Page 76 of The One Night Dash
“I was supposed to leave when she fell asleep.”
“She still having nightmares?” the older one asks, lowered voice—Caleb.
“Would they be bad enough to wake me up?” I ask, and he confirms with a nod. “No, or I wouldn’t still be here, right?”
“You’d leave her if she had a nightmare?” Ethan crosses his arms.
I shake my head. “Fair point.”
He smiles.
“My issue is she’s kind of upset that I left my shoes at the door and fell asleep.”
“Mom wouldn’t have been.” Ethan shrugs. “Not about the shoe thing. She’d be more upset if you wore them inside.”
“Yeah, about that.” I shake my head. “I’m not sure we’re at the stage in our relationship where I wanna chance a meet the fam catastrophe, and again, I’m in the dog house, so can you maybe not say anything to her or your folks?”
“How are they gonna not see you walk down the stairs and out the door?” Caleb shakes his head.
“Thinking I’d leave after you all did. Lock up behind me. No one will know and, most importantly, she won’t feel awkward.”
“You come for Thanksgiving and bring her, and we got a deal.”
“Right, about that …” I grip the back of my neck. “I already have plans with my mom and sisters. Anything else I canbarterwith?”
NINETEEN
NOELLE
Not a word is said.Not when we left the house, not in the SUV, not even when we parked and had to trek half a mile from the last open spot in the school lot to the town center. By the time we squeeze into the packed crowd of families, strollers, and overzealous joggers bouncing in place like they’re warming up for the Boston Marathon, I’m already winded. And for a blissful second, I think maybe—just maybe—I’ve gotten away with it.
Then Mom hands me a black, long-sleeved shirt and a … tutu.
“Team Gobble Till We Wobble,” she says proudly, holding up the shirt like it’s couture. Across the chest, in blinding orange bubble letters, is a sprinting cartoon turkey with sweat dripping off its wattles.
Caleb and Ethan are already yanking their shirts over their heads, feather-covered tutu’s puffing around their waists like deranged Thanksgiving centerpieces. They look like linebackers auditioning for a farm-to-table ballet.
Rick—stoic, serious Rick—has his tutu already tied and is fiddling with a stopwatch on his lanyard like this is an Olympic trial.
And if that was not enough humiliation, she tops it off with hats. No, not ball caps or beanies. Mom produces the piècede résistance: plush cornucopia hats. Fabric horns stuffed with little fake pumpkins, grapes, squash tumbling down the sides, and yep, a turkey too.
I gape at her. “You cannot be serious.”
“It’s festive,” she says, strapping hers under her chin. “We’re a team, Noelle.”
So, now here I am, on the town green, in a tutu and a horn of plenty strapped to my head, feathers swishing with every breath, surrounded by what looks like half the county, and wishing the earth would swallow me whole.
The announcer lifts a plastic megaphone and, instead of a whistle, lets out a loud, triumphantturkey call. The crowd gobbles back, a hundred voices overlapping until the whole green sounds like a barnyard. How are these the same Harbor Point residents as last night?
“Line up! Walkers to the right, joggers in the middle, runners to the left!”
I hang back, tugging at my tutu, because humiliation is best experienced from the rear of the pack. It gives me time to take it all in—families with “Waddle Squad” on their shirts, a group of teenagers calling themselves the “Plymouth Rockers” in full Pilgrim hats, even a man in an inflatable turkey suit bouncing against the crowd like a rogue balloon at the Macy’s parade.
I bite my lip to keep from laughing too loud. This whole thing is ridiculous. Joyfully, unapologetically absurd.
And then I glance left. He’s right beside me, Dash Sterling. Not in a tutu, not in a cornucopia hat—just sleek black track pants hugging his long legs, thick thighs, a fitted gray, long-sleeved tee that stretches across his chest and shoulders in a way that should be illegal, and a backward cap that somehow makes his dark hair messier and hotter all at once. He’s standing with that casual, relaxed stance that screams confidence.
There’s a bead of condensation on the water bottle in his hand, and he tips it back for a slow drink, throat working, jaw flexing. And he catches me looking.
