For a moment, I panicked. Lucas hadn’t mentioned a dress code. Not that I owned a single silk flower barrette anyway. I’d waited to leave the house until Charlie and Dad were secured in his truck, and though I wasn’t late because of it, I certainly didn’t have time now to go home and change out of my tight-fitting dark-wash jeans, short leather jacket, boots, and black boatneck blouse. Wes had said the party would be in a barn, after all.

Start time had been stated as eight p.m., and my dashboard clock had just flipped to read eight forty-five.

Okay, so I was late.

Making the executive decision not to show Lucas the drawing tonight, I tucked it into the glove box. Then, hoping I hadn’t missed his and Charlotte’s number, I let myself out of the car and trekked up to the barn doors, over which hung strands of orange and purple Christmas lights.

Within, big bourbon barrels served as drink tables while rows of hay bales provided bench seating. Farther away, against one wall, wheelbarrows filled with ice and old-fashioned glass-bottle colas flanked a long table packed with autumn goodies.

More lights wound around the support beams and rafters, and at the far end of the barn, to the right of the dance floor, the live swing band played at a breakneck pace.

The band had a singer, too—a woman in bright red patent leather pumps, matching lipstick, and a black cherry-dotted dress. She jived in place as she sang, her smoky voice all “daddy” this and “baby” that.

Nearly everyone in the barn had gathered to watch the competition from the perimeter of the dance floor, whooping and whistling their encouragement and, whenever a girl went popping into my view from over their heads in an aerial, shouting with awe.

Woooow. O-kay. Were there different levels to this thing? These had to be the pros.

I scanned the barn’s interior but didn’t see anyone from SPOoKy. So I sidled up to the edge of the crowd, where different perfumes and colognes mixed with the scent of straw, cinnamon, and cider.

And suddenly, among the competitors, I spotted them. Lucas and Charlotte.

Seeing them standing together at the edge of the wood floor, the next in a queue of couples waiting their turn to dance, I couldn’t help a grin. Lucas looked good, clad in a smart vest and lemon-colored tie, black straight-legged trousers, and his saddle shoes, the number ten fastened to the cuff of one leg. He clapped along with the beat, his eyes alight with excitement, locked on the couple currently strutting their stuff. That was, until the pair started to shuffle out of the way.

And then Lucas tugged a beaming Charlotte onto the open floor.

My grin faltered as the skirt of Charlotte’s dress, as short as it was yellow, whirled out as Lucas twirled her, her equally yellow Keds carrying her away from him and then close again. Really close.

They latched hands, rotating as a unit, Lucas’s free arm going to Charlotte’s waist as though to keep the centrifugal force of their whirling from sending her careening into the band.