his arms as we found our own seats a short space away from where, of course, Ryan always found himself in the cemetery. I laughed as I sat down, and he pulled out a black witch hat from behind him.
He promptly flopped it on his head. “Now, we have everything.”
I adjusted the hat on my head, twisting around the floppy brim so it wasn’t in my face. “Is that right?”
“I don’t know about you, but I think we did pretty good.”
The two of us looked over the quintessential setup for our early Halloween. Lanterns burned, and people rushed back and forth in dumbfounded delight at what they found lighting up the hill above campus.
It was the exact event I had planned—and hadn’t—but it didn’t need to be perfect anymore.
“We?” I scoffed jokingly. “I’m pretty sure this was my idea to start with.”
“I’m the one who decided to share my secret spot.”
“You’re the one who infiltrated mine,” I argued, thinking of my seat in the library.
Ryan chuckled as he leaned down toward my ear. An arm looped around my shoulders. “Is that what we are calling it now?”
“You’re such a weirdo.” I rolled my eyes as I held on to his hand. “How did no one find that out before now?”
“No one cared to notice much about me. Not even me until you. Do I need to remind you that you bewitched me? I’m yours for every weird and crazy way you have planned out for me in this life, Luella Pierce.”
There he went again with thePride and Prejudice. I never did ask him how he had done on that first paper to end his literary courting saga.
“What a monster I’ve created.” I reached up, brushing a loose wave of his hair back over his head. It didn’t stay still in the wind, which whistled before there were bursts of conversation around us. “A witch and a sappy ex-jock.”
“I’m not sappy. At least, not full time.”
I let that hang in the air, fueling another string of laughter. I loved to hear him laugh.
“Fine. We created that wonderful combination,” he conceded. “Along with our forever.”
I glanced back up at him again, undeserving of him and all the amazing things that came with him I never gave thought to ever having. It still didn’t quite make sense how all this had happened to us so simply, so quickly.
“Is this some sort of record or something?”
“Us?”
I nodded.
“College time is different,” he explained with a shrug. “Though we did have a good three years before we managed to finally be each other’s, so…probably not.”
I giggled into his side.
“But that’s all right,” Ryan made sure to add.
The moment I had first seen him at first-year orientation felt like decades ago. When I’d found him sitting in my chair, it felt like a year ago. Now that we were side by side, it didn’t matter what two months later was. I looked forward to all the rest of the many days, months, and years we could sit right there together.
There might not have been a charm for forever, but I was pretty sure, right now, being together, looking up at the stars, was close enough.
“Happy Samhain, Lu.”
