Caramel-Coated Complications

I groaned, holding my stomach. "Easton Heights never covered this. Cue dramatic voice-over: 'On the next all-new episode: Halloween gone dangerously wrong. Carys consumes lethal amounts of sugar. Will she live to see Homecoming? And, more terrifying, Will anyone ask her now that she's gained three pounds?'"

Arianna frowned as she pinned my wig into place. "No one made you eat an entire bag of Tootsie Rolls. Hold still."

Getting ready would be easier if we could use a mirror, but Arianna hated them, so I was sitting in a chair in the middle of the tiny family room. I couldn't complain too much, since there was no way on earth I could have come up with a costume this good on my own. Sometimes it paid to have an undead-former-fashion-school-student for a roommate.

"Okay." She stepped back, admiring her work with a firm nod. "You're good to go."

I jumped up and checked myself out in the bathroom mirror. "Oh, Arianna, this is awesome!"

My red wig and wide purple headband complemented my purple dress, pink tights, and green silk scarf. I always loved the Scooby-Doo gang. They were like my exact opposites. They hunted monsters that were revealed to be humans; I got to see humans that were actually monsters. I think they had a better deal. And they got a groovy van out of it, too.

"Fits then?" Arianna called from the other room.

"You are an absolute genius! I'm the best Daphne ever!"

"And so humble, too."

I walked back out to her. She was already at the computer with her game.

"Do you want to come with us?" I asked.

"I don't do Halloween."

"Oh, come on, Halloween is your night!"

She looked up and gave me a dead stare. "Thanks, I'll pass."

I hesitated, feeling guilty. I'd spent hardly any time at all with her lately. I even fell asleep thirty minutes into our all-night marathon the other week. I didn't want to admit it, but that stupid uber-vamp in Sweden had brought all my vampire loathing back to the surface, and I was having a hard time looking directly at Arianna. Plus, the past few weeks she seemed to be really withdrawn and antisocial.

Well, more withdrawn and antisocial, at least.

But she'd taken the time to do this awesome costume for me. The least I could do was make her get out. "Come on. It'll be fun! Besides, vampires are hot this year, so you're automatically cool! You don't really want to spend Halloween holed up in this stupid apartment, do you?"

Her eyes narrowed. "That's exactly what I want to do, thank you ever so much. Besides, I'd hate to force my company on you when you clearly don't enjoy it. I don't want your pity, Evie."

"That's not it at all!"

She sighed, turning back to her game. "It's fine, whatever. I get it. I wouldn't want to hang out with me either."

I was about to contradict her when a horn honked outside. I put my hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off, not even looking at me. When Arianna got in one of her dark moods, there was no talking her out of it. I tried to shake off the guilt as I raced down the stairs and through the diner. Lend got out of the car as I walked out, a special trip home this Thursday just for me. I frowned. "You didn't dress up!"

He grinned, opening my door for me. "Sure I did. I dressed up as the non-invisible man!"

I smacked him in the chest. "Lazy."

"Hey, I wear a costume every waking hour. You only dress up once a year, which I believe makes you the lazy one. However, you look really hot in pink tights, so I'll let it pass."

"How noble of you." He kissed me, lingering on my lips, and I was filled with warm happiness. We were going to be fine.

I watched out the windows as we drove to his dad's, thrilled to see the first groups of tiny trick-or-treaters. I vaguely remembered trick-or-treating when I was little. One of my foster families made a big deal out of it; we got to carve pumpkins and everything. The woman who ran my last foster home didn't think it was safe, so we had to stay inside and watch some Charlie Brown cartoon three times. I've never liked beagles to this day.

Raquel, of course, thought the holiday was a load of nonsense, with people running around pretending to be the things we protected them from. Plus, she always worried about offending our "coworkers" by making light of their existence. Judging by Arianna's mood, maybe Raquel had been right about that one.

I turned to Lend. "What's on the agenda for tonight?"

"First, pumpkin carving. I've drawn up some designs. We're gonna cream my dad."

I smiled, excited to see what he had drawn. Most of his sketches lately were for his human anatomy class. I much preferred it when he did it for fun. "Awesome. Then what?"

"We make caramel apples and man the door. The only people who trek out to the house are the local werewolves with kids, so it's always fun to see them."

"Oh. Great!" I said it like I meant it but was disappointed. This was my first normal, teenage Halloween. I had my heart set on something a little more exciting than passing out candy to werewolf pups. Carlee was having a party tonight-her annual Halloween bash-and even though I didn't hang out with anyone who would be there, I was kind of curious. The only real parties I'd ever seen were on TV. Or at the Center, but those were lame. It was always awkward mingling with paranormals that I had personally bagged and tagged. Plus, no one ever spiked the punch.

However, being with Lend trumped everything else, and he hated parties. He was a bit of a homebody, since he'd had to be secluded when he was little before he could control his shape-shifting. And even though when he got older he had the potential to be quite popular (read: hello, hottie), he felt like no one could ever know the real him.

Until me, that is. Which made me all sorts of happy.

Lend looked over at me and smiled. "You are so bad at faking excitement. That's not all we're doing."

I perked up immediately. "Yeah?"

"Well, you're already dressed for it, so I thought we could go . . . disco bowling."

"Disco bowling? Seriously? Is there such a thing?"

He laughed. "I've never been, but you mentioned bowling a few weeks ago, and I figured tonight of all nights I could go ahead and impress you with my mad lack of bowling skills. Besides which, you look way too hot to waste on trick-or-treaters. They have a costume competition-you're a shoo-in."

I laughed, giddy, and grabbed his hand to kiss his knuckles. I knew he'd rather stay at home, but he planned tonight around making me happy. And he wanted to show me off, which appealed to my vanity more than I cared to admit. Best. Boyfriend. Ever.

"Pictures, please? And if we're going disco bowling, you have to dress up."

He pretended to sigh, but his glamour hair grew out into a massive 'fro and I squealed with delight. Then it shifted into shorter hair with a yellow-blond side part. "I figure with an ascot and blue pants I can do a mean Fred to your Daphne, right?"

Tonight was perfect.

"Aren't those for, like, preschoolers?" I couldn't stop laughing as Lend pulled out bumpers for our gutter. The entire place was lit in neon lights, with a giant disco ball throwing spangled reflections everywhere. Music pulsed so loud we had to shout to be heard, but everyone was having a good time. We even saw Kari and Donna a couple of lanes down, their barking laughter reminiscent of the seals they usually were. They waved happily to me, ignoring the large queue of guys trying to flirt with them.

"Yeah, bumpers are for preschoolers or two teenagers who couldn't stop throwing gutter balls if their lives depended on it. Which, fortunately, they don't. Because we'd be screwed."

I grabbed my glittery hot pink ball (which I was seriously considering buying) and imitated the perfect form a Mohawked guy next to us was using. Instead of shooting straight down the lane and knocking over all the pins, my ball inexplicably went flying backward toward Lend.

"Okay, now we're getting dangerous." Lend brought my ball back and, wrapping himself around me, we threw it together. After pinballing off the bumpers on both sides, it knocked down a whole three pins.

I jumped up and down, screaming. "That's like, practically a strike, right?"

"Good enough for me!"

For Lend's next round he squatted, throwing the ball with both hands from between his legs-and into Mohawk guy's lane. He wasn't nearly as amused as we were, but Lend grinned and apologized, charming his way out of it.

"It's a good thing we're pretty to look at," I said as Lend sat down on the orange plastic seats next to me. "Because we don't have much else going for us as bowlers."

"So you think the blond looks good?"

I ran my fingers through his ridiculous hair. "Really, really not. I like you tall, dark, and handsome. Well, my favorite is tall, invisible, and handsome, but still."

An announcer stopped the blaring disco music to declare the beginning of the costume contest. Lend pulled me up and we started over, when I felt my purse buzzing. My phone! I pulled it out and was surprised to see Carlee's name on the caller ID. Oh, crap, did I forget to tell her I wasn't coming to her party?

"Carlee? What's up? Sorry I couldn't make it!" I shouted over the noise, pulling Lend over to the double doors by the entrance where it was a little quieter. I didn't want Carlee to think I'd ditched her. Even though I had.

"Evie! Evvvvvvie!" She drew my name out, and behind her I could hear the chatter of way too many hyper teenage voices. "Girl, you came through for me! I owe you one!"

"What?"

"Your friend! You told him about the party, you sly little brat."

"What friend?"

"Jack, of course!"