“Too bad. I mean it, buddy, no one stays home alone.”
Not out here, not now, not on Halloween, not at twelve. It wasn’t going to happen.
“Listen,” he went on. “You can come home after the girls are done trick-or-treating. It’ll be early still, and then you can watch all the scary movies you want to watch. Fair?”
Michael sighed so dramatically, but he nodded. “Yeah, that’s fair. Cool. I’ll even take Allie, if you want, around the trunk or treat.”
“I’d appreciate that. I’ll pick up a pizza.”
“Can I have pineapple, jalapeno, and ham?”
“Yes, my poor, poor boy.” He would get Michael one all for himself, and that way he could have cold pizza in the morning and feel like a real boy.
“Cool, all right, I’m ready.”
“You rock. Girls! Get your pumpkin buckets!” Ichabod nodded and grabbed coats. “Michael, can you please find Ellis for me and see if he’s ready to go while I load the girls up?”
“Sure, Dad. Elllisssssss!”
Michael started off sounding like a herd of elephants as only a teenage boy could do. Or a tween boy, he supposed. It didn’t matter; it was the same idea.
“Daddy, look at me twirl!” Allie spun around, flailing with her little wand.
“I know! You’re so pretty. Both of you are my girls.”
“Dad…” Zane was starting to sound a little frantic. “I need to go.”
He stared down his oldest son. “We all do. You understand they have this thing called texting. If you’re running late, you can text your friends and tell them that you will see them in a few minutes.”
Zane rolled his eyes. “And you tell me you don’t want me to use sarcasm.”
Chuckling, Ichabod stuffed the girls into their coats and made sure the bag he was going to take with them had all their gloves, hats, scarves, anything else they might need. It had turned off super cold super early this year, hence the snow they’d had. “Yes, but I’m the dad, so I get to use it if I want to.”
“I guess you don’t threaten to beat me, at least.” Zane wasgrinning now, the little shit, absolutely enjoying himself. It was so awesome to have him sort of back to being the young man he’d been raising for so long and not being a sullen semi-criminal.
“So do I get to meet this girl tonight?”
“I mean, sure if she’s at the pickup with Jack and his mom. If not, I promise you can meet her tomorrow when you come pick us up.”
“She’s not planning on spending the night, right?” He drew the line at that.
“No, her mom wouldn’t let her do that. She’s gonna meet us for the skiing part.”
“Well, I can live with that. Get your coat on.” He waved at Zach’s costume. “As cool as that is, I’m sure it’s not warm enough to get from here to wherever your party is. You can show it off once you’re there.”
Michael came trudging back in, tugging Ellis along with him. “Ellis is ready, Dad.”
Ichabod turned to glance at Ellis and almost dropped his teeth right out of his mouth. That fine son of a bitch was something out of a movie. He wore jeans and boots like always, but he had on a pair of fancy chaps and heavy shearling jacket over a starched shirt with his good hat in his hand. He carried a pair of spurs that jingled even without being attached to his boots.
“Wow.” And God help him, he stared, and he hoped he wasn’t drooling or that his tongue wasn’t hanging out.
“I figured this was an easy costume for me,” Ellis said. “I wanted to show you guys what it looked like, but I’ll take the chaps off to drive.”
“I can drive and then you can sit there in your chaps.” Ichabod gave him another slow once-over. “I’ll let you drive home. I promised Michael we’d pick up a pizza.”
“Pizza!” Ally cried. “I love pizza!”
“Oh, man, I’ll miss pizza.” Zane was not particularly put out; it was more like he was protesting so for the benefit of the other kids.
