Abigail and I held back while Hutch followed Brett up the walk of the next house.
“He’s gonna be a great dad,” she mumbled to her wine tumbler.
“Mm-hmm,” I replied, taking a sip of my own wine.
Obviously, since it happened a couple weeks ago, I’d told her about Hutch and my elevated relationship status.
Fortunately, Abigail wasn’t in the mood to rub it in.
“This street is crazy,” she said.“It feels like there’s twice as many people here as there were last year.”
I wasn’t there last year.
But she was right.
It was packed.
Then again, it was amazing.
The decorations were off the hook.
We went through the “haunted house,” but they’d fashioned it so it was fun for all ages, and as such, it wasn’t scary.
Kimmy had given the Christmas apparel a rest and was wandering around in full witch (green face, neck and hands, hooked nose and everything), fake casting spells on everybody and cackling loud (God, I loved that woman).
And Harry put cruisers at each end of the street to block it off from traffic so it was safe.
Thus, there were games in the middle.
A pumpkin painted cornhole board, white Solo cups with eyes drawn on them to look like ghost faces stacked up so you could bowl them over, a big piece of plywood with orange balloons attached in the shape of a pumpkin you could throw darts at.
There were kids running around, adults standing in huddles and gabbing, all of this serenaded by synced spooky Halloween sounds and music that came from speakers on the residents’ porches.
The rule was, you had to bring your own container, because most of the houses had adult beverages, so wine was poured, beers were handed out, or you could select hot apple cider, loaded or unloaded, or hot chocolate, also loaded or unloaded.
Every house on the block was in on it.
And every house on the block had a donation bucket out for the Stony Bluff Animal Rescue and Wildlife Sanctuary.
I saw this play with the cruisers, and why Harry embraced it.
If everyone (or most of them) was in one place, you could keep an eye and keep any possible bad shit contained.
But if my man being my official man, and Abigail being my newest bestie, Emma being adorable, Liam too, Brett being amazing, Mrs.Matthews, Mark, my store making it—if all of that didn’t make my decision to stay in Misted Pines…this did.
“They have the regular big cannie bars, Mommy!” Emma shrieked, taking me out of my thoughts at the same time underlining them.
Hutch was saying thank you to the woman at the door while Emma pulled on his hand to get moving back to her mom.
“Thank you,” I said, my eyes on them, catching Hutch turning and heading our way.
At the sight, my gratitude dug deeper.
I felt Abigail’s eyes on me.“For what?”
I turned to her and hooked my arm through hers.“If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.”
She got a knowing look on her face.
