Shiver : 13 Sexy Tales of Humor and Horror

Part One — Cora

Friday, October 31, 2014

7:03 A.M.

“Would you like to come in for some coffee?” he asks, waving an open hand toward his front door in a welcoming gesture.

If coffee is a euphemism for being fucked until I can’t remember my own name, then yes, I’d love some. Thank you.

As if reading my mind, he wastes no time on awkward, neighborly small talk. He pushes me through the front door of his home, and has his lips on mine before the door closes behind us. He tastes like cherry Kool-Aid, just the way I remember.

Without taking his lips off mine, he waves his arm behind us, and sweeps the contents of his dining room table onto the floor. I hear glass break as a candle holder hits the hardwood. Pieces of mail flutter to the floor behind it.

I’ve never seen that move done in real life — definitely not in my life. No one has ever wanted me enough to make a huge mess in his own house. I can’t help but wonder who is going to clean it up. Maybe he hires a maid service.

He gets a good grip on my ass, lifts me up, and nearly slams me onto the table.

I stop thinking about the mess.

“I like this aggression,” I say, trying out my best sexy voice and hoping I pull it off. It’s been a long time.

With his hands on my shoulders, he pushes me down onto the table. It’s a heavy wooden table, the kind I imagine Beauty and The Beast having in their castle.

In another act I’ve never seen outside of internet porn, he grabs hold of my white button-up shirt at my chest, pulls it up until my back arches, and then rips it open. The pearlescent white buttons sound like raindrops as they hit the table around us.

It’s okay. I can live without the shirt. It was just a boring button-up from Target. It wasn’t even that white anymore. I have the worst time keeping my whites bright.

He leans over me and bites my neck — not vampire style, just a tiny bite — as his hands creep up my black pencil skirt.

He stands up again and raises my legs straight up in the air until my ankles rest on his shoulder. I feel the stretch burn behind my knees, but I don’t mind the pain. He digs his fingers under the waistband of my pink lace panties and starts to remove them. For a moment I wonder if he’s taking the aggression a little too far for our first time. But then I realize I don’t care. I just want him. I’ve been waiting for this since I was fifteen-years-old. If my body has to take a little beating, I’m okay with it — as long as my G-spot gets one, too.

He has a dark, intense stare in his eyes as he slides my panties over my thighs, across my knees, and past my calves. He twists them around his wrist as he tugs, tighter and tighter. Without breaking eye contact, he twists until his wrist, and the knot of pink lace, rests at my ankles.

I look up at him, at his dark eyes and hair, and the neatly-trimmed beard he’s been sporting this fall. He looks more like a man than I’ve ever seen him. He’s not the teenager I remember — which is good, or I’d end up on Nancy Grace. He’s grown up and sexier than ever.

I take in the sight of my stiletto-ed feet on his shoulder and I’m glad I decided to walk Lucie to school this morning in heels. There’s something seriously hot about lace panties and stilettos. This image wouldn’t be nearly as nice if I’d worn my Skechers today.

He closes his eyes before he runs his panty-covered wrist under his nose and inhales. I think he just smelled my underwear. Is that creepy or sexy? I decide on sexy because creepy would be a mood killer, and I’m not letting anything ruin this moment for me. Not even that Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed toy on the couch. I swear that thing is staring at me.

I don’t have time to worry about Winnie because the man who just tied my legs together gives me a cocky grin. Without breaking his stare, he slowly unwinds the panties from his wrist. When he pulls his hand free, he places the lace between his teeth to keep my ankles tightly together. Then he unbuttons his pants.

“Go-od morn-ing,” I heard, in a woman’s singsong voice.

“I hate you,” I muttered, as I leaned over and grabbed my cell phone from the nightstand. I hurried to swipe my finger across the snooze button before the annoying troll could say another word. What a rude awakening.

I set my phone back on the nightstand, closed my eyes, and snuggled closer into my pillow. I wanted that dream back. I wanted to see him again. I had nine more minutes to finally see what he had in his pants. We could get a lot done in nine minutes.

I didn’t usually snooze on Friday mornings. Don’t get me wrong. I was a devoted snoozer. On Mondays through Thursdays I hit snooze at least three times before I dragged myself out of bed to get Lucie ready for school. I then walked her there in the same yoga pants and t-shirt I slept in the night before, my face greasy with night cream, and my hair looking like it hadn’t seen a comb since Prince was referred to by a symbol. And I was totally okay being a mess — on Mondays through Thursdays.

Today was Friday. Fridays were different. Fridays were the days Ben Ogea walked his daughter to school. Ben Ogea was the reason I didn’t snooze on Fridays. He was also the reason I’d woken up with my panties in a twist this morning.

Oh shit. I sat up in bed when I remembered. This wasn’t an ordinary Friday. It was Halloween. I needed extra time to get Lucie into her Frozen costume and braid her hair like a princess. There was no chance of finishing that dream this morning.

I sighed and reached into the drawer of my nightstand for my bullet. Thanks to a brand new set of batteries in my boy-toy, I was ready to start my day in approximately twenty seconds.

7:32 A.M.

I had spent the last five nights watching blog tutorials and playing with Lucie’s American Girl doll trying to master the princess crown braid. I wanted to surprise her with my newfound hair skills, and maybe earn the Best Mom of the Week award. Turned out this wasn’t my week. (Last week wasn’t either.)

After a few failed attempts and tangles, we ran out of time. Lucie had to settle for an ordinary French braid pulled across her shoulder. Sometimes, when I thought too much about it, I felt like Lucie had to settle for a lot.

I realized that most of the girls in Lucie’s class would be dressed as Elsa from Frozen. I’d tried to talk her out of the costume. I’d tried to get her to choose something more unique. One thing I should note about my six-year-old is that she didn’t mind being like everyone else. Another thing I should note is that she didn’t mind being different either, when she wanted to be. She hadn’t yet learned to care what other people thought, and that made me feel like I’d gotten at least one thing right with her. Me, I was still trying to unlearn this — a revelation that grew clearer to me every day.

There was a competition that took place every morning outside Lucie’s elementary school by a group of moms I’d dubbed The Fucker Mothers. You’ve seen the movie Mean Girls, right? Imagine those girls growing up, having children, and spending a little too much time on Pinterest. Then imagine their kids going to school with yours.

Here, let me introduce you: There’s Shauna— blonde, shapely, goes to (insert some kind of exercise class) four times a week, married to a (insert occupation of a person who works a lot), drives a (insert designer car), and is the mother of the smartest, brightest, most athletic student in the school, who also happens to be a (insert word for a child who has been raised to believe he/she can do no wrong).

I’d introduce you to Melissa, Tabitha, and Vanessa, too, but I’d only be repeating myself. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Just fill in the blanks with an appropriate word, and you’ve got the picture.

Last year, on Lucie’s first day of kindergarten, they’d tried to befriend me with their morning chitchat. It went something like this: Omigod! She’s got that baby forward-facing already? Doesn’t she know the dangers? I heard she uses a leash on her kid. Where’d she get that skirt? The Family Dollar? You know her son had to have a cavity filled. A cavity at five years old? And don’t even get me started on that kid’s name. I feel like we’re living in a trailer park every time I hear it. And did you hear her husband finally got a new job after being laid off? He’s only making five figures. She might have to get a job herself, though I don’t know how she will. I mean, she clearly has no skills of any kind. Is that little girl really wearing that shirt again? What is this? The third time this week? You know, I heard she uses boxed hair color. NO! Yes! And guess what her daughter brought for snack time yesterday — Goldfish crackers. How can anyone let their child eat such poison? Doesn’t she read anything she sees on the internet? Doesn’t she pay attention in her Weight Watchers class? I mean, assuming she is in Weight Watchers. If she’s not, she should be. So … who wants to get a margarita for breakfast? It’s noon somewhere, right, girls? (Insert evil giggle.)

I was not able to join them for margaritas before their Pilates class, because I was one of those poor schmucks who had to work. Because my husband died young. My husband died two years ago, at the age of twenty-eight, in a fork-lift accident at work. He left behind a four-year-old daughter who loved Goldfish crackers, and sometimes asked to wear the same shirt three times in one week. He also left behind a wife who didn’t know how to live without him, and had a hard enough time getting out of bed in the morning, let alone listening to this bullshit before nine A.M. And guess what else, bitches? This is boxed color on my hair. (Gasp.)

I didn’t say any of that out loud though. I smiled and politely declined the invite instead. I didn’t usually tell people what I really thought about them. That kind of shit would just get me into trouble. And without Will, I wouldn’t know how to get out of it.

Will had been my partner-in-crime since junior year of high school. Both introverts, the two of us — plus Lucie once she was born — had lived happily and quietly in our own private cocoon. Until death did us part.

You know how you’re supposed to make every moment count because you never knew when it would be your last? I can’t say we made every moment count. I would bet most people didn’t live that way. If we said goodbye every day as if it were the last time we’d ever see each other, imagine how tragic and intense life would be. Sometimes we just had to have faith that the person we loved would be coming home from work that day, and that we would get a lot more chances to perfect our goodbyes.

The last time I saw Will alive, he was standing in the hallway outside our bedroom door. I still remembered what he was wearing — khaki shorts and an old Budweiser t-shirt he’d gotten at a club when we were twenty-two. Will had taken very good care of his clothes. He was the stain-removing and ironing mastermind of our household.

“Have you seen my ______?” he asked.

His what? I couldn’t remember. It drove me crazy that I couldn’t remember. His keys? His shoes? His wallet? What did he ask me for that morning?

“No,” I said, as I knelt on the floor to put on Lucie’s sandals — the pink jelly ones. I did remember that detail.

With Lucie’s backpack and my purse on one shoulder, I picked up Lucie to carry her out to the car.

“Shit,” Will said. He stood still, his finger on his chin, trying to remember where he’d put his ______. Then he’d shrugged and walked over to the front door. “All right. Love you. See you later.”

“Love you,” I said.

“WUV YOU!” Lucie yelled. “Kiss and hug!”

He gave us each a kiss, gave Lucie the hug she always demanded, and we walked out the door.

As far as forever goodbyes went, we could have done a lot worse. It was what happened the night before he died that had nearly crippled me.

As I’d driven to the hospital that morning, my knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, and my heart beat so fast I felt dizzy, like I was living in fog. I prayed for Will to be okay. He had to be okay. Because the eggplant parmesan I’d made for dinner the night before had been terrible. I couldn’t live the rest of my life knowing the last meal I’d made for my husband had been an embarrassing disaster. Yeah. My husband was dead, and I was thinking about eggplant.

That eggplant remained in focus for the entire first year. I acted like the eggplant was directly responsible. I avoided the produce section of the grocery store. I felt sick to my stomach when I saw an eggplant entrée listed on a restaurant’s menu. I couldn’t even stand to see that shade of purple. It made my eyes burn, and my fists clench in anger.

By the time Lucie started kindergarten, I was beginning my second year as a widow. I had set up a trust fund for Lucie with the settlement, cleaned out most of Will’s things from the home, and even started brushing my box-colored hair once in awhile. It was around that time when I stopped hating the eggplant. That was when the eggplant started to make me cry instead.

Because, you see, Will had eaten it. He had somehow chewed and swallowed two whole bites of that garbage. He wasn’t even going to tell me how bad it was. It wasn’t until I tried it myself, spit it out, and said, “This is disgusting,” that he laughed and asked if I wanted him to order Chinese.

I was now starting my third year, and I felt like I was really turning a corner. Just a few days ago I’d thought about that eggplant and laughed. I had learned to appreciate our easy-going relationship, and the moments we always made the best of. I was trying to find a way to live the same kind of life without him, and I thought I was doing a better job of it every day. Just in the past few weeks I had been to a salon for a professional color, started wearing makeup again, and even got a pedicure.

The Fucker Mothers had also turned some kind of corner since the previous year — they’d gotten more vicious. This was, apparently, the year of the Bento Box Battles. Every morning was the same routine — the four lined up and opened up their kid’s lunchboxes to show the other mothers how much better theirs was. Every morning it was a challenge for these ladies to beat the box (not like that, you pervs). It was a one-up-a-thon of designer foods — hard boiled eggs and lunch meat sculptures, mini sandwiches in seasonal shapes, cheese chunks shaped like moons and stars, fruits and veggies carved into popular cartoon characters — and my personal favorites — desserts made to look like sushi rolls. Seriously. One food made to look like another. Who had the time for that? Not this girl. You want to know what Lucie got in her lunchbox? A sandwich in the shape of a sandwich. A banana in the shape of a banana. And sometimes even a juice box.

The Fucker Mothers hated me. When I didn’t have anything to add to their conversation last year, and didn’t join them for drinks, I think they felt slighted. By snubbing them I had pinned a bulls-eye on my chest. Now I was the mother for them to judge and belittle every morning. I tended to give them a ton of ammunition. If showing up at school looking like a train wreck four times a week hadn’t earned me a permanent spot on the neighborhood blacklist, I was pretty sure the fruit roll-up I’d sent for Lucie’s snack time yesterday had pushed me off the ledge. We were going to be eaten alive today. But really, was a fruit roll-up all that different from their pretentious fruit leather? I thought not.

7:49 A.M

Fall was gorgeous and colorful in the Midwest. I admired the colors of the leaves under our feet. It was the perfect kind of weather for Halloween — not warm enough that I was sweating in my blazer, but not cold enough that Lucie needed to wear a jacket over her costume.

As we walked to school, her in her store-bought Elsa costume, and me in a pencil skirt with black heels (just in case), I could imagine the kind of snark I was going to hear from The Fucker Mothers. They would say something about how nice I cleaned up when I knew there was going to be an eligible bachelor around. They would mumble about how “cute” it was that I thought I had a chance with him. They would also make sure I knew what a loser I was for putting my child in a costume bought at a store.

I guess I was just a sucky mom. A custom-made costume wasn’t in our budget. I knew some mothers could go to the fabric store and whip up a costume in a jiffy, but I wouldn’t even be able to pick a sewing machine out of a lineup. #momfail #isuck.

At least I had a little something else on my mind today other than The Fucker Mothers.

Ben Ogea.

TGIF.

Every Friday since the first week of school, at some point around 7:56 am, Lucie and I arrived at the corner of Elm and Oak Streets at approximately the same time as Ben and his daughter, Olive. Olive was in Lucie’s first-grade class.

I’d done a little bit of sleuthing and discovered that Ben and his wife divorced when Olive was three. As part of their custody agreement, he got every Thursday through Saturday with Olive. The girls were in different kindergarten time slots last year, so we didn’t run into them. I didn’t see Ben much last year at all, except at a few special events and ceremonies, like the kindergarten graduation (which, by the way, I thought was incredibly gratuitous. But that was a story for another day).

On the few occasions I’d seen Ben last year, I’d gone out of my way to avoid him. It was pretty easy to avoid someone in a crowd. It was generally pretty easy to avoid people altogether, and I kind of preferred it.

It was less easy to avoid Ben and Olive on the first Friday in September when we approached the corner from opposite directions; they were headed east, we were headed west, and all of us needed to head north. We were walking to the same place at the same time on the same street. There was no way around it.

I’d maintained my composure, and acted like my stomach wasn’t somewhere around my knees. Just some guy walking his kid to school. No big thing. Nothing to see here. Move along. I gave him what I hoped was a confident smile. He gave me a friendly nod.

To him, I was just some chick walking her kid to school. No big thing.

We now had a Friday morning routine. Whoever got to the intersection first waited for the others. We gave each other a quick nod or smile, sometimes even a “Good morning,” and as the girls chitchatted about princesses and nail polish, the four of us walked the last block to school together.

We didn’t talk much, the two of us. We listened to the girls instead, occasionally exchanging knowing looks when they got excited about a TV show or a friend from class. But I preferred a comfortable silence over gauche small talk anyhow.

The few things I knew about Ben Ogea could be listed on one hand. I knew his ex-wife was gorgeous, smart, and successful — even The FMs were intimidated by her. I knew he lived somewhere close enough to the school to walk. I knew he worked for a TV station, but not in front of the camera. I also knew The Fucker Mothers panted and salivated when he walked by, like a bunch of desperate housewives.

What nobody else knew was that we had once shared a night together in a dark room.

October 22, 1999

Hope Jameson had lived around the block from me all our lives. We’d been best friends since kindergarten; a fact that baffled most people, nobody more than ourselves. She was a social butterfly who loved shopping, makeup, and boys. I was the quiet and bashful type who preferred fictional characters to real people. Real people, especially boys, terrified me.

When we were in the ninth grade, Hope’s parents retired from their desk jobs, and bought themselves a dive bar a few towns over. They never came home from work before three A.M. on the weekends. My girlfriends and I (I mean, Hope’s other friends — I didn’t have any) would hang out in her basement, steal from her parents’ liquor cabinet, and invite some boys over to flirt with. By the time her parents would get home from work, the boys would be gone, the mess cleaned up, and us girls passed out on the floor of Hope’s enormous basement bedroom.

In October of our sophomore year, Hope decided to play a game. Had I known about this game beforehand, I would have stayed far away from Hope’s that night. But she would have known that, which explains why I was not given a warning.

There were twelve of us in the basement that night, six guys and six girls. A few were sprawled on the couch, some were on the bed, the rest, myself included, were lounging on the floor on giant pillows and beanbags. We were drinking cheap vodka mixed with cherry Kool-Aid, and watching a Halloween marathon on TV.

Suddenly, Hope stood up from the couch. She used the remote to turn off the TV, held her red plastic cup up in the air like she was about to toast, and yelled, “LIGHTS OUT! Grab the person closest to you and make out!”

She clapped her hands twice and the lights went out. The small basement windows were covered in black sheets, so we were in complete darkness. Just like that. No warning. I hadn’t even had a chance to look around and see which guys were near me on the floor.

I heard a bunch of scuffling as people began to pair up, but I stayed frozen in place. I really, really wished Hope had warned me of this plan. This was totally not my thing.

I had very limited experiences with guys, and each one seemed to get more clumsy, awkward, and embarrassing than the last — they were nothing at all like the steamy romantic scenes I’d read in books or seen in movies.

I thought having a guy’s tongue in my mouth was disgusting. Slimy and wet, and probably filled with a billion contagious bacteria, and just, ick. And the one time a guy had unzipped my pants and slid his hand in my underwear, I’d been even more sickened. Long fingernails, dirty hands filled with a day’s worth of germs. Gross. I thought this was supposed to be fun. I shouldn’t be thinking of germs. I should be gasping and panting and tearing off his clothes in an animalistic rage. But I wasn’t.

Being in complete darkness, I was more aware of the sounds around me. They weren’t pleasant. Kissing noises. Gross. Everyone else seemed to fall into Hope’s plan with ease and enthusiasm.

I wished there was a way out of this. Being chased around a neighborhood by Michael Myers seemed less scary than this stupid game. I contemplated staying still and pretending I wasn’t there. Hope’s game would eventually be over and the lights would turn on and I could just pretend I’d been making out with someone. How would anyone know? Well, except the guy who I was supposed to be making out with. Since there was an even number of us, we’d both have to sit this one out. Hey, that was perfectly fine with me. I’d stay where I was, he could stay where he was, and no one would ever have to know.

I felt a hand reach out and gently touch my hip in the darkness. There was someone lying on the floor next to my pillow. I tried to remember who had been sitting there before the lights went out, but couldn’t. Let’s see… who could it be? There was Travis, Luke, Sam, Ben, David… They were all good-looking, popular guys. Nobody who would want anything to do with me. I was just a normal girl, nothing special.

I wondered, self-consciously, if I was the last girl picked. If, whoever this hand belonged to, was disappointed that I was the closest one to him and he wasn’t able to get to one of the hotter girls in time.

I bit my lip, feeling nervous as his arms timidly wrapped around my waist. He gently pulled me off my giant pillow and I landed next to him on the carpet. My back leaned against the pillow and my chest pressed against his. I could feel the nervous tension between us. If ever there was a time I wanted the world to open up and swallow me whole, yep — right there.

But then something happened that changed my mood. He kissed me. Even in the darkness, his mouth found mine on the first try. It felt like our lips were drawn to each other by magnetic force. When his tongue touched mine, I wasn’t grossed out. My body felt like it was melting into his like ice cream. He tasted like cherry Kool-Aid and smelled like Hugo Boss. This guy knew what he was doing. And I liked what he was doing.

I didn’t know who he was, but I knew I liked kissing him. It was different than the other guys somehow. It was neater, slower, more determined, but less frantic. And when he rolled us over so that he was on top of me, I felt something, and I sort of wanted to tear his clothes off in an animalistic rage.

He was hard in his pants. I could feel it when he pressed into me. It made me dizzy and I was surprised how hard it felt. When we learned about erections in sex-ed classes, I thought they got sort of plump, like a bratwurst off the grill. I wasn’t expecting it to feel this hard. This felt like steel. And if there was any truth to the romance novels I’d bought from a used book store over the summer, that piece of steel was probably as smooth as velvet. I’d have to wait to find out though. It would take more than a few sips of vodka to give me the courage I’d need for direct penile contact.

I pushed the sounds of the others out of my mind and pretended we were the only two in the room. When he slid his hands under my shirt, I didn’t even mind. When he pushed my shirt up, pulled the cup of my bra down, and slid his tongue across my nipple, I really didn’t mind it. Maybe I could rethink that part about courage and try to find out what was in his pants.

I slid my hand between us and under the waistband of his jeans, and he did the same to me. I didn’t think about germs at all. And when he hit the right spot, I wished I knew who he was so I could yell out his name in appreciation.

That was when Hope had had enough. “I’m clapping my hands in five,” she announced, and began to count down.

He froze for a second, and then quickly removed his hand. I zipped and buttoned my jeans and was back up on my pillow just as the countdown landed on one.

Clap, clap. The lights went on. I avoided the eyes of everyone else. I chipped at my nail polish. Hope turned the movie back on, but I was afraid to look around at the others. Their silence made it all that much worse. I couldn’t stand to be in that basement another second.

I grabbed my plastic cup off the floor and stood up. “I’m going to get a refill,” I mumbled as I headed for the basement steps. I walked up to the kitchen to pour myself another drink. A strong one. I needed it.

I was standing at the counter, with my back to the basement steps, when I heard someone coming up. Too embarrassed to face anyone in the harsh lights of the kitchen, I drank my Kool-Aid right there at the counter without turning around.

I heard the footsteps, slow and deliberate, come up behind me, and then a hand on my ass encouraged me to turn around and face my mystery make-out man. So I did.

Ben. Ben Ogea stood before me. I was too afraid to look up at his face, but I knew it was him from the Jim Morrison quote on his t-shirt. “This is the strangest life I’ve ever known.”

I looked down at his black Chuck Taylor shoes. Someone had used an ink pen to draw chemical symbols on the white part of the shoes. Ben was the smartest guy in our class. He was a year younger than us because he’d skipped the second grade. But he wasn’t one of those geeky pocket protector carrying kind of smart people who made everyone else around him feel stupid. He made getting a 4.0 look cool.

Ben didn’t usually hang out with us and I couldn’t remember us ever having had a conversation in the past. But I knew who he was. Everybody did.

I glanced up at him shyly while still keeping my head down. He smiled. Jim Morrison had a strange life, and Ben Ogea had a wicked smile, wicked sexy. I returned his smile with a shy one of my own. Then he put his finger up to his mouth and… and he licked it. Uhhh… what?

With a hand on each one of my hips, he leaned down and kissed me one last time. Then he walked backwards away from me until he reached the stairs, before he turned and walked out the back door.

We never spoke to each other that night. And we never spoke after it. But I’d wanted to finish what we’d started ever since.

Friday, October 31, 2014

7:47 A.M.

“I guess we have two Elsas in first grade today,” Ben said when they arrived at our corner. Lucie and Olive were both wearing the exact same turquoise store-bought costume.

I knew there would be a whole lot more than two Elsas in the first grade, and in every other grade, but I didn’t correct him.

“I like your braid,” Olive said to Lucie. Her own dark hair was in a high ponytail. “My daddy doesn’t know how to braid.”

I looked up at Ben and he shrugged ruefully.

I looked at my watch. We had a few minutes to spare. “Do you want a braid like Lucie’s?” I asked Olive.

She nodded shyly.

I knelt down on the sidewalk and pulled a brush from my purse. She stood still as I quickly braided her hair over to the side like Lucie’s.

A few minutes earlier I’d felt like I failure when I couldn’t get Lucie’s crown braid to look red-carpet-ready. The way Olive looked at me when I finished with her braid, it made me feel like a hero instead.

Ben looked at me the same way and I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t give my belly the squirmies.

“Thanks,” he muttered when we continued walking. “I watched some videos online, but my fingers just don’t coordinate right.”

He had actually tried to learn how to braid? I didn’t personally know any other single fathers with young daughters, but I didn’t imagine most of them braided hair.

I didn’t reply. I just smiled and nodded and hoped he had no idea how I’d woken up this morning.

I wasn’t sure if Ben remembered Lights Out, but I suspected he didn’t. He’d never called me by my name, which made me believe he didn’t know it. I wasn’t sure he knew we went to high school together at all. I seriously doubted he remembered a twenty-minute make-out session from fifteen years ago. You could bet your ass I wouldn’t ever ask him either.

“You guys going to the Hurrah tonight?” he asked.

The Merriam Elementary School’s annual Halloween Hurrah was a fundraising event held every Halloween evening after trick-or-treating. It was a night of games and food and costume contests. Last year’s Hurrah had been tons of fun, and I’d been looking forward to going again. I’d be a lying shit if I said I hadn’t wondered if Ben and Olive would be there, too. And I may have fantasized about being accidentally locked in a dark closet with him, but the fantasy was always ruined when I wondered who was watching our kids while we had some fun in the dark. Oh, the troubles of being a single parent.

“Yes,” I answered. The girls were skipping together about four feet ahead of us. They had become fast friends when we started these walks together. “We’ll be there after trick-or-treating. You guys going?”

He put a hand to his chin and rubbed his beard. I’d never had a thing for bearded men before. When the look started to come back in style, I’d had my reservations about it. But he pulled off the beard about as well as Justin Timberlake did. And that was really, really well.

“Yeah, I was planning on it. Are you trick-or-treating close by?”

This was already like four sentences past our norm. He must have been feeling extra chatty today. “We live on Orchard. We usually do about three blocks up and down. It’s a good street. Lots of full-size candy bars usually.”

“Oh. Full size. That’s impressive,” he said, and rubbed his beard again. “Hey, um, maybe the girls would like to trick-or-treat together?” It was a suggestion, but he said it like it was a question.

He probably had a date and wanted me to take Olive with us so he didn’t need to look for a babysitter. Whatever. I didn’t mind. It wasn’t like I really had a chance with the guy anyway. I wasn’t even sure I wanted a chance.

I’d thought about it, dating. A lot. But it had been so many years since I’d been with anyone but Will, and I didn’t think I was ready for that. I thought that might be the reason I’d developed a crush on someone so far out of my league — because I knew there was no chance of anything coming of it. For me, it was just a past time, just a crush, a reason to do my hair and put on some makeup before school once a week. That was it.

“Sure,” I said. “Lucie will love that. I don’t mind taking Olive with us.”

“Oh, um, okay. I was thinking I could come, too. Do you mind taking me with you?”

He smiled at me then. It was a playful smile, the kind usually exchanged between people who knew each other, people who teased each other. Had we become friends somehow through all of these silent walks?

“Oh!” I said, feeling embarrassed. “Yeah. I just thought, I mean. I thought you maybe had something else to do.”

“Nothing other than trick-or-treating and bobbing for apples.”

I cringed and hoped he didn’t notice. Bobbing for apples, AKA bobbing for bacteria, was the most disgusting thing at the Halloween Hurrah. Dozens of people sticking their mouths into the same tub of water? During flu season no less? And people thought this was okay?

Ben lowered his voice and nodded his head toward Olive. “I only get her half the week. I won’t miss out on that time for anything.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. I mean, of course you wouldn’t.” Geez. Could I form a complete sentence sometime today? P.S. I was totally swooning right now over this doting-daddy. And he was totally forgiven for mentioning the bobbing of apples.

“So it’s set then,” he said. “We’ll take the girls trick-or-treating. Then we’ll head to the Hurrah together. Sound good?”

We? Was this a date? Or a playdate? Did he just ask me out? Was I ready for that? I knew Will wouldn’t want me to waste too much time being the girl with the dead husband. I knew he would have wanted me to move on much sooner if he had a choice.

“Sounds good. The corner of Orchard and Pine at five-thirty then?”

“Deal. But why don’t you give me your number in case I get lost?”

If I was thirteen, I would have squealed and jumped up and down right on the spot. But I was thirty, so I would wait until I got home.

7:58 A.M.

Just as I expected, the school was a sea of purple and turquoise when we arrived. I waited for an ice pond to crystallize before me, and the students to start ice skating across it to the tune of a catchy song.

And just as I expected, the Fucker Mothers’ daughters were all in expensive, custom-made Elsa costumes, including lots and lots of tulle, glitter, and rhinestones. Vanessa’s daughter had a perfect crown braid in her blonde hair. Shauna had gone even further and mastered the waterfall braid for her daughter’s hair. Show off. I tried not to feel unworthy.

And just as I expected, the Halloween-themed Bento Boxes were filled with candy corn colors and spooky-shaped foods. Oh, and sushi shaped like pumpkins. If it wasn’t a food being shaped like sushi, it was sushi being shaped like another food.

And just as I expected, I heard nastiness coming from their mouths as the four of us walked past them.

“Oh, look who decided to brush her hair this morning.”

“She walked to school in four-inch heels? Who does that?”

“Someone desperate for attention. It’s no different than the woman who wears heels to the grocery store.”

“Does she wear heels to the grocery store?”

“Nah. I bet she wears those faded yoga pants with the stretched-out waistband. She wouldn’t bother dressing up unless Mister Joint Custody was going to be there.”

“Ha. So cute.”

9:04 A.M.

I had just sat down in my cubicle and logged in to my computer when my cube-neighbor, Nancy, popped up and stuck her head over the wall between us. This kind of behavior was not acceptable in rest rooms, and I wished the rule would carry over to work time, also — if only for their own benefit. I mean, nobody looked good from such a high angle.

“Happy Halloween,” she said, as she handed me a little tulle sack tied with orange and black ribbons. It was filled with Hershey’s Kisses and reminded me of the kind of favor you’d see at a bridal shower filled with butter mints. Mmm, butter mints. Why were showers the only time we were treated to such goodness?

“Thanks,” I said, accepting the sack of candy with gratitude. Bad angle or not, it was chocolate.

“And this,” she said, handing me the lottery kit. Once a week someone from the office went to the convenience store and bought a bunch of lottery tickets. We all threw $2 into an envelope for our chance to win.

Look, I knew the odds, okay? I knew I was probably more likely to fall off a cliff while taking a selfie, than winning millions of dollars in a multi-state lottery. But, in the slim, slim chance that one of those tickets was a winner, I couldn’t bear to be the only asshole left working here. So I put in my two bucks, just like every Friday.

Then I looked at the digital clock on my desk and counted how many minutes of suffering between now and trick-or-treating. I knew I shouldn’t get too ahead of myself. We could have a great time tonight. But that didn’t mean I had any kind of future with him — or that I even wanted one. Yeah, he was sexy, smart, responsible, and a good dad by all appearances. But there were other, very important, things I didn’t know about him. And I needed to get some answers before I started embroidering towels with our initials. For all I knew he could be the kind of person who went to the grocery store without a list. Or a guy who sprayed Febreeze on his bedding and considered it clean. Maybe he went to a tanning booth and took selfies in the bathroom mirror. I knew there were many things that could break this deal. But when I thought about that night in the dark, all I wanted him to do was make it.

10:22 A.M.

I couldn’t stop staring at the sack of Hershey’s Kisses on my desk. There were two kinds of people who had time to wrap Halloween candy in tulle and ribbon for their coworkers: single people and overachievers. I could breathe easy knowing I would never need to worry about the latter. Overachieving would never be a hindrance for me.

But this little sack was troubling me when I thought about the other option. Did I want to be the kind of person, fifteen years from now, who wrapped candy in tulle for a bunch of people who made fun of me behind my back? Was that where I was headed by being the girl with the dead husband who wasn’t ready for dating? I had Lucie for now, and she deserved all of my attention after all she’d been through. But twelve more years and she’d be off to college, and I’d be … what?

11:16 A.M.

“Shut the fuck up.” Hope called me at work every morning while she drank her coffee on the balcony of her Manhattan apartment. Sometimes she photographed the coffee and the view and texted it to me. This morning’s photo showed her sweater-covered hands cradling the hot mug. Her thumbs stuck out of little holes at the end of the sleeves. Her nails were perfectly polished in olive green, and her calves were up on the bistro table in the background, covered in cozy, knitted knee-high socks. I didn’t send her a text of my view. It definitely wasn’t as cool as hers. Maybe what I really needed in my life was a pair of knitted knee-high socks.

“Seriously. Shut the fuck up,” she repeated.

I didn’t respond. I never knew what to say to that remark.

“What are you gonna wear?” she asked. She had a deep voice for a woman. If she was big and butchy, she’d frighten people. But she was about 110 lbs and blonde, so she was revered for it instead.

See, this was a problem. Not Hope’s voice, but my clothing options. I was planning on wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a hoodie. Now that I sort-of had a date, I wondered if I should wear something sexy. But I wasn’t sure if I had the ability to look sexy, even if I tried. I’d probably end up looking like a desperate mom who was trying too hard to play MILF.

“I don’t know. It’s going to be cold. I was thinking of a hoodie and jeans.”

“No. Not on a date with Ben Ogea.”

“It’s not really a date. I don’t think.”

“I don’t care. You’re not wearing a hoodie. This isn’t a football game.”

“I could go in costume,” I said, hoping that option would make the hoodie look like the lesser of the evils.

“I think skinny jeans, boots, and a sweater will be perfect. And no ponytail, Cora. At least use a flat iron. You don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard. But you don’t want to look like you just don’t give a shit either. You need a happy balance.”

A happy balance. Kind of like the gazpacho I was eating for lunch. On a positive note, it was low-cal and made of superfoods. On a less positive note, I’d just spent $8 to basically eat salsa with a spoon.

“And don’t forget to pencil in your eyebrows,” she said.

12:16 P.M.

I left work before noon so I could be there for Lucie’s Halloween parade. I stood on the sidewalk around the school and tried to pick her out from all the other Elsas. I waved to her when I found her and took clumsy pictures with my phone when she walked by.

Tabitha took pictures of The Fuckers with a Canon Rebel. I didn’t know anything about cameras, but I overheard the FMs talking one morning about who had the best camera, and Tabitha insisted her Canon Rebel was the best on the market. I guess that explained why she was the designated Fucker Photographer of the day. There was no sign of the Fucker Fathers. That didn’t surprise me. They never showed up for anything. I wouldn’t show up if I was married to them either.

Ben was standing next to his ex-wife on the other side of the playground. They both went giddy when Olive walked by. I did my best to avoid looking in their direction. I was now certain this was not going to be a date tonight. There was no way he could want anything to do with me after being married to her. Look at her with her leather jacket and all of her bracelets and belt.

You want to know how many belts I owned? Two. You want to know when I wore those belts? When my pants felt a little loose — and that didn’t happen often enough.

How was it that some women knew exactly how to accessorize, and others, like me, were clueless? Were they born with a natural instinct, or was this something our mothers were supposed to teach us? I wondered if this meant my mom failed me. And did that also mean I would fail Lucie and she would grow up feeling inferior to any girl whose handbag matched her shoes?

I made a mental note to start buying her accessories immediately. Like today.

And that bun in her hair. It was perfectly poofy and nearly the diameter of her head. When I tried to put a bun in my own hair once, it looked like I had an acorn sticking out the back of my head.

“Cora.” I looked up to find Ben and the perfect ex-wife standing in front of me. He knew my name. “Cora,” he said again, “I want you to meet Olive’s mom.”

Oh. Fabulous.

He turned to the could-be-supermodel. “This is Cora, Lucie’s mom. I went to high school with her.”

He remembered. He fucking remembered.

“She’s the one who braided Olive’s hair,” he continued. “We’re going to take the girls trick-or-treating together tonight.”

She gave me a coy smile with a downward head-tilt, the kind of look that was seen in every Victoria’s Secret catalog ever printed— the I-know-I’m-hot look. She reminded me of Tom Brady’s wife, the model, Gisele.

“Cora, this is Olive’s mom, Eliza.”

Eliza. What an exotic name. Ordinarily I would have spent a good ten minutes imagining a future with Ben and wondering how Eliza’s presence would affect our lives together. Birthday parties, holidays, vacations. When is Eliza bringing Olive back? Will Eliza be at dinner? Should we invite Eliza to the party?

But I didn’t have time for that neurotic shit right now because — he knew my name! And he knew we went to school together! He remembered!

When the kids started to head back inside for class, I left quickly. I didn’t need to run into any of those buzzkill bitches.

5:30 P.M.

Per Hope’s advice, I wore dark skinny jeans and brown cowboy boots with fringe. The boots were a bold move on my part. I’d gone to the mall after the parade to buy Lucie some bracelets at Claire’s, and decided to up my accessories ante as well. Shouldn’t every girl have a pair of cowboy boots? Absolutely. I bought Lucie a pair, too. I also bought myself some cute knee-high socks, which I was sure would act as a life-changing domino — the socks that would take me from girl-with-dead-husband to girl-with-her-shit-together.

Instead of a hoodie or a sweater, I’d picked out a plaid button-up that hung low on my hips. I felt kind of country, but confident in a way I wasn’t used to. See? It was all about the socks.

Ben showed up at the corner wearing a hoodie. Figures.

We set off down the block similar to the way we walked to school together — quietly. I got out my phone to take pics of the girls. I loved the look of surprise Lucie had on her face every time another neighbor dropped a piece of candy in her plastic pumpkin. I loved it that my daughter was still appreciative of others’ generosity, rather than expecting it like it was owed to her.

Ben got out his phone and started scrolling over the screen like he was texting. I felt a wave of disappointment cloud over me. So much for doting daddy. I knew this was a generation of multi-taskers, and that it was hard to put down our phones for anything these days. But we’d only just started trick-or-treating. He could have at least paid attention for a couple of houses.

Ding.

I had a text. I exited the camera screen to check it. Who would be texting me? Everyone in the world knew it was trick-or-treating time.

BEN: You look great in those boots.

You know that feeling you get when you’ve just reached the top of the hill on the roller coaster and you’re about to head down? I was there.

We stood on the sidewalk, dozens and dozens of children and parents rushing past us, but I felt like the two of us were frozen, just standing there while the leaves fell around our feet — like the only two people standing still in a time-lapse video.

I glanced up shyly and caught him looking at me. He bit his lip and gave me a small, hopeful smile.

I smiled back at him above my phone and texted back. It had gotten on my nerves when I thought he was texting someone else while we were trick-or-treating. But if he was texting me — different story. We’d already been to at least five houses. We were good.

ME: Thanks. I wish I had worn a hoodie.

BEN: You can wear mine.

And there I went, down the hill. I only hoped there was another one behind it.

Part Two — Ben

7:08 P.M.

Cora. Still driving me crazy after all these years. I loved how she acted like she didn’t have a clue how beautiful she was. Maybe it wasn’t even an act. Maybe she really had no idea. I kind of loved that idea even more. Not that I wanted someone with low self-esteem. She was just … normal. Down to earth. A little bit of modesty could go a long way.

Even back in high school I had no interest in the girls who flashed their shit around like they should be hanging from a pole. But they were there, and they were willing and eager. I spent so much time back then trying to keep up my GPA, I’d had to take what was right in front of me. I didn’t have the time to work on the quiet girls like Cora.

That night at Hope’s, I couldn’t believe my luck being next to her. She was different than the other girls. She was authentic. She was legit. Her body responded to me in natural ways, not the phony I-wonder-if-there’s-a-hidden-camera-in-his-room, porn-star-wannabe kind of stuff I’d become too familiar with. The way she’d touched me, the way she’d tasted, had given me material that still made my pants feel a little tighter when she was around.

I’d meant to find her at school one day, or ask around for her number. But I just got busy, and the next thing I knew, she was with Will.

I saw her last year a few times. She never looked my way. Sometimes I thought it was on purpose. And every time I thought it was for the best.

I knew Will had died. That kind of baggage scared the shit out of me. Not that I thought I’d ever find a baggage-free single woman at my age. But ex-spouses and baby-daddies were easier to deal with. They weren’t together anymore by choice.

Like Eliza and I. We were friends. We had a mutual respect for one another. And I had love for her. I just wasn’t in love with her. I kind of thought a lot of married couples probably felt the same way. I bet a lot of them stayed together because it was convenient and peaceful, and they felt like it was too late to fall in love for real anyway. I probably would have done the same thing and stayed with Eliza forever, especially after Olive was born. Because that was the easy thing to do. But Eliza was a brave chick. She told me she was tired of taking the easy way all the time. She said we had married too young and too soon, and she wanted to try to make a go of it on her own. She said she would only do it if I was okay with it. I didn’t even put up a fight. I hated having to share Olive, and the first year was hard. But we settled into a nice routine. I missed being part of a couple, but I was glad she’d had the courage to do something for the both of us that I never would have done for myself.

Cora’s story was different. She didn’t choose to be brave. She’d been forced. When I’d found out Will had died, about a year after my divorce, I thought about reaching out to her. But in the end, I let it go. What could I offer her? I had no idea what it was like to lose the love of my life. I didn’t even know what it was like to have a love of my life.

And then we’d walked up on that intersection a few weeks ago. Same place, same time, again and again. What were the chances of walking up on my high school crush a dozen years after graduation? We were both single. We’d both been single for long enough to start dating again. I mean, if destiny was a real thing, it couldn’t have made its wishes any clearer.

But I resisted. A relationship with someone who’d been dealt such a shitty hand wouldn’t be easy. It would take work, time, and a ton of patience. I wasn’t sure I’d have enough. I didn’t know if I’d be enough.

But they said the best things never were easy. I’d gone for easy before, and I’d ended up alone. How many times would I let this girl slip through my hands? It was time for me to step out of my comfort zone, stop screwing around, and take a chance on something. I knew that. But knowing something, and acting on it, were two very different things.

Any day now. That’s what I told myself every Friday. Just ask her out. It wasn’t like I had to marry the girl. I didn’t even know her. She could be one of those people who thought eating fruit on pizza was disgusting. She could prefer cats to dogs. Or worse, she could use there, they’re, and their incorrectly.

Or she could be everything I thought she was all those years ago — smart, kind, funny, loyal.

I needed to find out. If she was a cat lady or used improper grammar, I could just start driving Olive to school, or even send her to a private academy. But I needed to know either way. I couldn’t keep thinking about this girl without acting on it.

It was adorable this morning when she thought I was asking her to babysit. And tonight, the way she shyly glanced up from her phone after reading my texts, made me want to take her home. Tonight. I didn’t know texting someone who was standing right next to me could be so stimulating.

Remember, patience.

After ninety minutes of trick-or-treating and secret texting, we were more than ready to head to the Hurrah. We rode over in Cora’s SUV. You could tell a lot about a person by the interior of their car. It was almost as personal as being in their bedroom. All signs pointed to good. It was clean, smelled like the Yankee Candle apple air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, and there was a pack of Trident gum sitting in the cup holder.

As she drove us over, I hoped we’d run into those Mean Moms at the Hurrah. I knew they gave Cora a hard time. They were like adult versions of the bully in A Christmas Story. Oh, I better find out if Cora is an A Christmas Story person or not. Nobody seemed to have mediocre feelings regarding that movie. They either loved it or hated it. If she didn’t love it, that could seriously impede our chances of a solid relationship.

We pulled up right next to Mean Mom #3, Tabitha, as she and her demon children were getting out of their ostentatious Hummer. I didn’t understand why these chicks thought they lived in Beverly Hills. This was a suburban, middle-class neighborhood, and they acted like it was the damn Hollywood Hills.

Ah, how nice it was that they would be able to see the four of us at the Hurrah together. Being here with Cora was great in and of itself. But having the opportunity to piss off those lunatics was a real nice cherry on top.

Cora grabbed Lucie by the hand, I grabbed Olive by the hand, and we walked towards the door to the gymnasium. Tabitha watched with her mouth hanging open.

7:48 P.M.

“Oh no,” Cora said, as she shook her head subtly. “We’ll sit this one out.”

“What?” I asked. “Do you have something against apples?”

We’d already been to the pumpkin bowling lane, the eyeball bounce, and the candy corn relay race.

She shrugged and gave me that shy look again — the one that made me nuts. “No, I have something against sharing germs with a bunch of strangers.”

How could I argue with that? To tell you the truth, I didn’t care if she bobbed for an apple. I just wanted her to take off her clothes.

“Eh, you’re right. Let’s move on,” I said, and we headed toward the Pin the Hat on the Witch booth.

“Yoo-hoo.”

I recognized that voice. It was a sound that made me grind my teeth. By the look of annoyance on Cora’s usually-sweet face, I knew she felt the same way.

Shauna.

“Yoo-hoo, you two.” Who said yoo-hoo? Really? “We’re about ready to start the first grade treasure hunt. You guys are going to enter, right?”

A treasure hunt? Why was I just now hearing about this?

My competitive blood started to boil immediately. They thought they were competitive. Ha.

It. Was. On.

8:00 P.M.

I wish I’d known about this sooner. I would have made us team t-shirts and water bottles.

“Each team will get an envelope,” Mrs. Lewis, one of the first grade teachers explained to all of us. “Inside you will find a list of ten items for you to take pictures of this evening. All pictures must be on the same phone or camera, and each picture must include at least one of your team members. When your team arrives back here with all ten photos, you will receive a map to help you find the treasure chest. Everyone understand?”

We all nodded and Miss Mater, another first grade teacher, started handing out envelopes.

“On the count of one, you may all open your envelopes. Five…”

There were about fifty of us standing in the corner of the gymnasium and we all started shouting the numbers out loud.

“Four, three, two, one!”

“Good luck!” the teachers yelled as the teams tore into our envelopes like animals.

I was glad to see that Cora and Lucie had the same competitive fervor as Olive and me.

I read the list quietly to our team and everyone started shouting out at once.

“The library!”

“The playground!”

“The science lab!”

I put my hand up to silence them. “Wait. We need a plan. We need organization.”

While the other teams scrambled off in chaos, I sat the four of us down at one of the lunch tables and mapped out a plan. We needed to hit many areas of the school, but we were going to do them in geographical order, instead of going back and forth six times. I went to this elementary school. I knew my way around.

“All right, team,” I said, when I was done mapping out our hunt, “we can get some of these done in this room. Like a photo with a skeleton.”

“The science lab upstairs,” Lucie said.

I shook my head and pointed to a skeleton decoration taped to the wall in the gym. “Nope. Right there. Cora, you’ll take the pictures.”

We ran over to the skeleton and took a picture of Lucie standing next to it. We got Olive with a jack-o-lantern near the bowling area, and a picture of both girls wearing witch hats from the pin-the-hat game. I didn’t see any of the other teams in the gym. I had a feeling they were making this harder than it needed to be.

“A book about ghosts,” Cora read over my shoulder. “We need to go to the library.”

The four of us exited the gymnasium doors. I expected to find the other teams scrambling around and tripping over each other out there. There was nothing, no one. We walked from a crowded gym and into a dark and quiet school. Maybe it was the fact that it was Halloween, but it gave me the creeps. I had an eerie feeling as we climbed the marble staircase to get to the library. Where was everyone? There were nine or ten teams in this scavenger hunt. Where were they? And why hadn’t anyone bothered to turn on a light?

We opened the wooden door to the library. It was dark in there, too. The school had moved on from the card catalog system since I’d been there. The monitors of the computer systems glowed in the room. We headed toward them. Cora used the light from her phone to see the keyboard. She typed the word ghosts into the search bar with her free hand.

I was drawn to the way her face was lit by the light of the screen, and I studied her profile. Her little nose, her lips. Then I saw a figure move out of the corner of my eye. We weren’t the only ones in this room.

My skin filled with goose bumps instantly. I knew it was ridiculous for a grown man to be creeped out, but I sort of was. If someone else was here, why were they so quiet? Wouldn’t they be looking for ghost books, too? I shrugged it off and tried to concentrate on Cora’s lips again. I’d seen too many episodes of 48 Hours Mystery. I should start watching more sports.

“Got it,” Cora said quietly. She looked up at me with innocent, non-freaking-out eyes. She hadn’t seen the shadows moving in the stacks. The girls hadn’t either. “This way,” she said, and nodded towards the back of the library.

I held up my phone to use as a flashlight as Cora led us to the aisle of ghost stories. Just then I saw a figure dart from one aisle to another. I turned around quickly to catch the person, but I wasn’t quick enough.

“What’s wrong?” Cora asked.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

She led us down the aisle and swept her fingers across the spines of the books on the eye-level shelf. She found the one she wanted, pulled it off the shelf, and handed it to me. I put it next to my face and gave her a huge, goofy grin as she snapped a pic.

“Oh shoot,” she said, looking down at the phone. “It’s too dark. I need to turn on the flash.”

She pressed a few buttons on the touch-screen and then held it up to try again.

I held the book next to my head and she took another picture, this time with the flash.

Then she gasped.

“What is it?” I asked, even though I kind of knew.

She silently handed me the phone and I looked at the picture on the screen. There was something, or someone, standing behind me in the photo. The figure had a pumpkin on its head. I turned and looked behind me, but the person was gone.

She shook her head in what looked like annoyance. I could tell she didn’t want to show any fear and scare the girls. She was clearly braver than I was. She probably killed spiders in her house all by herself.

She placed the ghost story back on the shelf. “Where to next?”

“The art room,” I answered. We needed a picture of one of us with an easel showing a pumpkin drawn on it. “Let’s go.”

The art room was empty and dim just like everything else around. There was one light pointing at the art easel in the middle of the room. The easel held a large pad of paper, but the pages were blank.

“I guess we need to draw our own,” I said, looking around for crayons or markers. There were none in sight. The last team had probably hidden them. Ha. Good idea.

Cora dug around in her purse just as I saw a fifth shadow appear on the floor in front of us. Someone was standing behind us! I whipped my head around quickly. There was no one there.

I tried to shake it off as Cora pulled a pen out of her purse. She drew a pumpkin in about ten seconds. She was so self-sufficient.

“Nice!” I commented. I held up my hand for a high-five. She slapped it with zest.

I loved being part of a team. It was that kind of adrenaline that had led me to a career in live TV. Having her there with me, on my team, was such a turn on. I didn’t care about a treasure chest that was probably filled with cheap candy like Smarties and Dum Dums. But I loved it that we had a common goal and a common enemy. The four of us, I had a feeling we could go places. I mean, metaphorically. We could be something.

“A picture of a team member on stage,” she read off the sheet. “The auditorium.”

We jogged down the dark halls toward the auditorium. It was on the opposite end of the school from the gym where we’d started. We were making our way down the hall when I heard a loud bang, like someone was banging on the door of one of the classrooms.

“What is that?” Lucie asked.

“Nothing. Just keep moving,” Cora told her.

A few doors down we heard another bang. Someone was inside the classrooms banging on the doors. Wow. Someone had really gone above and beyond to make this scavenger hunt scary. I wished haunted houses and hayrides put in this much effort.

We walked into the doors of the auditorium and walked past the rows of seats to get to the stage. I lifted Olive up, set her on the stage, and Cora snapped a picture.

We all turned around at once to go. The girls screamed.

There was a person sitting in one of the seats of the auditorium. He or she was wearing black clothes and the Ghostface mask from the movie Scream. The person didn’t move. I would have thought it was a prop if not for the fact that it was not there a minute ago when we came in.

“Just run,” I mumbled to the girls, taking their hands. These people were starting to piss me off. We had six-year-olds with us. They could be seriously scarred by these pranks.

We held hands and ran up the aisle, past Ghostface, and out the doors.

“To the playground,” I ordered as we ran down the hall.

I was sure someone was just trying to trip us up. It wasn’t like there was a serial killer in the auditorium. But that didn’t mean I wanted to sit around and chit chat with the weirdo either. We had a treasure chest to win.

The playground was also pretty dark and empty. I was starting to wonder if we had been given a different list than everyone else. Or maybe every team had a different list.

We took pictures of the girls on the swing set and slide. When we turned to head back toward to school, Pumpkinhead, Ghostface, and a girl with long blonde hair who had on a mask from the movie, The Strangers, were all standing in front of the school. They each stood still with their hands clasped in front of them.

The girls screamed again.

“It’s just a joke,” I said to them quietly as we walked past them. “We have one more picture to get, and then we can go home.”

The last thing on the list was a picture of a team member with a scarecrow.

“There was a scarecrow outside the front door where we first walked in,” Cora whispered.

“Good thing my girls are all so observant,” I said, without thinking first.

She raised her eyebrows.

I could have taken it back. But the truth was I didn’t want to. I liked this foursome we had. I liked thinking of them, both of them, as my girls.

I smiled and hoped she got all that.

We ran around to the front of the school to find the scarecrow dressed in overalls and tied around a pillar. With a quick snap, we got our picture. Then we ran back into the gym.

“Are we going to win this, Daddy?” Olive asked as we ran.

I knew my train of thinking would probably have my man card suspended indefinitely, but I didn’t care if we won this game or not. I already felt like a winner. The most beautiful girls in this place were all on my team. I couldn’t lose.

“We might,” I told her.

We were not the first team to arrive back. We received our treasure map just moments after Vanessa’s team. At this point it was anyone’s game.

We unfolded the map the principal handed to us, and our four heads leaned in to look at it together. The hand-drawn, photocopied map showed the school’s layout. The X was near the front of the school, but it didn’t say which floor. It was either in the welcome office, or upstairs in the auditorium. When I saw Vanessa’s team running towards the office, we had no choice but to face the auditorium again to see if our treasure was there. Nobody argued with me as we ran up the staircase. We wanted to win this thing.

The plastic treasure chest was on the stage — right behind the three tormenters of ours who stood guarding it. Instead of hands clasped, they had arms crossed. It was pretty intimidating. Until one of them started laughing. It was an evil feminine laugh. I recognized it as a sound I heard nearly every time I dropped Olive off at school in the morning. The Mean Moms.

They all three started laughing and removed their masks to reveal their constipated faces. It was Shauna, Tabitha, and Melissa. I felt like I was in a real-life episode of Scooby Doo.

“It’s not as scary if you laugh,” I told them.

“I bet you guys were nearly shitting your pants,” Shauna said, her arms crossed against her chest again.

“Potty mouth!” Olive accused, pointing her finger at them.

There was about to be a standoff. I held up my arms in resignation.

“Thanks for the theatrics, ladies,” I told them. “You really added a nice haunting element to our scavenger hunt.”

“No. Thank you,” Shauna said. “Your pity-date gave us more entertainment than all of the games downstairs. It was so kind of you to take her out tonight.”

“The only people I pity around here are the three of you,” I said.

I heard the pounding of footsteps making their way up the stairs, and I knew we needed to get to the prize before Vanessa’s team arrived. It might turn into a bouquet-toss kind of brawl otherwise.

“I mean the four of you,” I said, gesturing behind me. “Now get out of our way.”

“It’s just a bunch of dollar store candy,” Melissa said with a roll of her eyes. “Have at it.”

I took a girl’s hand in each of mine and we approached the stage.

The Mean Moms scowled in the most exaggerated ways as they scooted over to let us by. I hoped their faces would get stuck that way. Or maybe they already were.

“Does this mean we won?” Lucie asked.

I shrugged. “I guess so,” I said. “Go on,” I told the girls. “Open it up.”

They opened it to find, as I expected, a bunch of candy. They also pulled out some things I wasn’t expecting: a restaurant gift card and a movie theatre gift card. When Olive handed me the cards, I stuck them in my back pocket.

“Should we take this to the car?” I asked.

“Yes!” the girls answered.

I carried the treasure chest as the four of us held our heads high and marched our way past the snotty faces of the Mean Moms. Their cat-eyes turned into angry slits.

“Boots with fringe? That’s funny. Didn’t fringe go out of style like two decades ago?”

“Those poor girls. Someone should seriously introduce them to Etsy before they are forced to wear store-bought costumes another year.”

“Nah. I just donated a bunch of my shoes to the Salvation Army last week. I think that’s enough charity for this year.”

“Oh, snap.”

Speaking of things that were out of style, I was pretty sure no one said, “Oh snap,” anymore.

I looked at Cora to see if she’d heard them. I knew by the expression on her face that she had. I would have taken her hand then, or touched her in some way to comfort her, but both hands were carrying the treasure chest. I did the next best thing and hip-checked her.

9:06 P.M.

The girls insisted that the treasure chest be strapped into the back seat of the SUV with a seatbelt. Once it was secure, I looked at my watch. It was after nine, late for six-year-olds. We should probably call it a night. But I didn’t want to be away from Cora yet. And wasn’t it okay for kids to stay up a little later on special occasions?

I didn’t want to mention it in front of the kids in case she said no. I pulled out my phone and texted her.

BEN: Pizza?

She checked the phone and nodded. “Sounds great. I’m starving. We forgot to stop by the snack booths inside.”

“Let’s pick up a pizza and then head to my house to eat and divide up our treasure.”

“YAY!” Lucie yelled.

“PIZZA!” I heard from Olive.

“All right girls,” Cora said, “get in and buckle up if you want pizza.”

When I sat down in the passenger seat, I scrolled through the numbers in my phone to find my favorite pizzeria. Yes, I had it saved in my phone. I was a single dad who only knew how to cook about three meals. I had more restaurants than people in my phone’s contacts.

I leaned my head back on the headrest and turned to face Cora. “I have to ask you an important question.”

“Yes?”

“Do you like pineapple on your pizza?”

“Of course.”

“Does Lucie?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

9:45 P.M.

The four of us sat at my dining room table to eat and sort the candy. The pizza disappeared quickly. We’d all been so hungry after our treasure hunt.

We divided all of the candy into two even piles. When we had an odd number, we compromised with no arguing. We took an extra KitKat, but they got an extra Almond Joy. Everyone was happy and full, and probably pretty candied out since we’d been eating some as we sorted.

When the candy was in order, Olive asked Lucie if she wanted to watch Frozen. Of course she did. The two girls went into the living room. My guess was they’d both be asleep in less than ten minutes.

We were alone. Sort of. But Cora couldn’t seem to look at me. She’d been acting really shy since we’d gotten to my house.

“So,” I asked cautiously, “is there a reason you‘re having a hard time looking at me?”

She looked alarmed at first. Then she just laughed. “No reason,” she answered with a slight smirk.

“You sure?”

She shrugged. “It’s possible that I had a dream about your dining room table once.”

Okay. I wasn’t expecting something that good. But I wasn’t going to complain about it. “Did you want to tell me more about this dream?”

She shook her head and pursed her lips together tightly, probably to keep them from blurting anything out. It was probably for the best. If she said anything naughty I was going to want to bend her over the table. Who was I kidding? I already wanted to. Oh shit. Change of subject needed immediately if I ever wanted to be able to stand up from this table.

“Maybe some other time?” I asked, hopefully.

She nodded firmly. “Yes. Definitely.”

I pulled the two gift cards from my back pocket and held them up. “What about these?” I asked.

“What are they?” Cora asked. “I didn’t get to see them at the school.”

“A restaurant gift card and a movie gift card.”

I was hoping she’d say we should use them together. She didn’t.

“We could each take one,” I suggested. “We could even draw them out of a hat to make it fair.”

She shrugged. “Sure. Whatever you want. We will be fine with either one.”

“What I want… is for us to use them … together.”

She smiled. “We could do that.”

“When?” I asked eagerly. “We could go tomorrow night before I take Olive to her mom’s. Or we could wait until Thursday when she comes back over.”

“Tomorrow is perfect.”

“Good. I really didn’t want to wait until Thursday to see you guys again.”

I heard music coming from the TV in the living room. “For the First Time in Forever.” I could relate.

The kids were asleep. I could hear Olive snoring. Cora got up from the table and took our glasses to the sink to rinse out the Sprite we drank with our pizza. I got up, too, and took the paper plates and napkins to the trash. I set the empty pizza box on the counter and leaned against the stove.

I didn’t want her to go yet.

“Hey, Cora,” I said timidly.

She turned around from the sink. It reminded me of that night, when I came upstairs to find her in the kitchen.

“If you want to stay and hang out for a little while,” I said, “I’ve got some cherry Kool-Aid in the fridge.”

She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment. First I thought she might be pissed, then I realized she was just trying to figure me out.

“You remember,” she said quietly.

I stepped closer to her. I stopped when I our chests were just an inch or two from touching. “Remember?” I repeated. “How could I forget?”

She tried to back away before she remembered her back was already against the counter. “I need to ask you something, Ben.”

That didn’t sound good. It sounded like the beginning of a very serious talk, one that I didn’t think was necessary this early into the game. But it was the first time I’d heard her say my name, and it gave me a chill in the best way. I was curious to hear this question. “What’s that?”

With her hands on the counter behind her, her guard was down, and her body was completely open to me. She didn’t look down the way she had that night long ago, but looked right into my eyes instead. “When you go to the grocery store, do you take a list?”

I smiled, surprised at how flippant the question was after all. “Are there people who don’t?”

“I’m afraid so.”

I laughed at her serious face. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

She nodded. “Good. That’s good.”

I slid my hand under her hair and wrapped it behind her neck. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” I said, “I’m going to kiss you.”

Cora

Halloween 2019

Feed the kids a healthy breakfast — Check.

Get Jamin in his Yoda costume without a tantrum — Check.

Look over Lucie’s costume to make sure she isn’t showing too much skin or looking too risqué — Check. P.S. She’s only eleven! Why is this even an issue already? I’m really not ready for this…

Drop Jamin off at preschool — Check.

Get Lucie to school on time — Check.

Get dressed — Check.

Put the turkey chili ingredients into the crock pot — Check.

Make the caramel-dipped green grapes — Check.

Make the seven-layer spider web dip — Check.

Get the spiced cider in the fridge — Check.

Get Jamin from preschool — Check.

Get to the school in time for the Halloween parade — Check.

Get a really nice picture of all three of our kids together — Check.

Go home and get Jamin down for a nap without a tantrum — Check.

Wrap Ben’s anniversary gift — Check.

Get girls from school — Check.

Remind Olive to text her mom to confirm I’ve picked her up — Check.

Feed kids a healthy after-school snack — Check. It really was healthy that time.

Whoa. This wasn’t on my list, I thought, as I was pulled into our bedroom by my husband an hour before he was supposed to be home from work.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He shrugged and gave me a sneaky grin. “I got off early. I wanted to surprise you.”

“Mission accomplished.”

He unzipped his coat, took it off, and threw it onto the hardwood floor. His t-shirt said, “This is the strangest life I’ve ever known.” He smirked.

“You do not still have that t-shirt.”

“No. I ordered it online. I thought we could recreate a moment.”

“Hmm,” I said, playing along, “I’m pretty sure that moment took place in the dark, and not at four in the afternoon.”

He pushed my t-shirt up, pulled the cup of my bra down, and slid his tongue over my nipple — just like he had that night.

I yelped in surprise. I guess he wasn’t going to waste any time.

He unbuttoned my pants next, slid his hand in my underwear, and leaned in to me so he could whisper in my ear, “This moment will be taking place in the dark. I just wanted to give you something to look forward to.”

He removed his hand, licked his finger, and smirked at me again.

“What? You can’t do that,” I said.

“I can,” he said, smiling. “I did. Happy Anniversary, baby.”

He tried to leave the room, but I grabbed his hand, pushed his body up against our bed, and dropped to my knees.

Give my husband a tiny bit of something that will have him wanting more for the rest of the night — Check. Paybacks are a bitch, Ben.

Put the leaf in the table and set seven settings for our post-trick-or-treat dinner — Check.

I heard the doorbell. They were here. Everything was ready. The kids were in their costumes. Dinner, including drinks and hors d'oeuvres, was prepared. My day off of work was well utilized.

I opened the door to greet our guests — Eliza and her boyfriend, Dan.

I took the apple pie from her hands. The bottom was still warm. I licked my lips. Some might say, and there have been jokes about it in the past, that the reason we invited Eliza over for dinner on holidays and special occasions, was because of her apple pie. I won’t confirm or deny that.

“Happy Anniversary,” Eliza said to me with a sly grin, like she knew there was something else I was waiting for tonight besides her pie. Oh gosh, that didn’t come out right at all.

“Thanks,” I said, as I handed the warm pie to Ben. “Happy Halloween!”

I’m a full-time waitress, Chapstick-addict, make-up junkie, and Justin Timberlake fan for life. I’ve been a book nerd since I was a child, and grew up with The Baby-Sitter’s Club and The Sweet Valley Twins. I'm a sucker for the boy-next-door type, and still believe in happy endings. Writing (about the boy-next-door and happy endings) is what I do when I'm avoiding other things… like cleaning.

I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Media Arts, and once had big dreams of being a Hollywood screenwriter. But then I met a boy and got distracted. A few years later, we met another boy, this one even cuter. The three of us are now living (happily ever after!) in the Detroit area. And our house is kind of a mess.

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Cora and Ben are new characters and do not appear in any of my previous books. But if you liked their story (and I hope you did), check out the two books in my romantic comedy series:

The Good Life

A second-chance romance.

“"I highly recommend this book. I laughed, cried, sighed, gasped, smiled REALLY BIG and truly loved it." — Melissa Brown, author of Wife Number 7

All Good Things

A summer romance.

"If Dawson's Creek and Felicity had a wild night with American Pie while watching John Hughes movies." — Ashley Pullo, author of The Album