Before he got out of earshot, he heard the scrawny kid mutter, “He doesn’t look like a PI.”
Willow’s mom merely laughed, while Willow fell silent.
He wondered if she was brooding. It was disturbing how quickly she turned into a teenager when her mother was in the picture—not her fault, of course; she was a teenager, but he just didn’t think of her that way when she wasn’t directly beside a parent figure.
Feeling a little uncomfortable, he grabbed the milk and made a beeline for the register before he ran into them again.
The harder she tried not to think of Ethan, the more she did.
Justin, her friend from the day before, had refused to dress up for the costume party since he didn’t think he would look cool enough. After the grocery store, he had the bright-ass idea to show up with a name tag that said, “Ethan Wilde” and claim he was dressed up as a PI.
Fucking hilarious.
The party itself had been her mom’s idea. Since Willow seemed to be “normalizing” a bit more, her mom thought a party was a good idea.
It wasn’t. Willow knew that, but she figured she would humor her mother—it was only one night, after all. Hopefully it would be a good one.
As she suspected, that was not to be.
Yes, she was fine with socializing again, but then a couple of the guys wanted to bring some girl she didn’t know, and then someone else was inviting this other guy she didn’t know, and as soon as there were strangers in her house, Willow was instantly uncomfortable.
She did not trust strangers. Not even teenage ones.
It didn’t take long before some guy dressed in a wife-beater, saggy pants, and a backward baseball cap sat on the couch beside her—clearly he was dressed as a douchebag for Halloween—and said, “So, are you like the only single girl here?”
Giving him her most withering glare, she felt some satisfaction when he held up his hands in surrender, got up, and left her alone.
Since her party had been overtaken, Willow snuck up to her room as soon as she could and shut herself inside, pulling her witch’s hat off and tossing it on the bed before flopping down beside it.
Yawning, she wished she could just curl up in bed and take a nap, but she knew her prolonged absence would be noticed.
She pulled out her phone, checking the time, and wondered if it would be okay to text Ethan. Usually it seemed to be, but she didn’t understand why he never seemed worried about getting text messages at home, especially in the evening.
Then again, maybe getting calls after nine wasn’t so odd in his line of work.
“Guess who Justin dressed up as?” she finally sent.
A moment later, he answered, “I don’t know who Justin is.”
“The fucking kid.”
“Oh, him. A bodybuilder.”
Cracking a smile, she said, “Ethan Wilde, PI!”
“Oh, but I don’t like look a PI,” he answered.
“That’s true, you don’t even wear a trench coat.”
A minute passed with no response, then it showed him typing. “What are you wearing?”
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“For a costume!” he added quickly.
She made a little winking face and sent back, “Nothing.”
“That’s mean.”