lover boy & dollar store girl ♬ matt sturniolo

XX

CHAPTER XX
[ fur or no fur? ]
♬

     nick and minnie were twice as insufferable now that halloween was a day away.

     minnie had started spending more and more time with the boys in the past week since her and matt admitted their feelings for each other. and once the four had made up, the halloween costume planning began almost immediately.
     nick and minnie dragged chris and matt from store to store, searching for makeshift items and fabrics to make homemade costumes. in michael's the kids found spools of tawny faux fur, packages of fake straw, and squares of felt in nearly every color of the rainbow; walmart had green, brown, and grey crewnecks, and cheap face paint and girl's headbands in the cosmetics section. matt and chris complained, asking "how is this shit gonna make our costumes?" but they had no idea about the master plan.

     it was friday night and the kids had hijacked chris' bedroom floor to use as their craft space. minnie brought her mom's sewing kit and fabric scissors from home, and nick dug up just about every craft tool they had in the house- hot glue guns, glitter, yarn, sharpies, and anything that would add detail. matt and chris were forced to sit on the bed and attempt to play video games, but really were distracted by their brother and best friend.
     minnie made herself busy by piping hot glue onto the neckline of the brown crewneck they'd gotten for chris and slowly securing the strip of fake fur, piece by piece. she'd made him put on the sweatshirt earlier and measured his neck to see how much material she would need to wrap around. nick was working on cutting the fingers off an old pair of brown cotton gloves and cutting lion ears out of felt to tape on a flimsy headband.
     minnie and nick began bickering over whether or not they should glue fur around the cuffs of chris' shirt sleeves when the brothers stepped in.

     "oh my god, you guys!" chris groaned, "shut the hell up!"

     nick's head whipped around. "i'm sorry, who's making your costume, christopher?"

     "maybe if you let us help you guys wouldn't be so stressed!" matt explained.

     "you don't even know the plan!" nick rolled his eyes.

     "if you explained it to us then we would be able to help, dumbass."

     minnie chuckled at matt's cynicism. "you want to help? come sit with me, i'll give you something to do."
     matt clambered off the bed and onto the floor, careful to knock the miscellaneous items away as he sat beside the girl. she put down the sweatshirt she was making and reached forward into the pile of costume pieces, pulling out the grey crewneck they'd gotten for matt. she swiped a tube of fabric glue and a little plastic vial of red glitter, and placed them in matt's hands. "here. i want you to paint a little heart on the sweatshirt, where your heart is normally, and sprinkle glitter over the top. once it's dry i can brush it off and you'll have your tin man heart. got it?"

     matt grinned sweetly and nodded, happy he could make himself useful. all the times the boys tried to offer to assist nick and minnie in the process they were brutally denied, mainly because nick said that he didn't trust them not to fuck their costumes up- but now that they were realizing the workload is more than they'd anticipated, it seemed chris and matt could be helpful after all.

     "chris, come here and finish this headband so i can start gluing the straw to my shirt." nick ordered, and chris hopped off the bed and did like matt.