Page 86 of Before We Fell

That moment. I knew. I’d found the man I’d love forever.

Too bad I didn’t have the guts to say it.

“Lauren?”

“I think you’re pretty great, Noah Wilkes.” It came out on a breath. More one long strung together word than a sentence. My own breath had gone erratic and shallow.

He must have caught the meaning behind my words because he spun toward me, and pressed his palm to my cheek. Softly. Reverently. His whiskey eyes danced between mine and settled on my mouth. “I think you’re more than pretty great, Lauren Frazier.”

“Come on, guys! Candy!”

“Man,” Noah said, walking us toward the new back entrance of his now finished four-season porch. “I love it when she gets all shouty and loud.”

I did too. More than her gleeful shouts, I loved both of them. Everything about them.

Which meant as we set out trick-or-treating, Noah and I trailing behind a rushing and wildly playful Riley, I did it with a huge smile on my face, and a peace in my heart I’d never known possible.

Twenty-Seven

Noah

“Last house,”I teased Riley.

We were walking up the driveway to Lauren’s home where she’d promised us a glass of hot apple cider, pumpkin bars she’d baked after school and so we could do a quick search through Riley’s candy.

The bowl Lauren had left on the porch was upside down, guaranteeing some teenager came along, dumped the entire contents into a pillowcase, and dropped it, not bothering to set it back nicely.

Typical, and I wasn’t surprised. When I asked Lauren to come out with us tonight and she’d suggested putting the candy out, I didn’t bother reminding her what would happen.

She would have done it anyway, always intending to see the better side of people. It was one of the reasons why I loved her. I saw the reality and had spent years knowing and defending the underbelly of the world, those who crept out from beneath rocks in the dark of night with nothing but malice in their souls.

Lauren, despite her brother and her family issues, still lived in a world with rainbows and constant goodness, despite knowing how rotten some could be.

“Noah, it’s empty,” Riley called out, now at the porch. The disappointment in her drawn face as she held the empty bowl made me swallow my laughter. The girl had eight pounds of candy, based on the weight in my hand, and she still yearned for more.

“I’m shocked.”

Lauren bumped her hip into mine. “Shush.”

We walked up to the porch hand in hand, a sensation I liked and hadn’t bothered hiding tonight. We’d trounced the streets of our neighborhood and two more for two hours and Riley wasn’t showing any signs of passing out anytime soon.

I suspected it was because she kept sneaking candy throughout the night.

Lauren had her keys in her hand. Before turning the key in the lock, she took the bowl from Riley. “Thanks, honey. Ready for some cider?”

“Yes!” Riley shouted. It’d been her go-to volume all night.

I didn’t have the heart to shush her, even now that it was dark and getting late and we would soon be inside. It’d been months since I’d seen her so animated.

Had I known trick-or-treating would flip her switch so easily, I would have demanded the town of Carlton pretend it was Halloween three months ago.

A string of orange lights wrapped around a window on Lauren’s porch flickered gently as we entered, all of us filled with smiles. For me, it’d been the most exhausting night I’d had in years. And that was saying a hell of a lot.

We entered, Lauren first, me at the rear, and I closed and locked the door behind us, bumping into Riley as I did.

“Woah.” I grabbed her shoulder right as she slammed into Lauren.

Lauren’s head whipped over her shoulder, gaze narrowed and pinned me in my place. “Noah.”

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