Page 78 of Breakaway Goal

It’s Friday night, and October 31stis tomorrow. It’s the best possible day for Halloween. Everyone can party tonight, leaving tomorrow night safe for neighborhood kids trick-or-treating. Rhys, Lane, and the guys are planning on handing out candy tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to joining them.

The weather is crisp, but not painfully cold on my bear arms. The air is buzzing with energy, music blasting from all the parties we’re walking past on our way to the hockey house. The occasional scream of someone being pranked or scared punctures the air, too.

Jasmine and I, along with the half dozen people close to us walking down the sidewalk, supply one of those screams ourselves as we pass a large pile of leaves and someone in a skeleton costume suddenly leaps out of them and yells, scaring the hell out of us.

He runs off cackling, and Jasmine and I laugh about it after we finally catch our breath. Hey, can’t hate on getting into the spirit of the season.

The guys’ house is packed when we get there. The front yard is filled with pumpkins and headstones, and the front door is wide open to accommodate the waves of people coming and going, and strewn with fake spider web.

Rhys, Lane, and Hudson are standing at the kitchen island, just throwing back a shot when we step inside. Jasmine and I weave through the crowded living room toward them. On the way, I have to do a double take at an incredible costume of a guy who’s made it look like he’s been decapitated and is holding his own severed head in his arms.

The guys’ costumes are pretty great, too. They’ve been talking about the theme for days, but I’m impressed by how well they pulled it off.

The five of them are dressed up as zombie versions of different sports players.

Rhys is a zombie baseball player. His thighs look mouth-watering in those tight baseball pants. His hair is frazzled and shooting out in a million different directions, and he’s wearing face paint to give himself a zombie-like complexion, just like theother guys. Heat crawls up my neck as I note the appreciative way his eyes hover up and down my costume.

Lane is a zombie basketball player, and there’s a big hole in the chest of his jersey with red body paint underneath to look like a gaping wound. Hudson is a zombie football player, with his helmet cracked and pieces of fake brain applied around it.

“Wow,” Jasmine marvels, “you guys did a hell of a job.”

“Brains,” Lane bleats. He waddles zombie-like towards me and grabs my shoulders, opening his mouth wide and dipping down like he’s about to take a bite of my head. I laugh and shrug away.

“What kind of zombie athletes are Tuck and Sebastian?” I ask, swiveling my head to see if I can spot them.

That question has Hudson rolling his eyes. “Tuck is …”

But the man himself cuts off Hudson to answer. “A zombie swimmer.”

I turn around, and my jaw almost hits the floor.

Tuck is wearing the tiniest speedo known to man. Every other impressive inch of his body is on full display. The only indication it’s a costume is the fact that his goggles are cracked and there’s fake blood splatter on them.

“We tried to talk him out of it,” Lane sighs with a chuckle.

“And deprive all the women in this party of an image they’ll cherish for the rest of their lives?” Tuck retorts, outraged. Unsurprisingly, there are alotof female eyes resting on a ninety-percent-naked Tuck McCoy.

Olivia, his girlfriend, sidles next to him. She’s wearing a Phantom of the Opera costume. Tuck being fully exposed and Olivia wearing something that covers her head-to-toe is a fitting representation of how opposite the two of them are. But they’re utterly head-over-heels for each other.

“You’re lucky I’m not the jealous type,” Olivia jokes to him as her hand brushes against his washboard abs.

“Hey, mates,” Sebastian says with a fake British accent, walking up.

“Ah,” Jasmine nods, taking in his costume. “Zombie soccer player.”

Sebastian’s expression pulls into a look of fake outrage. “Excuse me, I’m a zombiefootballer.” His British accent doesn’t falter.

Summer bounces over in a sexy Elle Woods-style bunny costume and wraps her arms around Hudson. “I love this song,” she says as, once again, Monster Mash picks up on the speakers. “Let’s dance.”

I know Hudson isn’t the dancing type, but he’s also not the type to be able to refuse any request from Summer, especially not when she’s dressed likethat.

Jasmine spots a couple girls she’s become friendly with in one of her classes, and we hang out with them for a while. My eyes keep flitting over to Rhys, and every time they do, I find that he’s already looking at me, and sparks streak down my back.

A guy in a gladiator costume bumps into Jasmine, and when he turns around to apologize, I can feel sparks flying between them. It strikes me as a good time to head to the bathroom and give the two of them some space to flirt.

When I walk down the stairs afterward, Rhys is standing by the back door. He tilts his head toward outside, and then steps out.

Anticipation pools in my stomach as I follow. When I step outside, I look to the side of the house. Rhys is there, shrouded in the shadows, and he indicates for me to follow him toward the narrow alleyway between the house and the fence that separates them from their neighbors.

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