He smiled like a man who’d been wandering the desert and discovered that the oasis he’d seen was real.
“Yes!” Logan shouted, pumping his fist in the air.
Both teams erupted into clapping and congratulations, and the marching band struck up “We Are the Champions.”
It was all too much for Ash.
He turned to go to his studio. But a small hand tugged on the hem of his hoodie.
It was Jordan. He must’ve run over while Ash was watching his prospects with Cassidy plummet off a cliff.
“Do you wanna come eat spaghetti with me?” Jordan asked. He already had tomato sauce on his adorable little face.
Ash gave him a sad smile. “Maybe another time, bud. But thanks for the invite.”
“Okay,” Jordan chirped. “Because I like you, and I think you’d be a better big brother than Ricky because he farts too much. So I’m gonna wish on a star tonight that you and my sister can be friends, and then we’ll get to hang out a lot.”
“You do that,” Ash said.
Wish for the both of us.
Jordan ran back to the patio table where Cassidy’s mom and dad were dishing out massive piles of spaghetti onto paper plates. Ash looked in Cassidy’s direction one more time. But she’d been consumed by the huddle of girls, and Logan was waiting at the edge of the crowd for her to emerge.
It’s where Cassidy belonged, with the athletes who could persuade entire marching bands to serenade her. She deserved to be showered with attention and adoration and grand gestures. Not stuck with an artist with two left feet, who until today, couldn’t even manage to whisper in her presence.
“Goodbye, Cassidy,” Ash said.
He trudged alone to his studio and left his heart in the hole in the fence.
Ash hunched over his worktable, single-mindedly focused on the masks so he wouldn’t think about Cassidy anymore. In front of him were four backup masks that were “naked”—they only had a layer of white acrylic paint on them—and two nearly finished ones that belonged to Mayor Grimjoy and Mr. Brightside. One was a bronze sun with glimmering rays that practically radiated warmth; the other was a moon with dripping black paint all around the eyeholes, like gothic eyeliner, and a mouth full of pointy,Nightmare Before Christmasteeth. The masks—and the couple they were destined for—were so different on the outside yet so perfect for each other on the inside. If only Cassidy felt that way about Ash.
He cursed himself for already failing to not think about her.
Focus!
Ash opened a papier-mâché box. It was slightly lopsided, due to the fact that he’d made it in kindergarten (his first ever project with paper and glue), and it was painted in orange and red fingerprints in the shape of an autumn tree. Now this served as Ash’s “miscellaneous” box of sequins, beads, rhinestones, and other trinkets useful for decoration. He picked a handful of silver teardrop gems for Mr. Brightside’s mask and glued them on, one by one.
When that was done, Ash attached gold-foil streamers to the sunbeams on Mayor Grimjoy’s mask. He had barely finished the last one when his phone rang. He usually turned the ringer off when he was working, but Ash had kept it on this time so that he wouldn’t miss the mayor and Mr. Brightside.
“Asher, we’re here!” the mayor sang from the phone.
“I’ll be right out,” Ash said.
He gathered the sun and moon masks and hurried through the backyard.
Do not look through the fence. Do not look through the fence. Do. Not. Look.
To avoid hearing the cross-country team, Ash hummed loudly to himself and miraculously got into the house unscathed by the raucousness next door.
He strode through the living room and opened the front door.
“Hi, Mayor Grimjoy, Mr. Brightside. Would you like to come in?” Ash said, once again deploying the manners his mom had taught him, even though the last thing he wanted was to hang out with his biology teacher and the too-cheerful mayor.
Mayor Grimjoy bounced into Ash’s house, practically dragging his husband with him. Even without his midnight-gala mask, Mr. Brightside already looked like the prince of darkness, with his gothic, black velvet coat with tails, blood-red epaulettes on his shoulders, and a black satin cravat at his throat. His pants were black brocade, and his pointed boots were polished to a grim shine. A black cape finished the look.
In contrast, Mayor Grimjoy’s Halloween costume was a ceremonial military uniform made of warm yellow fabric and embellished liberally with gold braiding. Polished bronze fasteners served as buttons, and a half cape of fiery orange and red gave the impression that he was composed entirely of the sun’s rays.
Internally, Ash sighed. These two really were the epitome of coupledom. Even though the mayor was basically an overgrowncamp counselor and his husband was the prince of darkness, they never wavered in support of each other. In fact, Ash had noticed that they were often saying the same thing, even if one version came out like a cheer and the other like a doomsday prophecy.
