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But my anger only made her smile as she leaned down and whispered in my ear, her voice sending unwanted shivers down my spine, “Technically, little bird, I am.”
I looked toward the guys with pleading eyes, but the two of them focused back on their pumpkins.
“Traitors.” I made sure to hiss the word at them, my frown deepening when their lips only twitched in amusement at my anger.
“Please, Bex,” I begged quietly, hoping she’d be more likely to take pity on me if I groveled. I threw in a pout, jutting my lower lip out while I peeked up under my lashes, hands grasped in supplication. “I can get on my knees if that helps,” I whispered under my breath with a wink, just loud enough for her to hear me.
I expected Bex to play along, quipping about getting me on my knees or forcing me to beg a little more. Instead, she turned on a heel, giving me her back before passing my pumpkin-carving knife to Dev.
“Wait here,” she grunted to me over her shoulder as she strode out the patio doors and disappeared from sight. We all stood in a rare bout of silence, eyes on the door as we wondered where she had run off to.
Within a couple minutes, she returned, still with angry lines between her eyebrows. She held something in her hand that I couldn’t recognize from across the kitchen. Ames must have, though, because she laughed quietly as Bex strode up to me, a smirk finally forming on her lips as she grabbed my wrists and tugged the items over my hands. The canvas material felt familiar as it slid over my palms.
“Really?” I asked, holding up my hands, which were now encased in elbow-length rose pruning gloves. I had a pair in the store, which I used most often around Valentine’s Day, when I went through dozens of rose arrangements (and received dozens of thorn pricks as a result). Ames must’ve bought a pair for the rose bushes that lined the driveway.
Bex shrugged. “If I had a bubble to put you in, I would. You’re not getting injured on my watch, even if it is self-inflicted. So it’s gloves or no pumpkin carving.”
“Fine,” I begrudgingly agreed, keeping the gloves on as I walked over to Dev to wrench my knife out of his hand. Ames had pulled a stool in front of my pumpkin, and I clambered atop it to get better leverage as I stabbed the top of my pumpkin. The rest of them watched for a few moments as I sawed the knife in and out, only going back to their carving once they realized I wouldn’t inadvertently perform seppuku.
With my new height advantage, I easily cut a circle around the stem of my pumpkin and popped it out triumphantly. I grabbed a serving spoon from the middle of the island, ignoring the way the pulp squelched as I scooped it out.
Alex, Ames, and Dev had all moved on to carving their pumpkins, having had a head start while Bex fixed up my finger. I peeked over at Bex to measure my progress and watched as she leisurely scooped away the pulp and seeds from her pumpkin, eyes meeting mine when she glanced over to check on my work. Her eyes on mine sent flashbacks of her tongue on my skin, and I quickly turned back to my pumpkin, scooping with more fervor in an attempt to get my mind to focus on the task at hand.
Before long, we were all in the zone, with just the sounds of scraping and carving echoing through the kitchen. Alex and Dev were done first, using the dining room table to finish preparing dinner and throwing it on the grill outside while the rest of us finished up.
“Soon it’ll be too cold to grill,” Ames sighed as she gave her completed pumpkin a once-over.
“Don’t sound so sad, Ames,” I reassured her, trying to wiggle my knife where it was stuck in a particularly thick patch of pumpkin. “We’ll just switch to using the stove and putting up Christmas decorations instead of cooking on the grill and roasting marshmallows.” I pulled on the stuck knife with a little too much force, almost falling off the back of my stool until Bex’s hand pushed me gently back into place.
“Clumsy little bird,” she muttered, eyes never leaving her pumpkin even as she caught me.
Ames hadn’t even noticed the interaction, head tilted to the side in a thoughtful expression as she processed my words. “Maybe we can find a place that lets you cut down your own Christmas tree. Dev and Alex would love that, I’m sure. And Thanksgiving!” she finally burst out, as if the holiday were something she’d thought up at that moment. “We can have a big dinner here. We haven’t done that in years, have we, Bex?”
Bex shook her head, responding, “Not since Mom and Dad.” I frowned at the shared grief that suddenly suffused the room. Despite only having a superficial relationship with my own parents, I loved them and was grateful they were in my life.
“If Bex makes her apple pie, I’m in,” I said to ease the tension, only partially kidding. That pie had been the best I’d ever eaten, Bex barely getting two slices to herself before I finished off the rest within 48 hours of her making it.
Ames shot Bex a surprised look, opening her mouth to respond, but Bex quickly cut her off with a look. I worried that I’d somehow overstepped, but Ames flashed me a reassuring smile. “Sounds like a plan.” She glanced around to find that we’d all finished carving our pumpkins and smoothly changed the subject. “Now, let’s eat.”
We ate dinner at the dining room table and afterwards moved into the living room, trying to avoid a cold snap that had settled in as the sun set. With the open-plan kitchen, we tried our best to hide our pumpkins from each others’ view. Dev hid his in the corner of the kitchen, the carved part of my pumpkin covered with a dishcloth, and Ames placed a box from the recycling on top of hers. Alex and Bex weren’t concerned with covering their pumpkins, so Ames threw a couple of metal mixing bowls over theirs to maintain the surprise. Mine was covered in Bex’s flannel, since I’d been too selfish to give it back after carving my pumpkin.
The big reveal took place after dinner had settled, dishes were cleaned, and leftovers were put away, all of us carrying our pumpkins to the front porch. Rather, everyone else carried their pumpkins to the front porch while I performed a carry-rest-roll maneuver behind them. Dev must’ve filled my pumpkin with fucking bricks, the thing was so heavy, but I refused the help they offered, determined to do it on my own. An embarrassing number of minutes later, still huffing from exertion, I finally settled my pumpkin on the top step. The rest of them had left it empty out of obvious pity, which I appreciated.
Alex passed out tea lights, and we all took turns with a long-necked lighter, making sure each of our jack-o-lanterns were lit before stepping back.
It was startlingly clear whose pumpkin belonged to whom as we stood on the front lawn, all of us letting out quiet laughter at the sight.
Mine stood at the top, a smiling jack-o-lantern with a dozen teeth slotted in between each other, creating a sort of checkerboard effect. It had allowed me to thread a flower from a bouquet I made for Ames earlier in the week, making it look like the jack-o-lantern had a rose clenched between his smiling teeth.
Just below my pumpkin was Alex’s, which was pretty much a standard jack-o-lantern, with a triangle nose and eyes. The only deviation from a traditional jack-o-lantern was the mouth, the missing teeth lighting up in a slightly-unnerving grin rather than the usually-smiling faces you saw on front stoops on Halloween.
Dev’s pumpkin was a darker version of Alex’s, X’s for eyes and small, jagged shapes carved close together for a mouth. It gave the impression that the jack-o-lantern’s mouth had been sewn together, and I shuddered slightly at the shadows cast by the holes in its mouth.
Ames’s pumpkin, of course, was a masterpiece. There were no true holes in Ames’s pumpkin, save for a few at the top for airflow. Instead, she had carved a dozen leaves into the skin of the pumpkin, etching veins through the leaves so that they looked life-like. The spaces between the leaves hadn’t been cut away but rather carved down to the pith, allowing the candle to backlight the leaves and make the pumpkin look like a true lantern, lit up from within.
My eyes finally caught on Bex’s pumpkin. The eyes were half-moons and the nose a simple, small triangle. But she had somehow made its mouth tilt up in a smirk, looking self-satisfied despite being inanimate. The most jarring part of the jack-o-lantern, however, was the knife sticking out of the side of it. Or more specifically, the reddish-brown tinge at the tip of the blade, which could be seen through the gaping mouth, that looked all too much like blood. I squinted, taking a step closer before my feet retreated back in realization.
“Didn’t want any to go to waste,” Bex whispered in my ear, knowing what I’d realized moments before. I wasn’t sure where she’d found the knife still covered in my blood, and I knew I should be worried or freaked out at the sight. But looking at the stain of my blood stabbed through her jack-o-lantern warmed my heart. It might not have been a physical flinch, or an admission that I affected her, but it felt like it all the same. Like she couldn’t keep me out of her head. And I reveled in the feeling as the heat from earlier flooded back through my body.
