If It Makes You Happy(66)

“Have fun trick-or-treating!” Carol calls to me. “And don’t get too spooked!”

I swallow. “Sure thing.”

Though I fear there is something much scarier than ghosts tonight.





CHAPTER 18





Michelle




The streets are overtaken with running children, clusters of preteen kids, and parents chatting behind them in either no costume or one that matches their child’s. Leave it to the Burke family to have an eclectic variety of a horror movie villain, an inappropriate wrestler, and a cat.

“I’ve never seen a town so excited about any holiday,” I say.

Cliff grins. “We take Halloween very seriously. Lars has this whole pizza competition in the square. If you can eat the whole ghost-shaped pizza, you get free slices for a year.”

“And you deprived me of that?” I ask with a gasp.

“You think you could win?”

“Maybe.”

“I’d like to see you try. Oh, we’re going this way,” he interjects, placing a palm on my lower back to direct me down another street than the way we were going.

I’m already lost in the mix of things, and I’ve jumped twice after a group of boys ran past with a fake chain saw. But all that doesn’t compare to the thrumming in my chest when Cliff touches my lower back.

Up ahead, Josh and Emily hold hands. Her cat tail bobs behind her, right next to his paper dog tail. She nudges her shoulder against his. He returns it.

“Thanks for telling me to give him a chance,” Cliff says. “He’s not the worst kid she could like.”

I snort. “Is that a compliment for Josh?”

“It’s not an insult.”

“You’re growing, Cliff.”

He rolls his eyes. “I think having another teen daughter would give me an early heart attack.”

“Hate to break it to you, but …” I point at Brittany, who’s racing down a driveway with her floppy pillowcase partially weighed down by a small collection of candy.

Beside her is Luke—the boy who supposedly hates Steve Austin—dressed as the Undertaker. He asks her to race him to the next house, and they bolt off with Rocket in tow, carried by the leash attached to Brittany’s wrist.

“I’m doomed,” Cliff says with a grin.

I bite my bottom lip, staring at his smile again. I can’t help myself. I like the little line beside his mouth and the fan of check marks beside his eyes.

I keep trying to pinpoint the last time I felt this anxious. I was so nervous on my first date with Allen that I could barely eat. But for the past five years, with our steadily declining communication, with all the times he got home late from the hospital, with how he chose to take the guest room so he wouldn’t wake me up, eventually taking up permanent residence for no other reason … the only nerves I’ve felt were bad.

Are these butterflies around Cliff bad?

Are they butterflies or moths?

And in what world am I having potential butterflies at all?

I’m having them in this one—this world, where we’re walking down busy streets and trick-or-treaters disregard sidewalks and cars putter through the crowds at a snail’s pace. I have butterflies for this small-town baker nestled in Vermont. For this man—a friend—I would have never met in any lifetime except this one, with my divorce and without my mom. But I’m not sure I’d want to be in any other place right now, and that’s the scariest part.

“Dad, Rocket got candy too!” Brittany says mid-run back to us with an open pillowcase. She tilts it to show a small doggy treat among the wrapped candy.

“Wow, good for him,” Cliff says, peering down at Rocket, whose tail is wagging up a storm.

I haven’t seen him this happy since we got to Copper Run. That makes two of us.

“Next house!” Brittany yells, running off again, toward the house blasting groaning ghoul sounds and a fog machine.

Cliff leans down and whispers in my ear, “Discreetly look to your left.”

A shiver rolls down my spine at his proximity, but I do as he said. In a yard nearby, Betty and Lisa sway back and forth. They each hold a bright orange flask with black stickers plastered on one side to resemble a jack-o’-lantern grin.

I gasp. “Are they drinking?”

“We can’t be held accountable for our actions on Halloween,” he says with a grin.

“I can’t believe my mom lived here. This is so … different.”

Cliff blows out a breath, then laughs. “Oh yeah. She and Lisa were little heathens together.”

“Really?”

“I’ve never seen Lisa and Birdie party as hard as they did at the haunted house last year.”

I bust out laughing. “Wow.”

“Have I told you the story about when she tripped over a grave?”

“No,” I breathe.

“Best part? It wasn’t even Halloween.”

I laugh again, and the joy feels so foreign. But it’s there, releasing from me through a collapsed dam. I hold my hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing louder. Cliff smiles down at me, almost like he doesn’t want to see anything else but me.

A bright light flashes through the darkness, and I blink through the stars.