“You could’ve backed up.” Or pulled away, which he still hadn’t done. But then again, I hadn’t moved away, either.
Lucas didn’t say anything, and I didn’t look up to see the expression on his face.
My hands on his jacket sleeves, what originally had been a grip to steady myself now turned into me not letting go. And I needed to let go. But I couldn’t pry my ten fingers apart.
The night of our breakup had been so final. Except standing here with our chests almost touching and our breath mixing, it didn’t seem final at all.
One of Lucas’s fingertips brushed the curve of my cheek, an icy touch against my blushing skin. That whisper of contact alone made me shiver harder than the October air made me, and I fought it back, not wanting him to see.
“Your skin is cold,” he murmured, that low voice cascading through me.
My eyes focused on the silver zipper of his jacket, the metal looking like crooked teeth. “I wonder why.”
“So much snark.” He shook his head, his finger trailing lower, along my jaw. “But you can’t fool me.”
Couldn’t I? Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I was fooling myself. I wanted two completely opposite things—I wanted him closer, and I wanted him away.
He had all the warmth with him, and I wanted it. I craved to dive deep into it. If his arms wrapped around me in a way they hadn’t in a while, I wouldn’t have fought it. His jacket would crinkle in my ear, and I’d tip my head up to look at him, into those beautiful blue eyes—
With a sharp inhale, I pulled back, dropping my arms and stepping away from his outstretched hand. Heat swamped my skin, no doubt turning my face tomato-red. No way would I look at him. “Come on, we should find Donnie before he gets too far ahead.”
Donnie would separate this tension. Donnie would clear my foggy thoughts. He’d say something silly about murderous scarecrows, and we’d laugh and never speak of this again.
I’d only taken a few steps back down the way we came until I realized Lucas hadn’t followed me; there were no trailing footsteps.
“Hailey asked me to the Halloween Bash.”
Everything in me tensed as dread punched its way through my stomach. I whirled around to find Lucas not even two feet from me. A part of me hoped he’d only said what he had to get me to face him, but he looked dead serious. “W-What?”
“She texted me yesterday asking if I’d go with her to the Halloween store to pick out her outfits for this week.” He took a step closer; only a foot of distance lingered between us now. “That’s when we planned our mermaid costume. While we were at the store, she asked me.”
My lips parted, ever so slightly, but no words came out. Raindrops fell harder now, pasting my hair to my skin. Distantly, I could hear faint laughing, chattering conversations that sounded nothing like this one. It felt as if I was breathing underwater. “What did you tell her?”
His lips were pressed into a tight line, but his eyes glowed with emotion. Angry, sad, or tired—what is he feeling?
“No, don’t tell me.” I lifted my hand as if to cover his mouth, but I hovered an inch away. “You should go with her. I mean, she matched her bra with yours. Totes romantic.”
“Your sarcasm is noted,” Lucas replied carefully, annoyance crossing his gaze, “but—”
Now I did put my hand over his mouth. “No buts. Seriously. Go with her. You two were really cute together—now that you’re single again, I say go for it.”
I hate, hate, hated myself in that moment, because in my effort to be biting, I also became completely transparent.
Lucas reached up and pulled my hand away, fingers warm against my skin. The wind tugged at the dark, damp wisps cutting across his forehead. No divot dented his bottom lip now, no indent above the corner of his mouth. No trace of a smile in sight. “Maybe I will, Blaire.”
“Good. There’s absolutely no reason to tell her no.” I curled my hand into a fist, trying to ignore the ghost pressure of his mouth against my palm. “We should go find Donnie.”
More words lingered on the tip of my tongue, but I turned on my heel and practically ran away. The world weighed heavier and heavier with each step I took, because I was lying through my teeth, like a coward.
There was a reason to tell Hailey no, not that I could ever say that to him. I’d made my bed in this situation, and now it was time for a long, long sleep.
“I think I’m going to be a princess instead of an old person.” Delia twirled in front of the floor-length mirror, the excess fabric of the dress belling out with the movement. She wore one of Gram’s extra princess costumes, an old one of mine that I’d outgrown. It was still big on her, way too long, but she’d wanted to try it on so badly. “Can I be a princess, Blaire?”
I sat on the floor on the opposite side of the wall, a book from English class open in my lap. For the longest time, Delia had sorted through the entire closet and the costume trunk, talking to herself, so I’d pulled out some homework to distract myself with.
With my thumb, I bookmarked the page. “You can be whatever you want, Delia. But I thought you and your friend were going as old people.”
“Maybe he can be a prince instead. Or a frog.”
“Definitely a frog. You don’t need a prince.” Talking about princes made me think back to last night at the corn maze. After finding Donnie, we’d pretended like our whole almost-kissing/Halloween Bash conversation had never even happened.
On the drive home, Lucas had mentioned that Delia had been asking when she could come over to the apartment to pick out a costume. It made me smile to think she really wanted to come, so after clearing it with Mrs. Avery—which had taken me forever to gather the courage to make the phone call—I’d swung by Delia’s classroom after school, and we’d walked home together.
Delia now twirled again in front of the mirror, pulling at the sides of the dress. “It’s a little big on me.”
I set my book down on the ground and edged toward her. “Come here, I’ll show you a trade secret.”
The dress had been made for someone older, with hips and curves, so it swamped her. The top fit Delia all right—a little baggy in the front, but the width of her shoulders held the straps well. Only the length needed help. I reached under the tulle and grabbed a good amount of excess in my hands, folding it the way Gram taught me.
“You’re not going to cut it, are you?” she asked worriedly, watching my movements.
“Nope. Folding it like this underneath the dress shortens the hemline a little bit,” I told her, and once I was sure I had the fabric entirely in my one hand, I reached toward Gram’s desk. “All we have to do is pin it in place.”
When Costume Catering had first started, we hadn’t had much in the way of costumes. Gram had a thing against going to stores and buying something from a package. “Anyone can do that,” she’d said. “I want us to be unique. I want to piece these costumes together myself.”
So we’d gone to vintage thrift stores, but most of the pieces had been so worn or so ordinary that none of them had worked. The first piece of clothing Gram had found was this princess gown. It’d needed a massive workover, though. The fabric now was a pale lilac color, but before, it’d been a dirty sort of red. Gram had completely sewn together new fabric, added more tulle, altered the bodice. A total makeover for this one gown.