Don't Go In Alone

THURSDAY OCTOBER 31

Halloween. The entire block gets really into the holiday. To the point where each year, no matter what day it lands on, there's a Halloween block party. It's called a block party, but people who don't even live on our street show up to it as well.

It's a huge thing.

Casey and Kris have come every year since I met them freshman year of high school. We don't coordinate our costumes. Not since the first year we tried and it left us all frustrated and angry with each other. I'm never touching another glitter glue pen again in my life.

I choose to stick with premade costumes bought at a store. It seems like a waste of money to shell so much out for an outfit that I'll only wear for a few hours on one night, but trust me. It's easier to spend sixty bucks and have it done than run around trying to find things that work for your costume and then have it not even come together right at the end. This year, I buy something that looks like it might be vaguely related to Alice in Wonderland. It's skimpy and I'm sure nobody will know what I'm supposed to be, but it works with my current hair color.

Kris shows up first, dressed as some horror movie monster. Her costume is complete with fake blood everywhere and contacts that make her eyes completely white. It's unnerving to look at her. It's classic Kris. She's been a horror-junkie since the first day I met her.

Casey shows up in something more tame. A character from some cartoon show that I'm pretty sure I've seen Zach watching a few times. She tries to explain what it is, even going so far as to pull up pictures on her phone. I still don't quite know what the character is supposed to be, but her costume is spot on.

We spend the first couple of hours hanging around my house, passing candy out to the trick-or-treaters. Kris scares some of the younger ones so I ban her from giving candy to the kids that look younger than ten. Zach comes home with Mom after a little while, his candy bucket full and his cheeks red from the cold.

He decided to go as a pirate this year and he looks so adorable with his fake beard and stuffed parrot on his shoulder. Mom is dressed up as a mermaid. There are so many sequins on her outfit that it's hard to look at her for too long. But she pulls the costume off nicely.

Once the sun starts to disappear and the streetlights flicker to life, the roadblocks are put out, and people start to gather in the street. Someone sets up their stereo. Music plays from speakers that someone's hidden in the trees and on the lampposts. It only takes about forty-five minutes for the party to be in full swing. There are people everywhere. Kris disappears at one point and comes back with punch and a handful of snacks.

We dance a little. Hang out with some other kids from school. Casey gets flustered when one of the girls from our cheer squad tells her that her costume is cool. People keep coming and going so we wind up seeing a lot more people we go to school with. Casey goes off with some of the kids she has drama with after a while.

Kris sticks around with me, until she decides that she wants to try to go and scare a group of jocks that have gathered by one of the streetlights. I let her go do her thing and scan the crowd for anyone I recognize. Most of the kids have gone to bed or are looking like they are just about ready to collapse in the middle of the street. I laugh under my breath when I see Mom carrying Zach back to the house.

Then something moves in the corner of my eye. I turn to look at it. There's a spot where the light from the streetlight fades out and there's a group of people standing near the edge of it, but there's a single person standing just outside of the light. In the shadows enough that I can only make out their figure.

There's a commotion on the other side of the street and I glance over my shoulder to see what it is, but it's just the jocks that Kris went to scare laughing at each other. When I look back at the figure, it's gone.

Something brushes against the exposed spot between my shoulders and I nearly crawl right out of my skin. Because I know exactly who it is even before the, "Hey, kitten" is spoken.

"Can you not touch me?" I turn to look at him and have to take a moment to really look at him. He's dressed as what I can only assume is supposed to be a circus ringleader. Only his entire outfit is monochromatic. His hair is gelled back, away from his face and the pants he's got on are so absurdly tight that I lose my train of thought for a moment.

"Sorry, it was too hard to resist." His words pull me back to reality just in time to frown at him. He gives me his most dazzling smile in return. "What are you supposed to be?"

"I don't know. The slutty version of the Queen of Hearts. I guess." I eye his costume again. Try not to stare too hard at the spot where the top buttons of his shirt are undone underneath his vest. "You?"

"I'm a ringleader, obviously. My friends came as the rest of the troupe. They're around here somewhere."

"Ah." I fix my eyes on his face but even that doesn't lessen the heat rising to my cheeks. I'm not sure what to say to him after that. He doesn't say anything, just stares at me. I fidget under his stare until I can't take it anymore. "Shouldn't you be with your friends?"

He raises one eyebrow at me. "Shouldn't you be with yours?"

I open my mouth to say something, but can't come up with anything good to counter with so I shut it and purse my lips at him instead. He laughs, reaches out to tug at one of the frills on the skirt of my costume. "Your costume looks great on you. Very cute."

I swallow, swat his hand away. I don't know what possesses me, but I hear myself say, "Yours isn't bad either. Kinda sexy, actually." My face floods with heat and I try to say something to negate the words that have just left my traitorous mouth, but he's already moving and then his face is so close to mine, his fingers brushing against my arm.

"You are," he pauses, licks his lips and I can't help but follow the movement with my eyes. It doesn't help that my eyes are almost level with his mouth. He continues, "You are so confusing, kitten."

"How am I confusing?"

"You make me think that you don't like me—"

"Pretty sure I've told you that I don't."

"—but then you say things like that to me and I don't know what to do with it." His fingers have gone from brushing against my arm to tracing along the inside of my wrist and the touch sends a shiver down my spine. But before either of us can say anything else on the subject at hand, someone yells Carson's name and he's backing away from me.

Cold air rushes to fill the space where he had just been standing and I have to rub at my arms to stave off the goosebumps threatening to rise.

"Guess we'll have to figure it out some other time. My troupe calls me." He does this overly dramatic bow that leaves me wondering how he even manages to move in those pants. Then he's gone and I don't see him for the rest of the night.

Kris and Casey find me later when there aren't that many people hanging around anymore and the music's volume has lowered.