Page 29 of Where We Belong

I grin. “So you’re my Bond girl after all?”

“If you ever repeat this, I’ll have to end you,” she says with a straight face.

“Oh, look, Crabby’s back.”

She rolls her eyes, but can’t hide her soft grin when she says, “Never left.”

I smile too as I look at her. She came. It shouldn’t make me this happy that she decided to come hang out with me after all, but it does. And when she looks up and finds me happily gazing at her, she doesn’t comment on it.

She glances behind her shoulder at the space where music is coming from, children shrieking while running with potato donuts held between their sticky fingers and teenagers screeching inside the haunted house. I tried it yesterday when the actors were rehearsing, and I will neither confirm nor deny that I almost peed my pants once or twice.

Lexie clears her throat. “So, uh, how’s your sister?”

“Good. She’s…” I bob my head a few times before turning toward her. “Actually, no, she’s not. Or she is, but I think she’s in a bad spot, and it’s killing me a little.”

She chews on her lip. “I’m sorry. That must be hard.”

“Yeah. It’s fucking me up, to be honest. I just can’t figure it out. Why she’d decide to stay with a man that’s bad for her.”

Lexie’s skin pales. One of her hands starts scratching at an already raw patch of skin on her other wrist. “I really wish I had the answer to that.”

I lean forward. “Did you…”

“My mother had a lot of boyfriends when I was younger,” she spits out, almost too fast for me to catch. “I spent most of my time asking myself the same question.” She doesn’t look at me when she finishes, playing with the short curls framing her face.

I want to answer something, anything, but I come up empty. I never expected her to actually give me information for free.

“No, you say it,” a little voice whisper-hisses, forcing me to look away.

“Oh my god, how did you escape prison!” I say in a frightened voice before I cower and drop candy into the bags of two Marvel villains, which makes them laugh out loud. “I promise I won’t tell anyone you were here, my lords.”

The two boys try making scary faces, but fail when they break out into grins.

“Happy Halloween,” I say. They don’t answer, but I hear their laughter as they run all the way back to their moms.

When I take my seat again, I find Lexie smiling wide, no snark present. No trace of her previous confession either.

I like having this kind of smile directed at me.

“They were pretty cute,” she says.

“Don’t you meanwewere pretty cute?”

“I didn’t misspeak.”

I snort with a shake of my head. “Can’t you give a guy just one compliment?”

“I guess I can say you have a very nice scream.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I heard you when you tried the haunted house yesterday.” She tilts her head. “I think all of Vermont did.”

“Oh, shut up,” I say, laughing.

Now that we’re in complete darkness save for the fairy lights strung through the trees lining the driveway, the place feels more remote from the rest of the farm. Colder too.

“Shit, you must be freezing like that,” I say, finally noticing her arms are bare.

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