There's Blood on the Moon Tonight by Bryn Roar

Anne back when he was in school. She was a year younger than Ham, and was, the last time he’d seen her, skimpier than a beanpole’s shadow. A mere wisp of a thing
    To Ham’s happy surprise, Betty Anne was no longer skimpy or wispy! In fact, the girl had filled out altogether nicely. With his mouth hanging open like he’d lost all sense, Ham watched her walk out of her home, on the newly developed West Side, where the finest houses on Moon stood overlooking the sea. Her beauty had so flustered him that he’d neglected to get out of the truck and open the passenger door for her! It was a lucky thing he’d decided to pick up Betty Anne first. If Rusty had seen how stupid he’d looked, with his mouth unhinged like that, he never would have heard the end of it.
    Except for a nervous glance her way, when Betty Anne first climbed into his truck, Ham barely acknowledged her presence. Not even after picking up Rusty and Shayna, both of whom crammed into the front seat beside them, forcing Betty Anne to slide right next to her blushing date. In fact, Ham didn’t say a word until he’d backed up the truck into a slot at the drive-in, whereupon Joe Rusty and Shayna hopped out and jumped into the bed of the pick up, the movie being the last thing on their minds. The Moonlite Drive-In had opened the previous summer, and was the only spot in town where the young people could hang out with their parents’ blessings—the other two locations being notorious lovers’ lanes. The owner, grumpy old Mr. Grimes, didn’t take into account the scarcity of cars on Moon, but the islanders had made do.
    Ham looked around at all of the blankets laid out in the large lot. There was an unspoken rule at the Drive-In: Couples laid their blankets on the left side of the field, families the right. A playground in the center was the Mason-Dixon line. Ham parked on the left.
    “Can I get you some popcorn, Betty Anne?” Ham had asked his date, finally getting up the courage to speak, even though he still couldn’t look her in the eyes. In a bold move, he’d parked facing the snack stand. Like his pal Joe Rusty, Ham had no interest in watching the picture show.
    If Betty Anne noticed, she didn’t seem to mind.
    She put one finger under Ham’s chin and lifted his head until their eyes locked. He melted under the soft gaze of those honey brown eyes, falling head over heels in love at that instant. “A Coke and a smile would be kinda nice, too,” she’d purred in return.
    One year later, Ham and Joe Rusty were doing yet another thing together: walking down the aisle with their best girls on the very same day.
    Joe Rusty’s wedding was first, and Ham was of course his Best Man—Betty Anne, Shayna’s Maid of Honor. Then, after a quick change, Rusty and Shayna returned the favors, escorting their friends to the front of the church, where the Reverend Milo Tipple waited to unite them in Holy Matrimony. Sometime after the wedding Betty Anne’s parents, who had given their happiest blessings to the union, sold their home on the West End, and retired to a senior citizen community in Arizona.
    They’d both since passed away.
    Jessie Huggins, never a fellow to throw around his money, made the Moon Island grapevine buzz like seldom before when he gave his son a brand new shrimp boat, almost twice as big as the Moon Maiden, the paint on her lovely bow still wet. For Joe Rusty O’Hara, who Jessie and Reva had come to think of as a second son, they had deeded over the house his family had been renting for nearly twenty years. Rusty’s mother had passed away the previous summer, his dad when he was just fourteen, so the present of the home, from a man he respected more than any other, touched him very deeply. Rusty promised Jessie Huggins that as long as he lived he’d never let any harm befall his son. And Joe Rusty was as good as his word.
    The first time Rusty O’Hara saved Ham’s life was on a day you’d least expect for such theatrics. It was a