by Lucy Score
“Why is everything you’re saying right?” Eden wailed. She shoved her gloved hands into her hair, accidentally raking her hat from her head. “I set this whole thing up to blow up the Beautification Committee and prove to the whole town that Davis isn’t this wonderful amazing guy. Only he is, and he wanted to give us a real try, and the stupid Beautification Committee was right about us… until I ruined it. They gave up on me. They gave up on me, Sammy. That’s how much of a mess I am.”
“Awh, babe.” Sammy came in for a hug. “You’re not a mess. You’re human.”
“I thought I was going to fix everything. Prove that I wasn’t the bad guy. That Davis was. And then I could win the Business of the Year award, and my life as a contributing adult to Blue Moon could really start.”
“You are a contributing adult. And people know that. I think you’re the only one in town who still holds high school against you.”
“Davis’s parents hate me,” Eden said, hating how whiny and weak she sounded. “He’d never be able to stand up to them over this. And I couldn’t ask him to do it. I couldn’t ask him to choose me over them. Not when I’m… such a mess of an adult. I’m no better now than when I was a teenager.”
Sammy took her by the shoulders and gave her a good shake. “Eden Moody, you are going to get that stupid, shitty idea out of your head. Stop judging yourself on one mistake.”
“I held a grudge for fifteen years!”
“One long mistake” Sammy corrected. “You are a smart, beautiful, kind-hearted, successful woman, and Davis Gates would be lucky to have you.”
“But I don’t know if he’d choose me,” Eden said.
“You have to give him the chance. A real chance, not one of these fake bullshit chances with a pretend relationship and a revenge plot.”
“How? How do I do it?”
Sammy shrugged. “I don’t know.” Then suddenly her eyes lit up. “Why not ask the Beautification Committee? They’re sneaky smart.”
“The Beautification Committee? That’s ridicu—brilliant!”
Eden yanked her phone out of her pocket with so much enthusiasm it fell in the snow between them.
“Slow your roll, crazy town,” Sammy said, plucking the phone off the ground.
“This is a disaster. This should have been an amazing day that everyone felt good about, and I had to ruin it,” Eden muttered as she dialed. “Hello? Ellery? This is Eden. I made a huge mistake, and I need you to help me fix it. I love Davis.”
“Oh, hey Eden,” Ellery said, sounding not nearly as urgently excited as she should have in Eden’s opinion.
“Help me fix this,” Eden pleaded.
“Gosh, Eden. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do. Maybe you were right, and you two just aren’t a good match? You should probably trust your gut.”
“Ellery! We’re a great match! We’re perfect for each other. Or at least we will be as soon as I let go of the past and face the fact that I was totally wrong about him. I was wrong about everything. Help me!”
“Oh, Eden. I have to go. Mason needs something. We’ll talk tonight at the dance,” Ellery said cheerfully.
Eden stared at her phone. “I’m not going to the dance,” she said to no one.
Sammy gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder. “Sorry, slugger.”
“Well, well. If it isn’t the latest generation of Moody riff-raff.” Tilly Nuswing-Gates needed to work on her insults. She wore head-to-toe ivory, most likely special organic ringspun cotton. Her naturally graying hair was swept back from her pinched face in a classy twist. She looked exactly the way a wealthy, gracefully aging hippie with environmental leanings should look.
It was muffled by her scarf, but Eden thought she heard Sammy hiss.
“Mrs. Gates, I didn’t know you were back in town. Davis hadn’t mentioned that you would be back in time for HeHa.”
“I’m sure there are a lot of things my son doesn’t tell you,” she said coolly. “Also, we didn’t tell him we were coming.”
In Blue Moon, even the villains weren’t good at being bad.
“That could be a factor,” Eden said carefully.
“My ex-husband is, as we speak, talking sense into our son. Which is what I’m doing with you. You and Davis do not belong together. The day your grandfather ran over my great-uncle’s foot at the tractor pull put this all in motion. Our families are destined to be enemies.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Eden said lamely. She wasn’t prepared for a throw down with Tilly Nuswing-Gates. Not when she was already beating herself up.
“Well, I’m not sorry you’re sorry,” Tilly said primly.
“Wait, is that really what started it? I heard your mother locked my great-aunt in a pantry during a Christmas party.”
Tilly scoffed. “That was in retaliation for your grandparents walking your screaming toddler aunt past their open windows every night at two a.m.
Eden vaguely remembered a story to that effect. “Don’t you think this has gone on long enough?” Eden pressed.
“I am not going to bury the hatchet just so you can take advantage of my poor, sweet, kind-hearted, innocent son.”
“Davis is an adult. And so am I. And if we choose to be together, there’s nothing you can do about it.” There was nothing to do about it. She’d already made the choice: a life without Davis.
“Over my dead body and possibly your father’s since he can’t survive without me!” Eden’s mother was hauling ass down the sidewalk, her cheeks flushed pink with cold… or rage. “You and that, that, that… heathen are not to spend one more second of time together.”
“We’ve spent a lot of time together. Naked. In your house.” Eden said, stabbing her mother’s buttons and hitting a few of her own in the process.
Lily Ann’s gasp of betrayal nearly leveled her. Ned held her up, fanning her face. “I can’t go back in that house,” she shrieked dramatically.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll just move. We’ll move away from the bad mojo.”
“Why don’t you just have your daughter burn it down?” Tilly suggested smugly.
“Don’t you tell my parents what to do,” Eden said, waving a gloved finger at the woman.
“You and Davis do not belong together!”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Lily Ann shouted.
“See? Look at you two getting along,” Sammy said cheerfully. “The feud is practically over. Yay.”
Lily Ann and Tilly glared at each other for so long Eden wondered if they’d frozen in place.
“What’s going on here?” Ferguson Gates jogged up with his handsome husband Bryson on his heels. “Tilly, don’t waste your time talking to these people. They’re incapable of a rational discussion.”
“Ferguson!” Bryson laid a leather gloved hand on his husband’s sleeve. “That’s inappropriate.”
“Your mother’s incapable of a rational discussion,” Eden’s father puffed out indignantly.
“See?” Ferguson shot back.
“Frankly, sweetheart. It’s true. Your mom can’t discuss anything rationally,” Bryson offered.
“I’m still insulted,” Ferguson insisted.
“I don’t care what that joke of a newspaper said, I know your daughter is responsible for our front yard and Davis’s fire!” Tilly shouted at Eden’s parents.
Anthony Berkowicz, who had been busy capturing the drama on his phone, gasped. “How could you say that, Mrs. Gates? It’s in a newspaper. It has to be true.”
“There is no reason to attack a well-respected institution such as The Monthly Moon,” Rainbow Berkowicz said coldly. Eden thanked her lucky stars that, given the weather, the woman’s breasts were buried under a heavy wool coat and several layers of peace sign scarf.
“Is there a problem here?” Sheriff Cardona, bundled up against the cold, pushed his way through the crowd.
Eden had had enough. “Everyone just stop it! None of this matters anyway. Davis and I are already broken up, so you can
all just shut up and go on with your nasty little feud.”
“Oh? Well, good. Why didn’t you say so?” her mother demanded.
“Then our work here is done,” Tilly announced, looking down her nose at Eden.
“I’m afraid it’s true,” Bruce Oakleigh said, pushing his way to the front of the crowd. “Eden and Davis are a failed match. We made a terrible mistake trying to pair them.”
The crowd gasped.
“Bruce, it wasn’t a terrible mistake. I made a terrible mistake,” Eden insisted. “I love him!”
“If you really loved him, why would you have fought the match?” Bruce asked in theatrical disbelief.
“Because maybe I wanted to make my own decisions. And I was wrong.” She covered her face with her hands. “When the Beautification Committee set the fire, I thought I could use Davis to get revenge—”
“The Beautification Committee set the fire?” Sheriff Cardona wasn’t so easy-going right now. “Eva!”
His wife, bundled in a navy wool coat, flinched. “Yes, my love?”
Donovan hung his head and took several slow deep breaths.
“To be fair, you know Eva couldn’t have been involved since the fire happened during your wedding,” Ellery pointed out, joining them with a smug smile on her navy blue lips. “In fact, I happen to have iron-clad alibis for every single committee member for the time of the fire.”
Eva ran a hand over her flat stomach. “I swear I didn’t have anything to do with it. But I know for a fact that it was an accident.”
“I am going to lock every last one of you in a cell,” Donovan growled, pointing his finger at the committee members.
“Technically you don’t have cells,” Eva reminded him. “Just cubicles.”
“I will drive your asses to Cleary just to use their cells.”
“What’s that sound?” Sammy asked from the inner circle of the crowd.
“Sounds like the marching band,” Ellery said.
“Ellery!” Eden grabbed her arm. “I need your help. I screwed up with Davis. I want to be with him.”
“Never happening,” Tilly shouted. “My son will never be anything but a neighbor to you!”
“They’re headed this way!” someone in the crowd announced.
The crowd parted as the entire Blue Moon High Marching Band stomped its way through the park led by none other than Davis Gates.
51
Davis blew smartly on a whistle and the band came to a halt. “Eden Moody,” he yelled. “I have something to ask you.”
Eden had to give him credit for drama. Blue Moon would be talking about this moment for the next fifteen years.
“Davis, what’s going on? Our parents are ready to throw down,” she whispered, pretending like fifty percent of the town’s population wasn’t eavesdropping on them right now.
He blew the whistle again, drowning her out. “Drumline!”
Six kids with braces and acne burst into an enthusiastic drumroll.
“Color guard,” Davis shouted over the music.
A dozen teens dumped their flags and rifles on the ground, tripping over each other to unroll a banner.
HeHa?
She cocked her head. This was indeed HeHa Day. She wasn’t really clear on what the question was.
“Eden Moody?” Davis yelled. “Would you do me the great honor of going to the HeHa Dance with me?”
Eden’s heart climbed into her throat.
Their mothers’ screeching was drowned out by the ongoing drumroll.
“We’re gettin’ tired here, Miss Moody,” one of the drummers yelled. “Maybe you could say yes already?”
But Eden was already in motion. She pushed through Ned and Ferguson who were standing toe-to-toe engaged in a staring contest. She danced around Tilly and Lilly Ann as they hurled ridiculous insults at each other.
And when she got to him, Eden threw herself into Davis’s waiting arms. “I thought I told you we shouldn’t date.”
He grinned at her. “I do recall you making some kind of ridiculous speech along those lines.”
“And you’re still here. Asking me out.”
“That I am.”
“I’m such an idiot,” she told him over the chaos.
“But you’re my beautiful idiot,” he said with a grin.
“What about them?” she asked jerking a thumb behind her where things had gotten physical. Their fathers were flicking each other in the chest, and their mothers were locked in some sumo style embrace. Sheriff Cardona was radioing for backup.
“They can be someone else’s problem for a while,” Davis said with a wink.
Eden grabbed the whistle that hung from his neck and blew it shrilly.
“Yes, Davis Gates, I will go to the HeHa Dance with you!”
The part of the crowd that wasn’t related to them erupted into cheers. The marching band played a celebratory riff.
And Eden and Davis were too busy kissing to notice the Beautification Committee encircling their fighting parents.
“Are you sure I look okay?” Eden asked, smoothing the skirt of her lace sleeved minidress in dark green. She hadn’t been planning to go to the dance, so wardrobe pickings were slim.
“You look amazing,” Sammy said. Her low-maintenance friend was dressed in a simple black dress, tights, and Uggs that were currently propped on Eden’s coffee table.
“You need another layer of mascara,” Layla reported. Layla was low-maintenance on the job, but after-hours, she was a freaking knockout. She’d styled her enviable blonde locks in loose waves and topped them with a Santa hat. Her fire engine red dress hit her at mid-thigh, and her gold stilettos made her look like a super model had wandered away from a holiday-themed shoot.
Eden hustled back into her bathroom and swiped on another coat of mascara, took a deep breath, and called her face done.
“Are you sure he’ll show up?” Eden asked, poking her head out of the bathroom doorway. “I mean his parents are here, and Davis isn’t exactly good at disappointing them.”
Under that layer of giddy excitement was the icy edge of old, not-so-dormant fear.
“Judging from their faces at the front desk, I’d say him dating you is less of a disappointment and more of an epic betrayal,” Layla said cheerfully.
Given the fact that the Gates’ home was still occupied by its renter, and Davis’s house was unlivable, Ferguson and Tilly were very reluctant guests of the Lunar Inn for the next week. Bryson, however, was having the time of his life. “You’re not making me feel better,” she told her friend.
Sammy put down her phone. “Babe, look. This is your shot. Your chance to start something amazing regardless of past, regardless of ridiculous families. This is your new beginning, and you look fucking amazing.”
Eden pitched forward onto the couch and strangled her friend in a tight hug.
“It’s okay to be excited and nervous,” Layla pointed out, cracking her gum. “This is big, and it’s real.”
“And you owe me twenty bucks,” Sammy added.
Layla didn’t even grumble when she dug into her gold sparkly clutch.
“You’re not going to make her wait to see if he shows up at the dance?” Eden asked.
Layla leveled her with a look. “He’ll be there.”
And just like that, the yacht-worthy knot that had tied itself in her stomach loosened. Eden took a steadying breath. “Then let’s get our asses there so I can make sure Fitz doesn’t accidentally spike the kids’ punch again.” The HeHa dance had offered separate adult and kid refreshment tables after the unfortunate gelatin shot incident of 1997. Since then, the adult punch bowl was traditionally spiked with some form of alcohol that got reluctant adult limbs dancing and mismatched partners making out in dark corners.
It was all part of the tradition.
The high school gymnasium was looking festive in a crazy, someone-got-carried-away kind of way.
When the HeHa fiasco had been dumped in their lap, Eden and Davis had also i
nherited the mess that was the dance committee. They’d scrapped Charisma Champion’s plans for a black and white mime-themed event—and ignored Fitz’s suggestion for an event that would pay tribute to farm life during the Great Depression—and went with traditional holiday.
It was magical. Christmas, Hanukah, Diwali, and Kwanzaa had thrown up over every square inch of the gym.
Eden had to hand it to the decorating committee. Navy blue and silver panels of material hung from the ceiling. Twinkle lights cast a soft, holiday glow around everything that stood still long enough to get swagged. Bing Crosby crooned from the sound system, and the dance floor was festooned with stick-on snowflakes.
The entire population of Blue Moon was under this roof, tired and happy from a day of giving. They were decked out in a wide range of festive finery. There were ugly Christmas and Hanukah sweaters, some on purpose and some not. There were pretty gowns on senior high girls and baggy suits on their nervous dates.
There were potted trees scattered about representing every holiday of the season. There was even a tree of meditation mantras, and guests were encouraged to take a mantra. Eden snuck one from where it hung on a branch.
Today is your new beginning. Don’t screw it up.
“No pressure or anything,” Eden said wryly.
“Wow.”
She turned and her heart soared. Davis was here, in navy suit, a vest, and a sexy tie, looking at her like she was a goddess.
“You’re here,” she breathed.
“You think I’m dumb enough to stand you up twice in one lifetime?” He reached for her, took her hand. “I’ve been waiting fifteen years to ask you this.”
“Ask me what?” she asked, nerves and anticipation dancing through her veins.
“May I have this dance?”
Eden congratulated herself on not swooning there on the spot. Sure, maybe she stumbled over her own feet on the way to the dance floor, but Davis was there to steady her.