by Dylan Newton
That part was hot as hell.
Yet the way she slashed at the denim, slicing through the fabric at his knees with the single-minded ferocity of a Samurai warrior, made his balls want to crawl up to a safer vantage point.
Like, say, his throat.
“Done!” she said, leaning back on her heels, using the back of the hand still holding the carving knife to brush away a tendril of hair that had miraculously escaped one of her Dorothy braids. “You can pull them up over those tights and button them now.”
Drake did so, looking down at himself.
She’d hacked his favorite jeans into a pair of redneck booty shorts.
Yet each leg was the same length, and they still showed most of the silvery fabric on his legs, as well as the silly Tin Man boots, so his Mom couldn’t accuse him of not being in full costume. He was the Tin Man, sporting a pair of jean shorts. It wasn’t a traditional Tin Man costume, but at least the shorts hid his junk, and that was what mattered.
“Thank you,” Drake said, extending a hand to help Kate stand. “Saving the guy in distress. Again.”
Vaguely, he heard his mother say his name.
And then Kate’s flushed face was turned up to his, laughing in relief.
“Whew! Just in time!”
His heart leaped at her expression. It wasn’t the business-card smile she gave when she had on her professional hat—he’d said something to bring up that adorable dimple to the spot an inch above her jaw, right underneath the smile line.
“There’s that upside-down semicolon,” he said, grinning. “That’s my favorite.”
Kate’s smile didn’t slip, but her gaze was quizzical. “What upside-down semicolon?”
“Right here is the curve of the comma,” Drake said, his index finger tracing her smile line down to where it ended, and then dotting the spot where her dimple indented her cheek. “And there’s the dot. Just like the punctuation, it always gives me pause when I see it.”
His mind told him touching her face was all sorts of wrong—lawsuit wrong. Yet his fingers, caressing the silk of her cheek and then tilting her chin up, up, up to him…
When his lips met hers, it was as if they’d suddenly fallen into a portal, far, far away from the crowd and the noise, where all that existed was Kate in his arms. The soft texture of her lips, her sweet scent, the feel of her hot breath as she exhaled in a sigh, all of it was a myriad of unexpected sensation. Pure pleasure. The seconds stretched out like warm caramel as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
His mind spun with the thought. She kissed him back!
“Drake?” his mom called, peering around the stage’s backdrop.
Kate snapped her head back, tottering a half step in her ruby slippers, breaking free of his embrace. Her hand came up, half-covering her lips, like she was hiding a smile. Or a scream.
Before Drake could say anything to her—apologize or make some sort of an excuse—his mother was speaking again.
And she’d forgotten she was holding the microphone.
“Drake Matthews, I’ve called your name three times now, for Pete’s sake!” The microphone canted to the side but projected her voice as if it were held directly under her chin. She scowled at them. “You two need to quit making out back there and start this contest!”
The crowd behind her chuckled, and a few men in the back cat-called and whistled.
Kate’s chest, neck, and face flushed crimson, and she ducked her head. He didn’t know what he would’ve done if she’d been frowning or, worse, appeared horrified. Lucky for him, as she frantically waved him toward the stage, her lips lifted at both edges.
And the upside-down semicolon was still there.
Drake put a hand on the stage and leaped to the side, suddenly as light and agile as a parkour athlete.
The next five minutes were a blur. Drake remembered taking the microphone from his mom, and he recalled his first two sentences to the crowd.
“Hi, everyone! I’m Drake Matthews, and I assure you everything backstage was completely appropriate and PG—everything this costume was not, hence the addition of these shorts.”
The crowd laughed appreciatively, and Drake babbled on about being happy to be there to raise money for the shelter, and then his mouth switched to autopilot. He’d done enough of these charity events to know his role: turn the spotlight from him and his books to the nonprofit organization and badger the attendees to open their hearts…and their wallets. As the expected words poured from him, he glanced to his right, watching his mom escort Kate to sit at the table on the stage, overriding what appeared to be Kate’s reluctance.
He could’ve told Kate that, like the Star Trek’s infamous Borg Collective, resistance to his mom was futile. Sure enough, his knife-wielding planner was soon plopped into a plastic lawn chair behind a table full of various-size pumpkins. Clad in that absurd, but adorable, gingham dress with her red heels glittering in the sun, Kate gazed out at the crowd of roughly a hundred locals and visitors, and Drake was surprised to see she was still flushed. And distinctly uncomfortable.
Although he kept saying all the right things to the audience, his brow furrowed. Was her discomfort simply a result of suddenly becoming the centerpiece, with all eyes on her? Or was it more complex? Was she mortified that his mom had announced their kiss to the crowd, despite the fact he’d just done his best to dispel any rumors?
Probably. It was, admittedly, awkward as hell.
But what if it went deeper than that? Was she, even now, regretting that kiss? Or regretting it now that he was here, in full daylight, and she’d just realized the implications of kissing him—the Knight of Nightmares?
By the end of his speech, he’d talked himself down from his earlier high, convinced all sorts of terrible thoughts whirled around in Kate’s head, like debris from a tornado. All he wanted to do was apologize…and then slink away into a corner somewhere. Not sit onstage and pretend everything was fine.
His voice, at the end, lost a bit of his earlier enthusiasm, and Drake forced a smile as he wrapped up his speech to start the pumpkin-carving competition.
“Okay, so here’s a little-known fact. I’m pretty good with a carving knife. On a pumpkin,” he clarified, to the laughing crowd. “So, let’s see what you’ve got, and let’s get this contest started!”
His feet seemed to be made of heavy steel as he gave his mom the microphone, ignored her curious look, and shuffled in his modified Tin Man costume across the stage to sit in the empty chair next to Kate. He glanced over, but she scowled at the pumpkin in front of her, using a Sharpie to draw out some sort of design.
Damn.
He’d been right.
She was regretting their backstage kiss, and she was angry, mortified, or both.
Pulling over a pumpkin, he grabbed a paring knife and stabbed it next to the stem, viciously carving out the top as he debated what to say. He’d ripped the jack-o-lantern lid off and was just scooping out the guts when he heard Kate snicker.
Turning his head, he saw she was laughing. At him.
“What’s so funny?” Drake heard the petulant tone in his voice, but he didn’t care. “Look, I apologize about what I did back there, and I get that you’re embarrassed. All I can say is I thought I was getting some signals from you, and I’m sorry.”
Kate shook her head, putting her hand over her mouth.
“No. It’s not that. It’s—you’re digging into that pumpkin like some kind of maniac, which is a little terrifying, but—”
“Oh, so now I’m terrifying too?” Drake asked, dragging out another handful of orange, sticky, seedy goop, and flicking it off his hands onto the newspaper covering the table, and plunging his hand back into the gourd’s chilly innards. “You’re welcome to leave anytime and I won’t hold it against you.”
Kate’s smile morphed into a pursed, annoyed expression. Her green eyes glittered as she squinted a glare at him.
“You have never terrified me, Drake Matthews, and
if you’d quit jumping to conclusions and interrupting me so I can finish a stupid sentence, you’d know I’m giggling because you’re disemboweling that pumpkin with your hands, looking all badass, and you’ve still got my pink lipstick smeared on your lips. It’s too faint for the crowd to have noticed, but I can see it glittering on your mouth,” Kate said, gesturing to the places on her mouth to use as a guide map to his face. “Right there, and there.”
Drake was going to swipe at his lips when he realized his hands were covered in pumpkin guts. He used his arm, instead, wiping his mouth against the silvery leotard. Sure enough, when he was done, a pink smear remained on the fabric.
“And another thing,” Kate said, scowling once more at her pumpkin as she traced a perfect circle around the stem. “I regret nothing.”
Drake stared at her for a moment until her words sank in.
Wait. She didn’t regret the kiss?
Yet she was still frowning. It was as if what she’d meant to say was, “I regret nothing, except…” and some large barrier hung in the air between them. Did he call her out on what she wasn’t saying? Or let it alone? Real women were so much harder to read than heroines in novels, and trying to act like a book hero, with all the right words spoken at just the right times, was impossible.
Drake focused on his carving, planning his next words carefully.
“I don’t regret that kiss either,” he said, softly. “Except, maybe, the timing.”
Kate’s head snapped up from the pumpkin, relief softening her features. “Exactly! Oh my goodness, I’m glad you said that. Because the timing isn’t ideal for either of us. I mean, I have a job to do for you, and you have this massive deadline looming. Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen, for now, at least. You write fiction—pretending is what you do, so you can pretend we’re still a strictly professional thing, right?”
Drake’s mind sifted through, unpacking that sentence and decided to base his reaction on the four words that mattered most…for now, at least. Because those words meant a future where the timing might allow another kiss. Maybe more.
He nodded. “I can pretend we’re professional. If you can.”
Kate’s chest flushed, and the pink color rose up her neck, but before it reached her cheeks, she pivoted back to her pumpkin.
“I am always professional. Until you distract me.” Jabbing the knife in the top like a serial killer, Kate hacked, attempting to follow her perfect, Sharpied line in a circle to cut out the stem, and failing miserably. “And don’t be mad at your mom. I think it’s sweet she wants to be with you and wants to help your career. Not all parents take an interest in their kids’ jobs.”
Drake recalled what her sister, Kiersten, had said on the phone, about how none of them had ever been to one of Kate’s big events this whole time, and inwardly he congratulated himself for having the foresight to have invited them to the launch. If there was one event to see Kate in action, surely it would be at his Halloween book release.
But he didn’t want to blow the surprise, so he nodded, tugging up a painful parent memory of his own.
“I hear you. To say that my dad would have been disappointed by me going into the Marine reserves, versus active duty, would be a colossal understatement.”
Kate looked confused. “But aren’t you all Marines? Isn’t it the same?”
Drake snorted. “You’ll have to ask my brothers sometime. They call reservists like me ‘Weekend Warriors’ when they’re being nice. Here on the East Coast, we all attend Parris Island boot camp, but after MCT—Marine Combat Training—I started college, while other Marines, like my brothers, transition to active duty and receive specialized training. Other than my one-weekend-a-month responsibility, I was never called up to active duty. So I did my six years, got my degree, and transitioned to civilian life. Compared with others in the Corps, it is perceived as…less than.”
“But you still served your country.”
Drake nodded, then shrugged. “I can’t explain it. It’s a different mentality if you’re in the fleet, and then a completely other level when you’re a career Marine, like Ryker and my dad. Anyway, I’m just saying I get it. This disappointing your parents, living up to a legacy thing you’ve got going on. I think it’s one of the reasons I’m writing this—”
He stopped his mouth just in time. He’d been about to blurt out “this romance.”
Kate was nodding. “Right. The horror novel you’re writing from a World War II perspective. Makes so much sense. We exorcise our demons in our own way, right?”
“You’ve been spending too much time with me.” He grinned. “You sound like a horror writer.”
They carved in silence for a while. Drake glanced up to peer at the people clustered around tables in the park, laughing and focused on their own pumpkins, paying no attention to the two at the table on the stage. Slowly, his body relaxed, and with it, his mind.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Drake gave Kate a sidelong glance over the pumpkin he was carving into a skull.
Kate was scooping out the insides of her pumpkin with a large metal spoon, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“You just want to distract me from winning this contest.”
“Distract you from winning an award? Never. That’s a waste of energy, isn’t it?” Drake smiled to show he was kidding. “No, a secret. Well, it’s more of a confession, really.”
Her eyebrows rose, and she paused her pumpkin excavation to look at him. “I’m all ears.”
Drake used his paper towel to wipe up orange pumpkin juice from the skull he’d carved, not looking at her as he spoke.
“Remember when I had you cook in my kitchen and said I was hurt?” He waited until she hummed assent. “I wasn’t. I was writing a scene where my protagonist had an injury and needed help cooking dinner. From the girl. Having you there gave me a great opportunity to be in the hero’s shoes and watch so I might be able to use snippets of it. In my book.”
“You used me as a substitute for a character in your scene?” Kate put down her spoon, using her hands to scoop out the seeds.
“It’s weird, I know,” Drake finished, finally looking up to give her a crooked smile. “I should’ve told you, and I’m sorry. You’ve been a good inspiration for me.”
“Really? Is there anything else you’ve used?” Kate asked, her face unreadable.
Drake thought about how he felt like he’d grown, as a writer, using her as inspiration. It was as if writing a romance novel had unlocked a previously hidden well of emotional depth he’d never realized existed, or maybe having Kate’s sunshine-and-sparkle personality had dredged up the old Drake—the one from so long ago who’d written his heart out in those black-and-white composition notebooks. Since Kate had worked her magic, it was like he’d been given a key to a lock he’d thought had rusted shut.
He owed her some of the truth.
“Our time together has already yielded over a hundred and fifty pages in my manuscript, and it’s likely some of today will appear in a book at some point too.”
Kate dumped orange-gooped seeds onto the newspaper, shooting him a look. “All parts of today?”
Drake winced. “Maybe. Probably. The scene with the old ladies ogling my junk…well, that seems pretty ripe for a horror scene in some book, don’t you think?”
To his relief, Kate scoffed in mock indignation. “So, what you’re telling me is I’m not your only muse?”
“Well, you’re competing for the spotlight with Mrs. Nowakowski and her crew, so there are big shoes to fill.”
“Now I know my place.” Kate laughed. “For a minute there, I was feeling pretty special.”
Drake’s heart rose at her last statement. He watched as she put the finishing touches to her octopus carving. Maybe she didn’t think he was too much of a freak? She did, after all, agree to go on this quasi-date with him, and she had kissed him back. Feeling as though he was pushing the boundaries, but wanting it too much to care, he put the question out there.
/> “How much work do you have to do this Tuesday evening for the book launch?”
“By then, I’ll just be overseeing some loose ends. We’re in a holding pattern until the permits are approved Wednesday morning, and we can start setting up the maze. We’ve got the partition frames done, and the strobe lights and props ready with a scare for each of your books, but we won’t be doing anything major until Thursday—two days before the Halloween launch.” Kate wiped her hands on a paper towel, frowning slightly. “Why? Did you—you don’t want to change anything now, do you?”
“No. Nothing like that. I wanted to do something to thank you for your help. For being such a good sport in my research.” Drake kept his eyes on his pumpkin when she turned to gaze at him. “There’s a yearly promo gig Imani books for me in Niagara Falls for the Western New York Writers’ Guild—they were the first writers’ group I joined back before I was published, and their classes helped me refine my craft. At their invitation, I attend their annual conference, or at least the end-of-conference dinner, and say a few words to promote their membership. I’ll probably have to plug Halloween Hacker, but after all that, they put on a nice dinner. It’s a beautiful venue, and I thought…you might want to join me? Celebrate your hard work, and give you a chance to get away before the big day? I’ll pay all your expenses and get you back here by Wednesday morning so you won’t miss any time.”
“It’s an overnight trip?”
Then he did look at her, but couldn’t figure out the expression in her eyes. He nodded.
“Separate rooms. All professional. Here’s the bonus: I have it on good authority that Everstone has flown into New York and plans to attend the conference to promote his movie adaptation, as long as he’s on this coast. So, you can chat with him about the EVPLEX, or at least remind him of who you are and your goal.”
