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Courtney’s new group chat creation came with six exclamation marks and a pumpkin emoji: PUMPKIN PATROL NIGHT!!!!!!
She added a second message:
Beth + Rick, you’re on procurement. Yolanda, supervise. Mike and I are helping Pat decorate the house.
Honestly, Yolanda was surprised Courtney had the word ‘procurement’ in her vocabulary.
The reason behind the supervision task became clear by the time they hopped off the tractor at the pumpkin patch in West Farms. To help pick pumpkins, yeah, but also mainly to prevent Beth from overthinking and Rick from underthinking. He had already stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans while they wandered around like he’d made a personal pact never to be enthusiastic about anything autumnal in public. Beth, meanwhile, had a clipboard.
A clipboard. To pick pumpkins.
“You made a rubric?” Yolanda asked, stepping in tandem with her. Their boots crunched over the dusty lot. It was the kind of orange-burnished October afternoon that tasted like sun-warmed apples and woodsmoke, the breeze whipping corn stalks into quiet rustling. Little kids bounced from bale to bale with sticky caramel faces, and the three of them accidentally matched in flannel. Well, Beth was wearing an overall dress and tights over her flannel, but it still counted.
“It’s not a rubric,” Beth said, flipping a page. “It’s a decision matrix.”
Rick looked at Yolanda with deadpan horror. “I want off this mission.”
“It accounts for carving depth, stem integrity, base stability, colour vibrancy—”
“Beth,” Yolanda said. “They’re vegetables.”
“And sentimental vibe,” she added, ignoring her.
Rick bent to inspect a lopsided pumpkin like a crook calculating the angle of a bank vault. His hair had gone sunlit at the ends; Court’s been threatening to do an at-home trim that will absolutely end in catastrophe. Yolanda didn’t say anything out loud about it, but she suspected Rick let it grow out because Beth made an off-hand comment two months ago that she liked how his hair stuck up after wearing the Hourman hood long. Yolanda made a mental note to intercept.
“Stem looks like it’s been through something,” he murmured.
“Relatable,” Yolanda muttered under her breath, smirking at Rick appreciating her humour.
Beth shooed both of them aside with the clipboard. “No soft spots, no rot. We’re not inviting mould into Courtney’s house.”
“I think she’d care more about an uglier-than-the-rest pumpkin giving one of us a competitive edge,” Yolanda said, stepping over vines. “So, carving party later, house party on Friday. We’re still missing costumes.”
Beth opened her mouth. Yolanda plowed through because they were running out of time and she was worried she was about to produce another checklist out of thin air. “Before we dive into the twelve-point typeface, we need to address the elephant in the room and agree on a group theme that Mr. Low Effort over here will actually show up for.”
She knew exactly who Yolanda meant, because she looked up the way she does when she’s pretending not to watch Rick, then immediately watched him. Rick had moved on to lifting pumpkins like he was testing baseballs, which was…expected. The boy bench-presses for fun.
“Stop judging me with your eyes,” he said without looking at them. “I didn’t grow up trick-or-treating.”
“If we didn’t judge you, you’d show up as ‘guy in hoodie,’” Yolanda said. “We literally became friends at Cindy’s Halloween party two years ago and you were the guy in a hoodie.”
He shrugged, not denying it.
“Shaggy from Scooby-Doo,” she suggested to Beth, who had gone back to analyzing the pumpkins at their feet. “Green shirt, brown pants, he already has the posture.”
Beth bit her lip, trying not to smile. “He does have the posture.”
“My posture is fine,” Rick said.
“Beth’s already Velma-coded with the glasses and the short hair,” Yolanda continued. “Courtney is literally Fred.”
“Why, because she’s the blonde one?”
“‘Let’s split up, gang!’” Yolanda imitated.
Rick snorted. “Yeah, that’s Court.”
“Then that makes you Daphne and purple is your colour,” Beth said. “And you are the pretty one.”
“What does that mean?” Rick was very suspiciously quick to say. But Yolanda wanted to know too.
“Nothing,” Beth said, embarrassed that they were hovering on that. “I just meant, Yolanda, you’re very pretty. And Daphne is very pretty, that’s all.”
“So are you,” she said diplomatically. “Velma isn’t, like. Not pretty. They just put her in a really chunky sweater.”
“There is no ‘prettiness' ranking between you girls,” Rick added, tone clipped like he couldn’t believe he had to say it. “Don’t buy into that junk. It’s crap, Beth.”
“Never mind,” Beth muttered under her breath, properly chastised. “It came out wrong.”
“Would you want to be Daphne instead?” she offered. “I could be Velma, too.”
Beth sighed. “No, I actually do want to be Velma.”
Yolanda smiled and knew it was time to move on. “Okay so we at least have one option.”
Rick looked at the girls again, seriously unamused. “You just spent five minutes talking about how great this one would work, now you need options?”
Beth and Yolanda both shushed him.
“Brainstorm. Ghostbusters?”
“No.”
“Addams Family…Rick as Pugsley?”
“I’m not wearing stripes,” he said.
“Wizard of Oz? We put a funnel on his head and call it a day.”
Beth drifted down the row, skirting vines, and crouched by a pumpkin with a perfect pear shape. “Courtney wants something with colour. And she said ‘no trench coats, no funeral couture, no depressing indie movie.’”
“So she pre-banned half of my closet,” Rick said.
“Half?” Yolanda said. “Generous.”
Beth realized how prickly the pumpkins still connected to the vines were, and flagged Rick over to help her lift the one she wanted. He came over and snapped the pumpkin from its vines, turned it, and handed it over to Beth.
“Okay, Hourman,” Beth teased Rick at how he easily ripped it like paper.
“Relax,” he muttered, somehow flustered by that harmless comment.
He turned it and handed the pumpkin over to Beth. Their fingers overlapped on the hand-off for half a second—blink and miss—and both of them pretended they hadn’t noticed that. Yolanda noticed. She noticed all of that stuff these days.
“This one,” Beth said softly.
“Nice pick,” he said, as casual as a guy not-realising he just said I trust your judgement aloud.
Yolanda cleared her throat before they spiralled into feelings and she’d become a third wheel. “Anyway, guys? Costumes, remember? We’re catering this around you so you should help us, dude. What’s the least amount of effort you can expend?”
“Walking into Cindy’s party is already an effort,” Rick said.
“Men in Black,” Beth offered. “Black suit, sunglasses, earpiece? We can be agents; he can be… an agent.”
“I don’t own a suit,” he said.
“I’ve seen you in a tie,” Beth countered.
“That was court-mandated,” he tried to joke, and then grimaced. His emancipation hearing was only a few months ago and still uncomfortably fresh for everyone. More seriously, he added, “Pat rented it for me.”
Beth shot him a look—fond worry crossed with acceptance—that said she knew the truth behind the joke and cared anyway.
“Okay,” Yolanda said, “what about Stranger Things? Hawkins High cheer, Scoops Ahoy, and Rick can be ‘guy who touches the TV and it static-hisses back.’”
He smirked. “I could be the Demogorgon. Sweatpants, hood up.”
“Rick!” Yolanda exclaimed with a dragged-out groan, “For the third time! A hood is not a costume.”
Beth’s pencil hovered above the clipboard. “What about The Breakfast Club? I can do Allison if Courtney insists on Claire, you can be Brian, and Rick can be John Bender. That’s literally what he wears.”
Rick put the pumpkin into the wagon and hooked his foot idly on the wheel. “We’re doing detention chic?”
Yolanda was honestly surprised Rick knew the plot to the movie. It must’ve shown on her expression because he pulled a face and said, “I saw it at Beth’s house.”
“Courtney wants to be festive,” Beth reminded them. “Spooky, but not, like, existential dread. I’m not sure anyone would know who we are if we dressed up as Breakfast Club and then split at a party.”
“Courtney isn’t the monarchy. She doesn’t write out decrees,” Rick shot back.
“Too bad Halloween isn’t one month later. You’re a November problem,” Yolanda said, and Beth laughed, startled and delighted.
Rick looked up like he hadn’t expected to hear that sound from her today.
They moved down the row, wagon bumping over uneven ground. Beth pointed out a squat pumpkin with constellation freckles, “for Courtney” because it “has main character energy.” Yolanda found one shaped like a deflated football and named it Afterthought. Rick, traitor, loved it.
“We could do Scooby-Doo,” Beth said, circling back. “Easy silhouettes, bright colours. Courtney might take some convincing to be Fred, unless she actually wants to be Scooby Doo.” She said it without looking at Rick. He said nothing.
“Rick as Shaggy is painless,” Yolanda said. “He already eats like a cartoon.”
Rick pushed the wagon. “I’m vetoing a goatee.”
“You can draw one with eyeliner,” Beth said, and then flinched at herself like she’d accidentally crossed into flirty. Not her style—too direct. She pivoted fast. “Or we just… don’t.”
Yolanda hid in a laugh and saved her. “Courtney Fred and Cameron Scooby or vice versa. They can work it out amongst themselves. See? Problem solved. Onesie, done. No one is putting Cameron in the dog suit unless Courtney convinces him.”
“What about Artemis?”
“I think she’s doing a group costume with her hockey team.”
Beth visibly relaxed—minute muscles behind her cheeks easing. “I like it,” she said. “If Courtney doesn’t, she has to figure out Plan B.”
“Courtney will love it,” Yolanda said. “She’ll demand fog machines.”
“We’re not letting her bring industrial fog into Cindy’s already creepy home,” Beth said.
Rick, never one to accept joy without a fight, nudged a pumpkin with his toe. “We could go as ‘teenagers who survived October.’ Jeans. Hoodies. Thousand-yard stare.”
“Then you shave,” Yolanda said.
“I’m not shaving,” he said.
“Shaggy it is,” Beth said briskly, like writing it into the minutes.
He squinted at her, and Yolanda could feel the question between them—how much are they joking and how much are they saying I want to pick something with you? It’s the way he always tests floorboards before he trusts them with his weight.
The wagon filled. The sun slanted lazy and gold, the air cooling. A hayride squeaked by; the driver yelled something about cider and they all nodded like they’d already drunk it. Beth consulted her matrix, checked off items, then tucked the clipboard under her arm and glanced at Rick.
“Help me with this one?” she asked, nodding at a pumpkin that was a little too big for one person and exactly the right size for two.
He lifted first; she matched him; they did that awkward shift-walk that looks like ballroom dancing if you squint. For a second Yolanda saw them at sixty, carrying a couch into a sunlit room and bickering about carpet, and the vision made her so soft she had to pretend to sneeze.
“Bless you,” Beth said, reflexively polite to her bones.
“Thanks,” Yolanda replied, pretending it had happened.
They paid and hauled the loot to the car, and Rick loaded everything impressively fast. Beth slid into the back seat with Yolanda so they could “guard the stems,” whatever that meant.
Courtney’s porch already had a dozen fake spiders and a real one that looked suspiciously like a Jakeem pink pen creation that none of them wanted to mention. When they rolled the wagon up her steps, she burst through the door wearing a witch hat as if it were her birthright.
“My heroes!” she cried, then noticed the pumpkins. “Ohhhh, that one’s hot.”
“They’re pumpkins,” Rick said.
“Sexy pumpkins,” she corrected, puckering her lips. She kissed Beth and Yolanda on the cheeks, and Rick on the air near him because he dodged.
“Okay, carving table’s set, I made a playlist, Mike stole all the good knives and I confiscated them. Let’s make a mess! Did we pick costumes?”
Beth glanced at Yolanda, then squared her shoulders like she was presenting a brief. “We think Scooby-Doo.”
Courtney screamed. “YES. DIBS ON FRED!”
“Called it,” Yolanda said.
“Velma?” Beth offered.
“Velma,” Courtney agreed, eyes sparking. “Yolanda, Scooby?”
“Wildcat in a dog onesie?” she said. “No, I’m Daphne.”
Courtney whirled to Rick. “Shaggy?”
“I’m suing for typecasting,” he deadpanned.
“You’re perfect,” she said, and hugged him before he could slip out. He did the awkward pat-pat that means “my love language is acts of service, please respect my personal space” but Yolanda isn’t convinced he secretly loves both Courtney’s chaotic flair and her hugs.
They spread newspapers, slotted bowls for seeds, lit a few tea lights. The kitchen smelled like cinnamon and dish soap; the whole house had that familiar Whitmore buzz, talk overlapping talk, the low hum of belonging that hasn’t been felt at Yolanda’s own house in a long time. Beth searched Courtney’s cupboards for markers and came up with a crayon caddy from 2009. Rick found a serrated knife Courtney had missed and held it up like Excalibur before she took it away.
“Rules,” she said, wagging it. “No ER trips.”
“We have a Dr. Mid-Nite right here,” he said.
Beth rolled her eyes. “Oh, so you’re okay with me patching you up if you cut your finger off while competitively pumpkin carving, but I’m not allowed to look under your shirt when you have five broken ribs?”
Rick took the knife back from Courtney’s grip and set it onto the newspaper, obviously taken aback.
“Okaaay,” Courtney mediated after shooting a harried look at Yolanda. “It’s Halloweek, no fights.”
Beth looked a little surprised with herself as well. “Sorry,” she said. “All I meant was let’s just try to be careful all the time.”
They started carving.
Yolanda went classic jack-o’-lantern grin because quite honestly she couldn’t stand the smell of pumpkin guts. Courtney sketched a complicated Daphne silhouette after Courtney texted Cameron for a stencil, which Rick accused as cheating. Beth, shocker, designed something intricate and precise with little stars like a night chart; her tongue stuck out the tiniest bit in concentration.
Rick traced a lazy ghost and then, when no one was looking, took an extra minute to round its edges smoother than necessary with a pocketknife.
He does that—pretends not to care, then makes it perfect when the room looks away. She remembered back before they were friends that Rick used to vandalize the school desks with that pocketknife. He was probably holding back.
They talked about costumes and logistics. A thrift store run for orange and purple, Beth’s plan to 3D-print a magnifying glass frame, Courtney’s insistence that they “commit to the bit,” and make tiktoks where she promises to get Cameron to bark exactly twice every time someone said “jeepers.”
“Shaggy needs a green tee,” Beth said, glancing at Rick’s shirt, the representation of a wardrobe of exactly one thousand dark tees.
“I have a green shirt,” Rick replied, affronted.
Yolanda crossed her arms. “Oh yeah? Where is it?”
Rick rolled his eyes. “I’ll find it by the 31st.”
Beth passed him the bowl for seeds.
He took it, and their fingers brushed again—familiar now, the unremarkable miracle of it. Beth looked down quickly, then back up, then copied Courtney’s laugh like the room needed it. She’s so good at reading the room she forgets to read herself.
“Are we talking wigs?” Courtney asked. “Like, are we committing to hair?”
Beth drummed her fingers against the table, inspecting her masterpiece. “I can do Velma without a wig. Yolanda needs one if she wants to go ginger.”
Rick scraped pumpkin guts in clean strokes. “I’m not dyeing my hair green.”
“Shaggy’s shirt is green,” Beth said. “Not his hair. You’re good.”
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah. Fine. I can do that.”
She watched them from the edge of the table, and wondered when they’d stop making eye contact like it burned. Not soon. Maybe never. Okay. It was starting to get old.
They roasted the seeds with too much salt because Mike leaned in and dumped a fistful, then fled before Beth could lecture him on sodium. The first batch tasted like the ocean and Jakeem, who had been upstairs and had in fact been responsible for the giant immobile tarantula outside, gagged on them.
Courtney put on “Monster Mash” and made them all do the choreography she made up when she was eight. Rick refused for ten minutes and then did exactly five perfectly memorized steps by the time Court’s iPhone was recording, eye-rolling the whole time. Priceless.
By the time the porch filled with carved faces and the sun slid off the rooftops, the group costume plan was locked. Courtney texted Pat a list titled “supply scavenger hunt” with seventeen items and three question marks. She also texted Cameron a photo of Rick holding a pumpkin like a trophy. Cameron reacted with a skull which was better than Yolanda was expecting.
“Okay,” Courtney said, bouncing. “Friday, we get ready here for the party. I’ll set up the mystery truck photo backdrop.”
“It’s called the Mystery Machine,” Beth supplied helpfully.
“That’s what I said,” Courtney said, and Beth didn’t correct her again. They tidied and tossed the guts into the trash—Yolanda made Rick do it, she just couldn’t look at the stringy bowl for another second, and Beth lingered to pack Tupperware.
On Friday, they committed to the bit.
Courtney’s hair was tied up and shoved beneath the shirt behind her neck and Yolanda had adjusted the Annoyingly Perfect Daphne wig with the help of Mrs. Whitmore. She’d found a purple dress that somehow fit like it was tailored and also had pockets. They’d found a Scooby onesie at the thrift store for Cameron but they weren’t counting on him showing up until after Cindy’s party had already started. Beth had leaned into Velma with a pleated skirt and orange sweater. When she put on the knee socks, Rick actually said “aww.” She pretended not to know what to do with her hands and then solved that by holding a book.
Rick…found his green shirt, as promised. Paired with brown pants and the old Nikes that had seen things. He’d mussed his hair in front of the Whitmore-Dugan mirror for a few minutes while Beth blatantly stared from the living room, and she’d be very dumb to think Yolanda didn’t see that.
There was that shadow of stubble he’d refused to shave and it worked, somehow. He walked in like he was doing them a favour by not panicking over accessories and stuff and then stood by the kitchen table to help Barbara get candy bags prepared for the trick-or-treaters.
“Shaggy!” Courtney crowed, throwing an arm around him and forcing a boomerang for her stories.
“Zoinks,” he said, monotone.
Beth snorted. “Ten out of ten.”
They took a lot of pictures and went through Courtney’s Tiktok ideas until all of them grew tired of it and decided they might as well get to Cindy’s place.
The mansion was just as unnerving as they’d all remembered. Cindy was blasting the radio hits and it felt like half the school was jammed into every room, staircase or hallway.
Yolanda stood by the wall of the marbled kitchen and realized this was her first house party since the incident and enough time had passed (or Artemis had threatened her teams seriously enough) that boys no longer constantly harassed her. Maybe with the red wig nobody even knew she was Yolanda Montez. It was kind of weird. Like she was invisible for the first time in a long time–different from being Wildcat—and that wasn’t a feeling she ever thought she’d appreciate before. She crossed her arms over her purple dress and watched as Cameron wandered in and accepted the plastic bag Courtney had of the dog onesie, then disappeared again to find a bathroom to change in. Cindy was dressed in couture Maleficent and immediately started a rumour that the punch was spiked, which it wasn’t—Rick tested it—because she had hidden wine coolers and beer under the table if anyone bothered to look.
Beth drifted, talked, fixed a crooked cobweb, and then joined her for a bit. They laughed about Travis’ ghoul mask constantly slipping off his face. Rick stayed out of the dead centre of everything, orbiting, catching conversations on the edges, and Yolanda had to admit it was a remarkable skill. When Beth moved, he unconsciously adjusted his vector. When he moved, she stayed next to Yolanda, but pivoted towards his new direction like they had a magnetic pull.
Later, when the playlist eased into something older and everyone sank into couches and carpet (or toilets), Courtney brought out the roasted pumpkin seeds, version two (less salt, thank God), and they circled up in Cindy’s bedroom, legs tangled, costumes askew. Yolanda tucked her knees to the side, her Mary Janes kicked off, abandoned against the vanity she’d once smashed Cindy into a couple months ago.
“Confession circle,” Courtney declared. “Halloween confessions. Like, what scared you the most as a kid?”
Both Rick and Cameron’s smiles immediately wiped off their faces, and Yolanda and Beth shared a worried look, sharing Court’s dropped brain cell.
“Court,” Beth warned, still smiling brightly. “Some of us had terrible childhoods.”
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry. Right. This is supposed to be fun. What candy would you fight for? It’s gummies for me.”
Cameron said licorice.
Yolanda looked at her nails, which she’d done herself right before putting on her costume. “M&Ms.”
“Tootsie Rolls,” Beth said after, then cringed at herself. “Sorry.”
“Why sorry?” Rick asked.
She shrugged. “Everyone seems to hate those.”
“It’s a question,” he said. “It doesn’t have a right or wrong answer.”
She glanced at him, surprised like he’d handed her permission. “Tootsie Rolls,” she repeated more firmly. “My dad likes them too.”
“Snickers for me,” he said.
“Now that’s boring,” Yolanda told him.
“How is it boring?”
“Because it’s predictable.”
Cindy got up. “This game is giving boring. I’m getting more wine.”
Courtney stretched her legs, toes bumping a tea light. “Okay, whatever, new one. Which of us would die first in a horror movie?”
“Mike,” everyone said, and it was a good thing Mike wasn’t even there because he’d probably have had a meltdown.
They kept going. Worst costume you wore as a kid, best haunted house, stupidest prank. Rick told the story of scaring himself with his own reflection at twelve and everyone laughed the good kind of laugh. It was rare he shared anything from his childhood that wasn’t out of something they read in a miserable Dickens novel in school. Beth told the story of a neighbour whose inflatable grim reaper popped at midnight and deflated like the viral Barney float video from the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade before they were born.
When the circle thinned and people peeled off to talk quietly, find food, or lean on doorframes in that half-sleepy party way, Yolanda found Rick in the kitchen rinsing a bowl, sleeves pushed. Beth appeared behind him with a towel. They moved around each other without speaking, in that way that says they’ve done this before in different kitchens, on worse nights.
“Shaggy,” said Yolanda, leaning in the doorway, “you survived Halloween without dressing as ‘guy in hoodie.’ I’m proud.”
He looked over his shoulder at Beth, then back at her. “I had help.”
Beth rolled her eyes fondly then stepped past him and bumped her shoulder into Yolanda’s in a quiet thanks.
“Hey,” Courtney called from the living room. “Group photo! Mystery Inc., front and centre!”
They lined up in front of the backdrop she’d made—blue van silhouette and hand-painted flowers that were obviously Cameron’s. She grabbed Beth’s hand and spun her, Cameron/Scooby stuck out a paw, Rick—Shaggy—did a dramatic slouch. Artemis, dressed as Troy Bolton, clicked the photo.
When Yolanda looked at it later, she thought it both stupid and perfect. Beth’s glasses a smudge, her own wig frizzing, Courtney mid-laugh, Rick half-smiling. They’ll look like five normal kids on one normal night.
After the photo, people drifted again. Beth tugged at her socks, then hesitated near Rick like maybe she wanted to say something. He misread it as space and shifted a half step away, which made Yolanda sigh. They were such amateurs at this. She wasn’t sure if it made her feel a certain way because she thought it was annoying or because she used to be like that with Henry, and she missed the innocence of it before everything went wrong.
“Hey,” she said lightly, grabbing two pumpkin seed bowls and shoving them at strangers to think of something else. “Dance break.”
Courtney whooped, the music turned up, and the living room filled again. Rick retreated to the doorway like a lifeguard and watched Beth dance with Yolanda while Courtney and Cameron disappeared somewhere. They got ridiculous with their dance moves, taking full advantage of their Loser Table status until Beth had to take a pause because she couldn’t stop laughing. She looked over her shoulder, eyes crinkling, and beckoned Rick with two fingers. Even Yolanda knew that Beth looking at you like that was a dare you don’t refuse.
He didn’t. He set his jaw, shifted weight, and stepped forward. She met him halfway and dragged him around the coffee table littered with sticky cans of beer. He faked the Shaggy sway, she did the Velma bop, and somehow neither of them had to be someone else to enjoy it.
Yolanda stepped back and gave them the privacy they needed, hoping maybe this time something would come out of it, but not really holding her breath.
Later, when the party thinned to the bones—tea lights puddled, Cindy mid-kicking out the Chad and Ryan from the HSM-themed football team, and Courtney asleep with a random witch hat over her face—Rick stood on the porch, mindfully watching around the street to make sure that the guys who drove away were actually sober enough to be DDs. Yolanda padded out in her purple dress, wig off, Beth behind her with a blanket.
“Successful mission,” Yolanda said, leaning on the railing.
Rick made a face like the word “successful” wasn’t the right word and then let it go. “Yeah,” he said. “Not bad.”
Beth was nice enough to tuck the blanket around her shoulders even though she didn’t feel like she needed it, then she naturally gravitated next to Rick, close but not touching.
“Thanks for the shirt,” Beth said, finally.
He huffed a laugh. “It’s literally a shirt I already owned.”
“But you wore it,” she said, which was the thing. “Last year I suggested a costume idea and you didn’t do it.”
“You know what, Beth? Sometimes I’m a dick And, you should say it.”
“I’m not going to say you’re a…” She flustered. “That.”
“Fine. Yolanda will.”
She nodded dutifully and gave a salute. “It’ll be my honor.”
He didn’t say I’d do worse if you asked now, Yolanda could tell. He’s not there. Maybe he will be. Maybe he never will be. Tonight, it’s enough that he showed up in green and danced badly on purpose.
“Next year,” Courtney shouted from inside, suddenly awake like a JSA bonding moment happening without her was an alarm clock. They turned to look at her. She migrated to the porch, eyes still half-closed, “we’re doing Ghostbusters.”
“Okay,” Rick said easily, and Beth smiled into the dark so wide it was like she’d already started the list.
Yolanda tucked the blanket tighter (Beth was right, as usual, she was wearing a minidress and it was almost midnight in October) and looked at her friends, their faces glowing on the steps, and breath ghosting the porch light. Halloween was pretend, sure. But it also meant something else entirely.
“Happy friendship-iversary,” Yolanda finally said. “I love you guys.”
Courtney’s eyes watered and she flung herself into Yolanda’s arms hard. “Happy JSA day. I love you too.”
Rick tugged on Beth’s arm, and brought her into the hug pile. “Same,” he said, and it was heartfelt.
Beth giggled, echoing him. “Me too.”