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I thought they’d be impressed with me trying to fit in and breaking the rules to do so. Instead, I’d been called out by the vice principal, who’d caught me walking through the halls to my homeroom, and told to go home and change into something more appropriate. Right there, in front of the same boys I’d been trying to impress.

The humiliation was still with me.

Stanley wasn’t the vice principal and the boys he’d called me out in front of were grown men, some of whom I now counted as friends, but you couldn’t fight back the sting of childhood trauma when it snuck up on you like that.

I’d chosen to go into the backroom, since I didn’t want to run into Stanley again at the door. By the time I’d made it halfway through the tables filled with Halloween games, displays of business cards and materials from local tradespeople, and close to the tiny stage where a trio of college kids were playing some surprisingly good covers of nineties songs, my initial burst of panic had ebbed, leaving me feeling weird and washed out.

“Bastian!”

Marco’s voice behind me had me whipping around, heart pounding. Awkward as I felt, I swept his costume with an appreciative look. He’d gone all out to throw together medieval clothing. He looked especially good in the tights that hugged his surprisingly muscular legs. Under any other circumstances, I would have made some sort of quip about how tight those stockings were and whether he wanted me to peel them off.

“I’m sorry,” I said, pushing all thoughts but my own stupidity aside. I was highly aware of the people suddenly watching all around us and even more aware of the shocked looks some of them gave me. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Marco looked around, too, lips pressed together in consternation. “I can take a guess at what you were thinking,” he said.

Polo let out a low, “Ruff,” like he had something to say about the whole situation. Luckily for me and Marco, that sound pulled people’s attention away from the two of us and straight to the dog.

“Cool dog,” a teenager who had been playing one of the games with his friends that looked like it involved tossing gummy rings onto pegs said. “Can I pet him?”

“Sure,” Marco said, his usually sunny voice laced with worry. “Actually, would you mind watching Polo for a second while I…while Mr. Gorman and I have a little talk?”

A quiver of fear shot through my belly. No good had ever come of having a little talk in the past.

“I’d love to,” the teen said. He seemed especially happy when a pretty girl about his age came over to join him.

“We’ll just be over here.” Marco nodded to the corner, then touched my elbow and led me to the far corner of the room.

We both glanced back at Polo like he was our baby and we were leaving him with a sitter for the first time. Polo looked like he was having the time of his life being doted on by not just two teenagers, but their whole friend group.

I wished I felt as happy and relaxed.

“Did you do this for me?” Marco asked in a strangled voice when we made it to the corner. He glanced over my suit.

There was no way I could deny it. Marco knew me well enough to have already figured me out. “It’s the perfect solution to everything,” I defended my new look.

“Everything?” Marco asked, one eyebrow arched.

I blew out a breath and rubbed a hand over the lower half of my face. “Your business needs to get off the ground, and in order to do that, you need everyone in this community to look at you favorably,” I explained. “People around here all know I’m a freak, and after the encounter you had the other day, it dawned on me that dating me looking the way I did was going to hurt your business. I care about you, Marco, but I couldn’t live with myself if I kept this community away from your shop.”

Silence followed my little speech. Well, silence except for the trio on the stage playing an acoustic version of Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. It was apropos enough to send a shiver down my spine. Especially since Marco seemed frozen in the moment, staring at me.

Surprisingly, his eyes had gone all soft, and that adorable blush of his had taken over from the confused look he’d chased after me with. I didn’t understand until he said, “Are we dating?”

I swallowed hard. That was what he’d taken out of my verbal blast?

Then again, that probably was the most important thing I’d said. I wanted us to be dating. If I’d only cared about Marco’s business, I would have walked away from him entirely so he wouldn’t get a reputation for dating the town weirdo.

I wanted to be with him. We had something special and I wanted to see where it could take us. So the only thing I could do to both have Marco and protect him was to change myself to someone he could be proud of.

“Do you want us to be dating?” I asked, as green and dorky as the teenagers who were now crowded around Polo.

Marco blew out a breath, his eyes lighting up. “First of all, yes. Second of all, why are we such a mess like this? We’re perfectly reasonable adults who should be able to admit we like each other without it feeling like pulling teeth.”

I took a page out of his cherry-picking book, grinned, and said, “You like me?”

Marco laughed in earnest. He took a step closer to me, brushed his hand along the arm of my boring suit jacket, and said, “Of course I like you. I’ve liked you from the moment I first saw you. Not, I might add, when you looked like this.”

I glanced down at my suit. “This is a very expensive suit,” I defended myself, pretending to be serious when my heart had already started turning somersaults.