Page 13 of Pumpkin to Talk About

“Do it again!” she cries, jumping up to shut the door in Mike’s face. She runs across the room, grabs two of her friends, then waves Nicholas over, too. They all line up in front of the door, then one of the little girls opens it.

This time, Mike sways back and forth a little before he pops his eyes open and winks. The kids all devolve into hysterical laughter. It’s music to my ears.

A small crowd gathers, and before they shut the door again, he catches my gaze. His wild, scary smile softens, and his decapitated head nods at me. I shake my own, but the grin is permanently stuck to my face for the rest of the night.

After a few hours, parents make their way inside to drag their tired, protesting children home. I don’t envy their job of trying to calm down kids wired with too much candy and fun. When I open Mike’s door to tell him the night is over, he looks so happy. It melts my heart.

“Time to clean up?” he asks. Shit, it’s really nice he offers to do that, too.

“No,” I say. “We leave most everything up through Halloween. The eyeballs get thrown away, obviously”—I pull a face, and he laughs—“and the mystery doors will have book displays behind them, but everything else can stay.”

“Oh.” He sounds disappointed as he comes out from behind the door. “Cool.”

The way he lingers would suggest that he’s not ready for the night to be over yet. And, truly, neither am I. I’ve been looking forward to these interactions with him. When Chase called in sick, I could have asked eight other people to come help, but I texted Mike first. I wanted to see him tonight. That has to mean something.

I clear my throat and straighten my spine. “Some of the teachers do a post-party bonfire down by the river. Do you maybe want to go?” And then I add, “If you take that gruesome-as-fuck costume off. I’m not going anywhere with you looking like that.”

The smile on his face grows impossibly wider. “I’d love to.”

Chapter 9

Mike

“What is this?” I lift a brown bottle out of the cardboard carrier at my feet. Belle offered to grab some beer before she picked me up, but this bottle has a giant jack-o’-lantern on the side.

“It’s a pumpkin beer from a brewery in Austin.” She doesn’t take her eyes off the dark stretch of road in front of us.

I look at her incredulously. “You drink this?”

“It’s local,” she says by way of explanation.

“It’s pumpkin,” I counter.

Her blue-violet eyes flick my direction, then back to the road. “Are you surprised because it’s sweet, or because it represents a holiday you despise?”

“I don’t hate Halloween, per se,” I say, reeling back in my seat, but even I can hear it’s unconvincing.

She barks out a harsh laugh. “Who are you trying to fool, me or yourself?”

There’s no time to answer her, though, because we pull up next to a handful of cars in a little alcove near the river. She pointedly plucks the beer off my lap and gets out of the car, and I scramble to follow.

Off in the distance, there is a small bonfire already raging. About fifteen people in varying states of costume are scattered around. A few sit by the water, looking out at it. Some are laughing by the fire. Others seem to be strolling along a path away from where we’re parked. Belle saunters up to the group, waving and chatting with people as she passes. You’d think with it being such a small town that I’d recognize at least one or two of the people here, but they mostly seem to be transplants from surrounding towns, or they married someone whose name I do recognize but don’t see here.

In fact, it doesn’t seem like anyone brought a guest from outside the school. I don’t know if that’s supposed to make me feel weird or special.

There are two large, blue coolers sitting a little ways away from the fire. Belle unloads her beer into one, saving a bottle for herself. She takes out another and wiggles it in my direction.

“When in Rome?” she asks playfully.

I shrug. “Sure.”

She uses an opener on her keychain to pop off the tops. I take one from her and sip from it, letting the liquid swish around in my mouth a little.

“Hmm,” I hum thoughtfully. “It’s more spiced than sweet. Very fall.”

Her eyebrows tick up as she smirks. “I’m a bartender. You really think I’d steer you wrong?”

I search her eyes, on fire with twin reflections of the flickering flames. “No,” I say finally. That one word feels weighted with meaning, though I’m not entirely sure what I’m trying to convey. Annie was right when she said I do not need to sleep with Bluebell Allen and then go back to Indiana. It would be wrong to lead her on like that. Again, apparently, if that kiss in high school meant to her what I think it did.