My Best Friend's Brother

Chapter Twenty-Eight

We plopped down on the cool cement of the front porch, bottles of pop in our hands. Sabrina placed the box of candy next to one of the column's on her sister's house. She and I were handing out candy since we were "too old" to trick-or-treat. Whatever. You're never too old to trick-or-treat.

It took a long time to convince my grandmother to let me go. I'm not kidding. The first thing she said when I told her the address was, "Isn't that next to where the Chins live?" She did a whole sassy lady thing and put her hand on her hip. It was indeed, four doors down. But they weren't bad kids so I don't see what her problem was.

"So we have about a half an hour until the kids start filing in, right?"

"Yeah." Sabrina responded, taking a swig of her root beer.

"Blah~!" I fell back onto the porch and my hair fanned out around me. "What do you want to do in the mean time?" I asked, turning onto my side to face her. She hesitated for a moment.

"Eat some candy?"

"Okay." I laughed. We both reached into the candy crate just as her father walked out. He stopped in the doorway, paused for a moment then spoke.

"Whatcha doin?" Though I reeled my hand back, Sabrina pressed forward and reached into the box and scooped up a handful of candy. Her father walked over and I tensed up for fear of him yelling at us for stealing the candy. But he sat down on the steps and helped himself. It was only when Sabrina's mother came out with granddaughter did the candy eating stop.

The baby was dressed in a bunny costume with a carrot plushie. It was all cute and stuff to Sabrina and I, until her mother handed us both a pair of bunny ears. "I want you two girls to match the baby." Uncertainly, I looked to my friend. She was grimacing.

"Really...?" She asked.

"Yes. Really. Put them on." With a huff, Sabrina placed the ears on her head. She looked pretty adorable, whereas I however, probably looked like an idiot.

Eventually, the trick-or-treating started. Sabrina held the crate in her lap, and held it out to any small child who walked by. But made any kid over about twelve get it themselves. We saw several people from our school actually. Freshmen. The girls dressed as "sexy" fairies and such. One girl dressed up as a cheerleader... And she was a cheerleader. She just used her uniform as a costume. The boys dressed up as things such as werewolves, stuff like that. And once again, someone used their uniform as a costume. A football player this time.

There was one boy who was going with his little brother. He was also a Freshman, dressed as a baseball player to match his sibling. But he was so tall that I mistook him for the boy's father at first, so I was a little surprised when he reached in and got candy. That was, until Sabrina said, "You know him." And it hit me. It was Bryson Hall. Or, Tall, as some say.

For a while, Sabrina and I picked out random costumes we liked, and secretly gave those people extra candy. There was a man (however not trick-or-treating), who was dressed as Rick from The Walking Dead. A woman dressed in all gray, with various color sample swatches pinned on her, was Fifty Shades of Gray. Clever I thought. A creepy guy in an inflatable duck costume who would go around just staring at people. Then a cute little boy dressed as Sully from Monster's Inc.

It was almost an hour before Sabrina spotted a lean, confident figure making his way down the road toward us. Sabrina squinted. "Is that... Thomas...?" I squinted as well, also in need of a pair of glasses.

"That's Thomas!" Almost simultaneously, the two of us tossed our rabbit ears into the candy crate.

"Hey," Thomas said when he finally made his way up to the porch. "Chin wanted to know if he could come over." He shifted his weight onto his right side and placed his hands on his hips. The teen ran a hand through his hair as he waited for a response. A small child sheepishly reached around him for a Twix bar in the candy box.