Page 88 of Left-Hand Larceny

“He is,” Ragnar says fondly.

I hesitate. “Can I come?”

He pauses at the door. Turns back.

“I just—” I wave a hand vaguely upward, toward the rest of the house. “My parents are probably waiting with coffee and veiled judgment.” There’s no way they didn’t notice my hasty departure last night, even if they haven’t clocked the redheaded goalie that made me see God. “I’d rather hang out with a sock-eating menace.”

And if we only get this one time, I’m not ready for it to end.

He studies me for a second. Then smiles.

“Yeah. Come on.”

I don’t know what I expected from Ragnar’s house.

Probably something sleek and sterile like Vic’s—one of those open-concept, professionally decorated McMansions in a gated community where the HOA mails passive-aggressive letters if your front hedge isn’t trimmed into the right shape.

Instead, we pull up to a small blue house with a cushioned porch swing and a crooked welcome mat that says

HOPE YOU LIKE DOG HAIR

The neighborhood is quiet and a little quirky—porches cluttered with pumpkins and scarecrows, one house already strung up with purple Halloween lights, another with a ten-foot skeleton holding a giant coffee cup and wearing a pair of mouse ears.

It’s perfect.

“Wait,” I say as we walk up the steps. “Do you give out candy on Halloween?”

Ragnar glances back at me. “What?”

“Do kids come by? Trick-or-treating? You must get a ton of them here.”

He looks genuinely confused. “Uh… I guess? I’m usually not home.”

“What?! That’s a crime.”

He frowns. “Missing Halloween?”

“Yes!” I say, laughing. “It’s the best holiday. Costumes, sugar, light trespassing. What’s not to love?”

He unlocks the door and lets me in. “We didn’t really do Halloween in Iceland.”

I pause just inside the threshold. “Really?”

“It’s not a big thing there. Some of the bigger cities have started doing the costume-and-candy thing, but it’s only gotten popular in the last decade or so.”

“Wow. Okay. So, this is where I tell you the entire history of Halloween. Buckle up.”

Ragnar ushers me across the front threshold and closes the door behind us. He leans against it, arms crossed, visibly amused.

“So,” I begin, already pacing. “It started as Samhain, right? Ancient Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest and thestart of winter. Supposedly, the veil between worlds got thin. People wore masks to confuse spirits, and—Ragnar, are you laughing at me?”

He shakes his head, but his mouth twitches.

“I think you’re cute when you ramble.”

I flush and point a finger at him. “You’re lucky I like you.”

He wraps his hand around mine, pulling me into the heat of his body. We’re close. So close, but not quite touching.

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