Stella laughed softly, the sound delicate in the stillness of the bedroom, her head resting on Vincent’s shoulder. The faint warmth of her breath brushed against his skin, sending a fleeting shiver down his spine. Beneath the covers, their bodies were pressed together, bare and vulnerable in the dim glow of moonlight filtering through the curtains. “God, I forgot how you always make those little whimpers when you thrust,” she murmured.

Vincent chuckled low in his throat, a self-deprecating sound. “Yeah, you used to tease me about that in high school.”

“I remember that,” said Stella, her fingers tracing idle patterns on his chest. She sounded like she was smiling. “I thought it was cute.”

"You did?"

"Yeah, I did. Even back then, I knew most guys didn't make as much noise as you do during sex. My girlfriends always said I was lucky."

Vincent’s lips curled into a faint smile, but the thought gave him pause. His fingers ghosted over the curve of her spine, warm skin smooth beneath his calloused fingertips. “You told your girlfriends about me?” He smirked slightly, a bit incredulous. “Is that why Rachel was always looking at my crotch in Phys Ed?”

Stella let out a small, breathy laugh. “Probably. She never believed me when I said how long it was. I told her not to make it obvious.”

Vincent huffed a short laugh, shaking his head. “I’m a grower, not a shower,” he said. “Whatever she saw in my basketball shorts, it couldn’t have been much.”

Stella chuckled, soft and warm. "That's alright. It's like... it’s like a little jack-in-the-box, you know? Wind you up and it pops right out. You even sing a little song."

Vince scoffed, slightly offended, and cringed good-naturedly. "Jesus, Stella, 'little?'"

She laughed again, the warmth of her breath against his shoulder sending a strange mix of comfort and unease through him. “It’s perfect,” she said softly, her fingers brushing through the dark hair on his chest. Her tone carried an intimacy that made him feel seen in a way he hadn’t in a long time. From her, at least. He didn’t allow himself to think of Tony. “Feels good too.”

Vincent’s lips twitched upward despite himself. “Yeah?”

"Mhmm." Stella's fingertips drew swirls in the dark hair on his chest, long nails gently scratching at his skin. "Vincent, I... I really missed this.”

“So did I,” Vincent said, voice quiet, staring at the popcorn ceiling and counting Stella's breaths. “I wish we—”

“I know,” said Stella. She turned her face into his shoulder and nuzzled her nose against his skin, her soft yellow curls brushing his cheek. “Why is it always so hard?”

Vincent frowned, his lips pressing together as he considered her question. He didn’t have an answer, not one that wouldn’t make everything worse. “I’m, uh…” He tried for humor, his lips curling into a faint grin. “I’m actually pretty soft right now.”

Stella giggled, the sound unexpectedly bright in the darkened room. She shook his shoulder playfully before tilting her head up to meet his gaze. The sight of her smiling—really smiling—was enough to make something tighten in his chest. Her teeth caught the soft blue glow of moonlight streaming through the sheer curtains, and for a moment, Vincent could pretend that everything was fine.

“I’m surprised you found that funny,” he said, his voice soft, almost hesitant. It wasn't supposed to leave his mouth, wasn't supposed to enter his mind at all, but he said it. Maybe it was the closeness, maybe it was the sex. In the moment, he felt he could be honest.

Stella’s eyes softened, her expression becoming something unreadable. Deep brown, warm and familiar, they held a depth he hadn’t noticed in so long. His mind betrayed him then, whispering that her eyes looked like Tony’s, dark and endlessly expressive. It was a terrible thing to think with his wife in his arms, looking up at him like she’d finally remembered how to love him again.

“I think I always have, to some extent,” Stella said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. “I just… eventually I convinced myself I didn’t.”

Vincent furrowed his brows, tilting his chin down to meet her gaze. Her words didn’t make sense to him, not entirely. “Why?” he asked, his voice gentle but insistent.

Stella hesitated, her lips parting before she bit down on her bottom lip. Her hesitation was a weight in the room, pressing against him. “Because…” she began, her voice faltering as she searched for the right words. “Because I got tired, Vincent.”

The admission hung in the air between them, raw and vulnerable. Vincent felt his chest tighten as he pulled in a deep breath, his teeth grazing his own bottom lip in thought. He didn’t know what to say, but he felt the need to fill the silence, to offer her something. Anything.

“Does that make any sense?” she asked, her voice barely audible, tinged with uncertainty.

“It does,” Vincent said after a beat, his voice quiet and sincere. “It does. I mean it, I get feeling… tired.” Lonely. Empty. Desperate. He understood it more than she’d ever know.

“I think we should try to fix this,” Stella said, her tone tentative but resolute. “Us, I mean. Get serious about it. Therapy. Counseling. A… a program. Maybe.”

Vincent was so stunned by the suggestion of making an effort to fix the relationship that he hardly had the time to process the final suggestion: a program. For her drinking, presumably. Holy shit. She was serious. There were things he wanted to say — ‘Do you even think we have it in us anymore? The energy, the willpower?’ — but didn’t. He may have cheated, but he still owed it to his family to repair this if there was any chance of it being salvaged. They could reboot. Rebuilt. They could be happy again. “I think that sounds wonderful,” he said,, and he pulled her a bit closer with the hand on her back. “June needs an example of a healthy relationship in her life. We can’t just keep… doing this. Fighting. Screaming. Pretending.”

The silence that followed was almost suffocating. “You know?” he added softly, his gaze dropping to the top of her head.

Stella didn’t respond right away, and when she finally spoke, her voice was quiet, trembling with emotion. “I wanna go home, Vincent.”

Vince’s chest seized up for a moment with that cold panic he always got at the thought of returning to Chicago. He knew what she meant — she wanted to move back there forever — but he couldn’t face that right now; needed to do anything possible to avoid it. “You’re gonna,” he said softly, running his fingers up and down her back. “Your flight takes off tomorrow evening—”

“No, Vincent, I—” Stella stammered a moment, shifting to lift her head up to look at him. “I mean, yes, I need to visit my family, but I want to go home. With you and June and — and the dog. I want to go back to what we had in Chicago.”

“Oh, Stella…” Vincent frowned, those nerves returning to his chest. They’d been over this before, and it sucked every time. “Stella, I can’t—”

“Vincent, please.” Stella sat up straighter, hand planted on his naked chest, looking straight into him with deep brown eyes. “I was happy there. We were happy there.”

And that was true. Vince couldn’t deny that. “We were happy until I got shot, Stella,” Vince said. It was a miracle he kept his voice soft, calm, mostly devoid of tremors. “Until my partner died in front of me. That city is broken, sweetheart. Neither of us can fix it ourselves.”

“Vincent, I know we can’t—”

“And think about June. We’d be throwing her into what might as well be a whole different planet. She’s not used to — god, think about how much worse it’s probably gotten, too. The drugs, the instability. We’d have to do homeschool, or private school, or—”

“Well, what about what I need, Vincent?” Stella said. Vincent wasn’t expecting to hear those words in that tone, less accusing and more begging, like she was pleading to be seen by a man who’d ignored her cries for help every step of the way. Was that really him? Was that what Vincent had done the whole time? He didn’t want to know the answer. “I’m not trying to be selfish, I know it sounds terrible, I just… I…”

Ghosting the backs of his fingertips across her cheek, Vincent gently pressed his thumb to her soft, pink lips to stop the next words before they came. ‘I feel trapped,’ is what they’d be. Or something like that. He knew. He pretended to be oblivious, but he knew what Washington did to her. But he just couldn't stand the thought of going back. “Hush, sweetie,” he said softly, and when he rubbed his thumb back and forth across her lips, he tried not to think of how Tony did the same to him. “Let’s put a pin in it. Okay? Tonight, let’s just enjoy this right now. It’s been a year, and… right now, I just wanna hold you. Okay?”

Stella’s tongue darted out to wet her lips, and Vincent smiled just a little, eyes tingling with the bitterness of the moment. Stella’s eyes were dark and sad when she looked at him, but she leaned her cheek into his hand a bit. “Okay, We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “Just.. don’t forget, okay?”

Vincent felt his lips twitch. “I won’t, sweetheart.”

“You promise?” asked Stella.

Vincent’s eyes turned soft, watery, his smile melting at the edges. “I promise, Stella.”

Vincent lay awake in bed long after she fell asleep with her head on his chest. Eyes boring holes into the popcorn ceiling, he told himself that they could fix this, restart, try again, because for all the lies he’d told her that evening, they’d made more progress in an hour than they had in the last three years. Holding her soft, warm body in his arms, Vincent could almost pretend he hadn’t broken their vows already. Could almost pretend he hadn’t spent the afternoon with a man who’d haunted his mind ever since. Could almost pretend that when he pulled her close and arched his back and came inside her, he hadn’t been thinking about Tony’s warm, glittering smile. Not even his cock or his hands or what he’d done to him. Just how he’d smiled at Vincent in a way that made him feel wanted. He tried to imagine Stella’s smile before he drifted to sleep, but found that without the help of a picture, he couldn’t recall what it looked like.

The next afternoon, when she turned around and gave him a kiss before boarding the ferry, he felt her smile against his lips, an old, nostalgic feeling that he found he’d dearly missed. But when they broke the kiss, he only saw it with his eyes for a moment — warm and bright, soft lips and straight teeth, brown eyes nearly auburn in the sunlight — before his phone buzzed in his pocket, interrupting them both. ’I’ll check it later,’ he murmured, and then kissed her again. It wasn’t quite the same that time, but it was better than no kiss at all. Then she boarded the ferry and he hopped back in his car, opening his messages without a second thought. His heart stopped when he saw it was Tony, not just because it was him, but because he hadn’t gone into airplane mode, so the man could see that he’d read his messages.

‘I hope everything is okay?’ was what stood out the most. It brought back the memory of the man checking on him during their traffic stop, soothing him when he’d pressed himself against the wall in shame, looking at him with warm, thoughtful eyes as Vincent blubbered in his lap about how overwhelmed he was. Vincent wasn’t even with him in person, and Tony was still concerned for his well-being. Somehow, this time was the most dangerous of all of them. Vincent could convince himself he’d misremembered the others; could tell himself he’d been hysterical and misinterpreted Tony’s words and body language, but these were concrete letters that couldn't be denied by anything. Tony cared. After all the bullshit Vincent had put him through, he still gave a damn. Vincent considered for a moment that he was just trying to get back into his pants, but for one: he could find anyone else for that, and for two: Tony was just so goddamned sweet, Vincent was halfway convinced that he didn’t even know what an ulterior motive was.

God, he was dangerous. Just as dangerous over text as he had been in person, kissing all over him, cradling his jaw, growling, ’You’re mine.’ Dangerous because even miles away in his SUV with a stress headache and an uncomfortably full bladder, the man still had the power to make Vince’s chest flutter and melt, his body turning warm in a way it hadn’t even as he sank himself into Stella’s wet heat and heard her moan his name for the first time in ages.

Stella. He loved her still, despite everything. Wanted to make things work with her, wanted to fix the marriage for June. In order to do that, he couldn’t see Tony ever again. Tony was dangerous. Impossibly so. Vincent would end up dead trying to juggle both lives at once, and the only person in this equation who deserved that grief was him.

He stopped himself halfway through a message, chewing the inside of his cheek as he watched the letters delete themselves. He blocked Tony’s number, but didn’t delete it, then proceeded to convince himself that he didn’t know why he didn’t do both. Even as he drove home with the music deafeningly loud in hopes of drowning out his thoughts, Vincent’s brain still spared a bit of energy to think about how goofy it was that Tony had messaged him in code. After that, he tried not to think about Tony ever again.

Somehow, he managed to convince his boss to approve his emergency PTO to watch June in Stella’s absence. Two weeks? Three weeks? Neither of them were entirely sure, but he had more than enough to cover it. He spent the first two days helping her family make funeral arrangements from afar, calling places back and forth and sending Stella’s father links of various child-sized coffins, which was about as much of a bummer as one could reasonably expect. Admittedly, he hadn’t spoken to her family much at all in the decade since he moved Stella to Coldwater, but he could tell that something had changed between them in the time they hadn’t spoken. In their prime, Stella’s father had had nothing but good things to say about Vincent, sharing jokes and calling him ‘son’ no matter how visibly uncomfortable Vincent was with it. Nowadays, on every call, he was cold and distant in a way that was uncharacteristic even for a man who'd been through a very recent tragedy. Vincent quickly got the hint that Stella’s family no longer liked him, even as they accepted his long-distance assistance. Stella’s calls and texts, which had started out warm and affectionate when she boarded the ferry, had returned to their typical cold tone in a matter of days. Given all the things she’d likely told them about Vince, it was no surprise that her family didn’t like him anymore. Therefore, it shouldn’t have come to him as any surprise when her ‘let’s fix things’ attitude changed on a dime upon reuniting with them.

Vincent hadn’t had much hope in a proper revival of the marriage to begin with, but he tried to hold on to what little remained. June had seemed thrilled to see their change in dynamic before Stella left for Chicago, and that alone was enough to convince him that he still had to try — even if trying meant sending heartfelt text messages only to get curt responses and red heart emojis that made him want to throw his phone off a bridge and then follow it over.

He wasn’t used to being off work, and he wasn’t used to having the house to himself. The silence felt too loud, every creak of the floorboards and hum of the refrigerator amplifying the thoughts he didn’t want to face. When June was at school, he tried to keep busy, picking up a book only to find his eyes glazing over the same paragraph three or four times. When reading didn’t hold his focus, he turned to video games, shooting pixelated enemies in a desperate bid to drown out his own mind. When he got bored of that, he cleaned—scrubbing counters, organizing closets, anything to distract himself from the gnawing guilt that had taken residence in his chest.

But no matter how much he busied himself, it was still there, coiled tight and heavy, like a lead weight in his stomach. He thought about Tony more than he wanted to admit, every memory of the man a mix of warmth and shame that left him feeling split in two. Eventually, when he couldn’t take it anymore, he’d lock himself in the bathroom and jerk off, his mind flickering to the moments he spent with Tony—the way his hands felt, the way he looked at him. It wasn’t about lust, not entirely. It was about the way Tony made him feel seen, wanted, and how that feeling contrasted so violently with the guilt of betraying Stella.

The cycle repeated itself every day until June came home, her laughter cutting through the quiet like sunlight breaking through clouds. With her around, the weight lifted, and the house felt alive again. She gave him purpose, grounding him in the present and forcing him to set aside the constant, suffocating tug-of-war in his mind. Her presence made everything easier, even if it was only temporary. When she was home, he could almost convince himself that he hadn’t ruined everything. Almost.

At first, they kept busy. Afternoons turned into marathon Battletoads sessions, complete with playful trash talk and June’s occasional victory dances when she bested him. Other days, they curled up on the couch under a shared blanket, watching old Disney movies and arguing over which one had the best songs. Vince always stood by The Lion King, while June staunchly defended Mulan. They baked cookies once—an idea Vince regretted the moment flour dusted the counters and chocolate chips melted into smudges on the floor. But the look on June’s face when they bit into the gooey, slightly misshapen cookies made the mess worthwhile.

Still, the novelty wore off quicker than Vince anticipated. After a few days of the same routine, they started running out of things to do. June noticed it first, her boundless energy clashing with Vince’s more subdued pace. “Daddy,” she said one afternoon, sprawled across the living room rug with her chin propped on her hands. “We’re boring.”

Vince raised an eyebrow from the couch, where he was attempting to beat his own high score in Tetris. “We’re not boring.”

“Yes, we are. All we do is play games and watch movies. Can we do something fun?”

“This isn’t fun?” he teased, gesturing at her with the controller.

“No,” she said flatly, then perked up. “Hey! Let’s go to Fright Fest!”

Vince sighed, already exhausted by the thought. Pinecrest Plaza’s Halloween festival was famous for its crowd-drawing antics, and he wasn’t sure he had the energy for that level of chaos. “You sure you don’t just wanna stay home and bake another batch of cookies?”

June groaned, rolling onto her back and flailing her arms dramatically. “Nooo! Fright Fest, Daddy! Please? It’s only here for, like, a couple weeks!”

Her excitement was infectious, and eventually, Vince gave in. “Alright,” he said, setting the controller aside. “But if we’re doing this, we’re doing it right. Costumes and all.”

That declaration set off a whirlwind of planning. June dove into her closet, pulling out every piece of clothing she thought could be repurposed into something spooky or silly. When nothing quite worked, Vince suggested the simplest option: a classic sheet ghost. They spent the evening measuring her height against an old pillowcase, cutting out eye holes, and debating whether or not to add jagged edges to the bottom.

That night, she was ready to go, and so was Vince—though he stuck to his usual slacks and sweater, claiming he’d be the ghost’s 'dad escort.' They had a blast at Fright Fest, playing carnival-style games, running through the haunted maze, and stuffing themselves with caramel apples and kettle corn. June’s laughter echoed through the crisp autumn air, and for the first time in weeks, Vince felt like he could breathe again.

On Saturday, June wanted more. This time, she unearthed a too-small fairy costume from the depths of her closet. “It still fits!” she insisted as Vince helped her wiggle into the glittery tulle.

“Barely,” he said with a laugh, but he didn’t fight her on it aside from making her wear a pair of shorts beneath it.

They returned to Fright Fest, June in her sparkly wings and Vince, once again, costumeless. As they walked among the vendors and performers, she tugged at his sleeve. “You need a costume next time, daddy.”

“I don’t need a costume, monkey, you’re pretty enough for both of us,” he argued, though the look she gave him suggested otherwise.

That night, while June slept, Vince scrolled through Amazon, half-heartedly searching for ideas. Then he saw it: a Star Wars costume set. Princess Leia for June, Obi-Wan for himself. He added it to his cart without hesitation, grateful for weekend delivery.

Sunday morning, he woke June up with a surprise. Standing in her doorway with the costumes draped over his arm, he grinned. “Guess who’s saving the galaxy today?”

June gasped, shooting upright in bed. “No way!” She scrambled to grab the Leia outfit, holding it up to her chest. “This is so cool, Daddy! You’re actually dressing up?”

“Don’t get used to it,” he said, smirking. “But yeah, I’m dressing up.”

June pumped a fist in the air with a full-throated “WOOO!” and Vince was too busy laughing to care much about how his left ear suddenly couldn’t hear so great anymore.

It was around 4:00 PM that they made it into the SUV, June’s dark hair coiled into two perfect space buns and Vince’s hands aching like a pianist with arthritis because he’d spend thirty minutes getting them just right. June chose her own music as soon as he powered the car on, having happily assumed the role of Music Dictator ever since she’d been allowed to regularly sit in the front seat. Three days ago, Vincent would’ve complained when she turned on pop music, but to his own horror and dismay, he’d become used to it.

Vincent tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat, keeping one eye on the road and the other on June in the passenger seat, who was bouncing and belting out Taylor Swift with the kind of unabashed enthusiasm only a ten-year-old could muster. June had one hand in the air, fingers splayed dramatically as she sang, the other clutching the hem of her white Leia dress, which she’d been fussing over since they left the house. He couldn’t help but smile as he watched her space buns wobble a little whenever she hit a particularly powerful note.

“Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago…” she sang, eyes closed, putting her whole heart into it, “I was in your sights, you got me alone…”

Vince joined in, deepening his voice comically and leaning toward her, his fake Jedi robe swaying with the motion. “You found me, you found me—”

“You found me-e-e-e-e,” they both sang, drawing out the note until it turned into something closer to a howl. Vince let his voice go ridiculous and warbly, and June cracked up, doubling over with laughter, her hand flying to her mouth. He felt that familiar warmth in his chest—this was what he loved most about these moments with her, the easy laughter, the way they fell into each other’s silliness so naturally.

“Daddy, you’re ruining it!” June laughed, straightening up and taking a mock-serious breath to dive back into the chorus. “I knew you were trouble when you walked in…”

“Shame on me now!” Vince joined in, raising his eyebrows in a dramatic expression of mock regret.

“Flew me to places I’d never been…” June sang back, her voice lowering, and Vince matched her, leaning forward as if he were channeling all the regret of a Jedi master.

“Now I’m lyin’ on the cold hard ground—”

They both lost it, barely making it through the next line. Vince’s laughter mingled with hers, his heart light, his worries a distant thing this evening. He stole a quick glance at her, memorizing the joy on her face, the gleam of her braces, the dimples that would probably disappear by the time she was grown.

Ahead of them, Fright Fest glimmered in the distance, a soft, festive glow cutting through the October night. Twinkling strings of orange and purple lights draped the trees like enchanted cobwebs, casting flickering shadows on the ground below. Inflatable ghosts swayed gently in the breeze near the entrance, their bulbous forms glowing faintly as if welcoming visitors to their haunted haven. The scene unfolded with charming vibrancy: booths offering games and prizes lined the central path, while smaller tents bustled with food vendors from local businesses, their signs promising everything from warm apple cider to freshly baked pumpkin cookies.

The entrance was framed by grinning jack-o’-lanterns and skeletal figures, their details illuminated by hidden LED lights that made them seem alive in the shadows. It wasn’t a massive festival—just a cozy neighborhood event—but it had a warmth and whimsy that felt larger than life. Against the black canvas of the sky, Fright Fest looked like something pulled straight from a Halloween movie, every glowing detail brimming with charm and magic.

“Ready, Princess Leia?” he asked, turning down the volume a little as they parked nearby.

She grinned, smoothing down the front of her dress like she was about to meet royalty. “Always ready, Obi-Wan.”

Vincent chuckled, grinning. “That’s the spirit.”

“The HALLOWEEN spirit!”

Now that the volume was down, Vincent jumped a little, pausing halfway to the keychain to raise his hand to his ear, wheezing a laugh. ”Jeesus, Junie — inside voices when we’re in the car, alright?”

“Okay!” June shouted, just as loud. If she noticed anything wrong with her response, it wasn’t evident in her expression, her whole body practically vibrating with energy. Glancing down at her lap, Vincent found that she was quite literally white-knuckling their lightsabers in her clenched fists.

“You are really excited for me to wear a costume, aren’t you?” Vincent asked, chuckling a little.

“Yes!” June shouted. “Let’s go!”

She tossed him a lightsaber and he caught it on a flinch a moment before it whacked him in the face. By the time he looked back up at her, the passenger door was slamming shut and June was gone. Vincent chuckled a little to himself, shaking his head and turning off the car. Catching his own reflection in the rearview mirror, Vincent thought to himself that if Stella hadn’t left for Chicago the day after the affair, she might wonder why the ‘seatbelt rash’ on his neck was still there after a week. By the time he resurfaced from that dark thought, his grin had vanished. He grabbed his things and hopped out of the SUV before it could get any worse.

Fright Fest was admittedly quite a bit more interesting when Vince was in. The festival was alive with laughter and the hum of families moving from booth to booth, their faces illuminated by the soft glow of the Halloween lights. June tugged at Vincent’s hand constantly, her energy contagious as she pulled him toward various activities. They played a ring toss game where she nearly got a prize, painted mini pumpkins together at the craft station, and stopped to watch a spooky puppet show featuring skeletons that danced to a pop remix of Thriller. Everywhere they went, people smiled at them, and more than a few complimented their costumes.

“You two look great,” one woman in a witch’s hat said with a grin as they passed. June beamed up at Vince, clutching her little Princess Leia blaster tightly.

“Thanks!” she chirped, nudging her father to say something too. Vince nodded politely, his Obi-Wan robe swishing as they moved on.

It was when they were near the food tents that another compliment came from a woman dressed as a dominatrix, complete with a leather corset and a whip dangling from her belt. “Love the Star Wars look,” she said, her smirk pointed and teasing as her gaze lingered on Vince’s face for a moment too long.

“Uh, thanks,” he said quickly, his cheeks heating up as he instinctively pulled June closer. She barely noticed, already scanning the horizon for the next attraction, but Vince found himself highly disturbed by the whole exchange. Jesus, it’s a family event, he thought, glancing at her outfit again before politely steering June in the opposite direction. Hot, but… seriously?

The food area was bustling with delicious smells—grilled meat, fried dough, sugary caramel apples—and Vince’s stomach growled as they wandered past the various booths. “How about that one?” he suggested, pointing toward a stand advertising loaded baked potatoes.

"Look, Daddy! It’s the cook from the diner! Johnny Cage!"

It was like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. June’s voice, so gleeful and innocent, bounced around in his skull, but he couldn’t make sense of it. His feet felt rooted to the ground, his body refusing to cooperate as dread clawed its way up his spine. No, no, no. Don’t let it be him. Please, god, fuck, not here.

His neck stiffened as he forced himself to turn in the direction she was pointing, every muscle in his body bracing for the worst. And there he was.

Tony.

The Drifter's Diner banner stretched lazily above him, flapping gently in the breeze as he stood at the booth. A red flannel hung open over a tattered shirt, the fabric hugging his chest and shoulders in a way Vince felt in the pit of his stomach. The werewolf makeup on Tony’s face wasn’t just good—it was damn near Hollywood quality. His cheekbones looked sharper under the dark contouring, his brows furrowed with dramatic shading, and there were claw marks painted down his neck, the streaks of red and silver a striking contrast against his tan skin. Even his beard had been dusted with a hint of gray, giving him an aged, wild edge that Vince couldn’t tear his eyes away from.

Tony wasn’t just dressed up. He looked incredible. Too incredible.

The sight of him hit Vince like a punch to the gut, every detail drawing up memories he’d been trying—and failing—to bury. He could still feel Tony’s hands on him, gripping his hair, pulling him close; his lips dragging along his jaw, his voice low and growling, calling him mine. The heat that shot through Vince was immediate, shameful, and he swallowed hard, his mouth dry as his gaze lingered on the way the tattered shirt clung to Tony’s frame. His chest rose and fell as he worked, large hands deftly wrapping up a taco and handing it off to a kid in a demon costume who barely muttered a thanks.

It wasn’t just the costume, the physique, or the way his sleeves were rolled up to show off forearms that could make someone weak in the knees. It was the way he carried himself—easy, confident, like he owned every inch of space around him. And Vince? Vince was rooted to the spot, his pulse thrumming so hard it felt like his ribs might crack under the strain. He tried to find something—anything—to say, but all he could do was stand there, staring at him, his mouth hanging open like an idiot.

The air between them felt electric, like it might snap if Vince moved an inch. His chest was tight, every breath shallow, and for a brief, panicked moment, he thought he might actually pass out. He tried, he really did, to find a way out of this. “June, maybe we should—” But her grip on his hand tightened, her determination unwavering as she tugged him forward, her little Leia buns bouncing with each step.

“Daddy, come on!” she insisted, her excitement contagious in any other context but now.

Every nerve in Vince’s body screamed at him to turn around, to steer her toward another booth, to find literally any excuse to avoid this. But he couldn’t say no to her. Not when her eyes sparkled like that, not when her smile was so wide and unguarded. His stomach churned as she pulled him closer, and before he could stop it, they were standing at the edge of the booth. Tony was right there, barely a few feet away. Vince’s heart slammed against his ribs as he watched the man wrap up the last taco and turn slightly, his movements fluid and relaxed. God, he looks incredible, Vince thought bitterly, his jaw tightening as he tried to keep his composure. Every inch of him felt like it was on fire, his mind a chaotic mess of regret, guilt, and something else he didn’t want to name.

June didn’t hesitate, stepping right up to the counter with the unshakable confidence only a kid her age could have. “Hi, Mr. Werewolf!” she said brightly, her voice cutting through the buzz of the festival. “Obi-Wan and I are gonna get food and cotton candy! You should come with us!”

Vince blinked rapidly, forcing his legs to move as he stepped forward on autopilot, his fatherly instincts taking the reins even though his mind was screaming at him to run. He reached out and put a gentle hand on her shoulder, his voice steadier than he felt. “Ah-ah,” he said, managing a faint smile. “Don’t forget the stipulation. We’re gonna get food and maybe cotton candy if you’re a good girl.”

June’s grin widened, unbothered by the correction. “Oh yeah. We’re gonna get food and most likely cotton candy. Come on!”