by Dylan Heart
Blue stands up and steps out of the cup. He’s light on his feet and almost trips on the platform. Still dizzy myself, I need a second to recover. The last thing I want to do is attempt to walk in a straight line and trip. I don’t need another relationship cut short at the hands of a carnival ride.
“Need a hand?” He extends his hand to assist me.
At this point, I could probably manage to walk on my own, but I’m not about to turn down an opportunity to brush my skin against his. Also, chivalry’s not dead, but it’s rare. I grab his hand and notice the roughness of his fingers. They’ve definitely been worked. He pulls me up onto the platform with one hand. The other steadies me at the waist.
“You good?”
“Yeah. Kinda hungry, though.”
What the hell is wrong with me?
His lips purse. “I know where we can get some free grub.”
My hand pats against my chest. “You’re stealing my heart,” I say with a smile, and I’m only half joking. My heart rate is well above a physically fit, eighteen-year-old girl’s normal rate. I could blame Blue, but a doctor would probably blame the thrill ride we’ve just exited or my penchant for scarfing down greasy fair food.
We sit on a spoiled park bench. Half of it is covered in half-eaten fries and spilled ketchup. Screams echo behind us as red cages tumble against the setting sky. The entire scene isn’t as chaotic as you’d expect for a small-town carnival. I suspect that once the sun disappears to harass another continent, it’ll be a different story. Only then will the people of Lakeside come out to play.
“Where are you from?” I ask, dipping a vinegar-soaked fry into a cup of ketchup.
“I’ve been a lot of places but never really been from anywhere, you know?” He wipes fry grease off his hands with a crumpled napkin.
“So you’re a gypsy?”
“Something like that.”
“What brings you to Lakeside?”
“I like to travel. It’s a necessity of the job.” He shrugs. “What about you?”
“Never been anywhere else.”
His eyes stole on mine, a look of concern passing over his face. “That’s horrible.”
“It’s not so bad.” I ball up a napkin, tossing it into the trashcan that sits beside the table.
“That’s because you’ve never been anywhere else.”
He’s right. I’d love to leave this town to find something new. I’ve spent the past eighteen years in this place, and every time I think about leaving, I’m reminded by the reality that I’ve already given up my first chance to leave it all behind.
“Someday,” I say, but there’s no conviction in my voice.
“Someday what?”
I look straight into his eyes. “I’ll go somewhere else.”
“The first step is to want something and the second is to act on it. Where you wanna go?”
An actual conversation with a handsome stranger? The kind where they ask questions and actually want answers? That shit just doesn’t happen anymore. Well, it does, but the question is usually phrased as such ‘my parents are out of town. Want to fuck?
“Got a map?”
“Just a second.” He slides his finger against the screen of his phone. “Right here.” He pushes his phone over to me. There’s a world map on the screen. “Close your eyes and point to a random place.”
I close my eyes as told. A light laugh escapes my throat because I know this whole thing’s kind of silly. My finger circles above the phone before pressing against the screen. I can hear his jeans brush against the bench seat as he stands up. He circles around to stand behind me and leers over my shoulder. My eyes open and he gets closer. His arm comes around me, brushing against my arm as he pinches and zooms in on the screen.
“Las Vegas,” he says with an approving nod. “Never been there myself.”
His breath smells like fair food, which is a mouth-watering scent, but it’s the last thing you want to smell coming from the mouth of a gorgeous man. However, the way his breath catches my neck ignites me. The heat so close to turning into passion, I want to reach around his neck and pull him close to me. Pull him in to kiss me. Now, I don’t tend to kiss strangers, but damn if I’m not about to make an exception.
“That’s a long way from home,” I say, resisting the urge to pull him to my mouth.
“Well, let’s go there. You and me.” His warm breath continues to taunt me. “Someday.”
The way that word rolls off his tongue excites me. It almost sounds like a promise, but promises ain’t shit. My parent’s wedding license in a landfill somewhere is proof of that.
“Let’s just go now.” I’m fully ready to run, fully ready to commit to the fantasy. You can’t live in the moment much more than that.
“Right now?”
“Right now. I’ve got a few bags packed for college, and I’m not in the mood to unpack. I can pick them up on the way out of town.”
“Nothing would make me happier than to jump in a car with you, a perfect stranger, and follow the sun until it sets, but I can’t right now.” He stands back. “Sometime soon, though.”
I swing my feet out from under the bench and stand up in front of him. “The prospect of soon feels like an eternity.”
We talk as if what we say is the truth, as if we’re not aware that we’ve got a few good hours together and that’s it. Still, playing make-believe isn’t the worst thing I could be doing on this miserable Saturday afternoon—I could be working in a fried veggies concession stand like that poor Czech behind me.
“Eternity’s not so bad. Some things are worth waiting for. I’ve found that time goes irrationally slow for those things until one day—bam—you find yourself on a cross-country road trip.”
“You still haven’t told me what your job is. Are you a philosopher?”
His brow arches, his head tilts just slightly. I’m not sure he knows what a philosopher is. “Like a Plato?”
“Something like that.”
Blue looks down at the watch slung around his wrist and lets out a frustrated sigh. Buzz kill.
“Need to be somewhere?”
“Unfortunately, work needs me for a few hours.”
“You could blow them off.”
He laughs and it’s contagious. “I would love to, but they’ll know I’m blowing them off to spend the evening with a beautiful girl.”
“How would they know that? Do you work for the NSA?”
“They’ve got eyes everywhere,” he says, nodding his head.
“Are you a spy?”I lean forward, whispering to him.
He drops his head down to meet me halfway and whispers back, “Would I be able to tell you if I were?”
“You were doing so well until you hit that cliché—” Then, like running into a brick wall, it hits me. “You said I was beautiful?”
“Huh?” he asks with a raised brow.
“You called me beautiful.” The heels of my boot digs into the dirt below.
He shakes his head. “Don’t act like it’s uncommon.”
I push my hair behind my ear. It’s a nervous tic of mine. “From a young age, us girls are called beautiful, but—”
“For a reason,” he cuts me off.
“But sometimes, it’s just unexpected. Like the rest of the world is just lying or something.”
I’ve spent the entire afternoon staring at him like some kind of an obsessed creep, and it never really crossed my mind that he was thinking about me the same I’ve been thinking about him..
Blue reaches around me and grabs his phone off the table. “Here, give me your number, and we’ll hang later.”
Maybe I’ll tease him. Now entering child mode...
“Who says I want to do that?”
“Playing hard to get?”
“I’m certainly not easy.” That’s definitely not the way I intended that to roll off my tongue. I have no problem with easy. I love easy. Be as easy as you want. Be a hoe. Be a whore. Be a slut. Live your life.
“Good. I’m not a fan of easy.” He grins, nodding his head. I frown, and it seems to resonate with him. “That’s not what I meant. I was talking about the chase, not about how fast your clothes fall off. I meant I’m not a fan of, well you know.”
“How do you like crazy?” I bite into my lip.
“Oh.” He throws his hand against his chest. “I love crazy.”
I reach for his phone, taking it out of his hands without express permission. I dial my number and put it into his contacts under the name Crazy. I hand the phone back to him. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
“Never.” There’s sincerity in his voice even as his eyes are glued to his watch. “I’m running late though, so...”
“Goodbye, Blue.”
His face lights up and he presses his lips against my cheek. Unlike his hands, they’re soft. “Not goodbye, Charlie,” he whispers in my ear, and then pulls back and turns around to walk away. He doesn’t need confirmation because he knows he’s got me exactly where he wants me. He’s got me wanting more.
He walks away as the sun sets behind us. The light shines in between food trucks, casting shadows onto the midway. He has my number, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever see him again. The unknown can’t wipe this smile off my face, though. I’m not in love—that would be stupid—but I’ve got that feeling in my gut that you get when you meet someone and somehow, you know they’re going to change your life forever.
Also, the way his ass moves in those jeans certainly doesn’t hurt. Talk about a fucking bubble butt.
Chapter Two
A few hours have passed since Blue went off to work, wherever the hell that is. I’ve spent the previous hour strolling through the animal barns, petting horses, and plotting to steal a donkey. I wasn’t sure which animals were going to be slaughtered for food, and which were going to go on to live long, happy lives, so there was a brief moment spent pondering a life of becoming a vegan followed by a long, drawn-out affair with a cheeseburger.
It’s a quarter till ten and my phone has yet to ring. It’s clutched in my sweaty palm, and every time it vibrates, my heart skips a beat until I realize it’s nothing more than an alert from a social media app.
I would settle for a text.
A young carnie, maybe seventeen years old, hollers at me to come win a bear. In my experience, I would have better luck winning a marathon. And those odds aren’t great, either. The kid’s running that game where you have to throw the ball and knock over three canisters. I lie to him and tell him I’ll come back after I find my boyfriend. That’s two lies in one. I don’t have a boyfriend and I’m definitely not coming back. I’ll make it a point to avoid game street for the rest of the evening.
The crowd grows thicker as the heat finally comes down to habitable levels. Most everyone has long forgotten the war from earlier when the sun was leading a full on assault. I haven’t forgotten. The damage has already been done to my hair and clammy skin.
The screams of ride-goers and the sound of questionably assembled carnival rides boom through the fairgrounds. A big-footed clown walks past me with a fistful of balloons and a wide smile of sadism.
A clown called IT.
Another glance at my phone and my stomach sinks. Should have known better, I guess. I decide to return to my initial premise of being a solo riding bitch. The bumper cars are out of the question—I couldn’t steer one of those bastards if my life depended on it. And let’s be real, in that magnetic arena, it’s always life or death. The cages are also out of the question. They’re basically just an inferior version of the Zipper, built for those who feel the need to always be in control. The last time I rode one of those things, I felt the furthest thing from control as a bolt ricocheted off the metal cage at the behest of an untimely flip.
The Zipper is something special. It’s basically the closest you can get to the thrill of riding a roller coaster without setting foot in an amusement park, even if the only thing it and roller coasters have in common is the total forfeiture of control. In the cages, you have that bar that sometimes tells the damn thing to stop flipping. No such thing exists when you’re in the trenches of the Zipper.
So just when I’ve decided to make my way to the Zipper, it seems fate has other plans.
“Charlie!” a familiar voice calls out.
We all have those moments where our head is telling us Don’t turn around, but nobody ever listens because we always fucking turn around.
“Hey, Dillon,” I say, feigning enthusiasm. It’s not like I’m on bad terms with my ex, but we’re definitely in the awkward post-breakup stage. The plan was for him to stay here and I was supposed to go to college. We decided it was best to end things because of the distance. Neither of us knew at the time that I wouldn’t actually be going anywhere. Those plans were construed long before I was forced to become the parent in my household.
Dillon stands about eight inches taller than me—seven if he ever took off those damn heeled boots. He’s a classic case of a small-town guy—the kind you could live next door to anywhere. Out there in the real world, in that mythical place called a big city, he would probably be a seven out of ten. Here in our own little world, he’s an eleven. Getting lost in those emerald-green eyes and unkempt hair has never been difficult. I loved him for many reasons, but I see no point in lying—I was pulled in for the shallowest of reasons.
He’s standing in front of the Ferris wheel. His friends, Joey and Tyson, stand beside him drinking whiskey out of lemonade cups. In a small town like Lakeside, his friends are my friends and his enemies are my enemies too. The fact that we’ve broken up doesn’t hamper that. They’re all practically wearing the same outfit, which is to say their wardrobes don’t extend beyond jeans, plaid shirts and plain tees. Dillon wears a green plaid shirt, rolled up to the crook of his elbow. The other two boys have theirs thrown over their shoulders. Why they even brought them on an evening this hot is a question for which there are no logical answers.
But they’re boys. Logic isn’t a strong suit.
Dillon comes running up to me.
“Hey,” he says. “I haven’t seen you since Summer’s graduation party.”
“I’ve been busy.” A total lie. Lucky for me he never caught on to that thing I do when I lie. Running my hand through my hair as we speak.
“How’s your mom?” He’s always been sincere and polite, unless he’s drunk and then he turns into either a child or an asshole. It’s only when it’s all ready too late that you learn which personality is about to emerge triumphantly through the whiskey.
“She’s better. I’m hoping she goes back to work in the fall.”
“That’s good. She was always my favorite teacher.”
I laugh, not because it’s funny, but because he’s also always been a suck up. Everybody in a twenty mile radius knows his actual favorite teacher was Mrs. Berry, who doesn’t teach anymore after being caught screwing the running back. She was young, beautiful, and stupid. But weren’t we all?
Aren’t we all.
“Yeah, whatever,” I roll my eyes. “How are you doing?”
“Baby, you know I’m always good.” The edges of his lips pinch together. “Been working at Pete’s shop.”
Dillon has always been good with cars which, from personal experience, was never a surprise because he was always good with his hands.
He stands on the tip of his boots and peers behind me, then to the side. “I see you’re here by yourself.”
“Thanks for the reminder.” I punch him lightly above his pecs. They’re firmer than the last time I noticed them—which was in his parents’ barn right after we had broken up. “I see you’ve been working out.”
He flexes his arms and a mountain of green plaid forms where his biceps should be. “I try.”
“That’s good, but—”
“Let’s ride the Ferris wheel.”
I could slap the shit out of him for the mere suggestion. “Have you lost your damn mind?”
I already know
the answer. He obviously has.
He grabs me by the arm and pulls me toward the line. And I use the word line sparingly, since there are a whopping four people in it.
“Absolutely not.” I stand firm on my decision.
“Come on. For old times’ sake?”
His grip loosens on my arm and I break free from him. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I get on that God-forsaken thing.”
Don’t ask me to explain it, because I probably can’t, but I’ll try anyway. The Ferris wheel is the scariest fucking ride in the world. For one, you’re not strapped in. For two, God forbid you adjust any part of your body to get comfortable because you then face five-to-one odds of smashing your brains against the ground below. Gruesome image? Consider it my obligatory public service announcement.
But here I am, on top of this death trap for the first time in two years. Coincidentally, it’s only the second time in my life I’ve been up here. Both times sitting beside Dillon. I’m not sure if he wants to reminisce or revel in my agony. Both are torture. Even though I’m not going away to college as planned, there won’t be a reconnecting between the two of us. Not right now at least. As much as I love him, I need to experience something new. Something dangerous.
Something like Blue.
I try not to look down, but it’s a natural reflex. My stomach instantly turns, sending nauseating bubbles of terror through my innards. Staring danger in the face isn’t something we ever intend to do. It just happens.
The neon glow from the Zipper across the midway taunts me. It’s so majestic in all its glory, beckoning and calling my name.
Dillon looks at me with his amused face—a devious, judgmental smile that screams I should just man up. Unfortunately for him, that would involve growing balls. I bet that would knock that smile right off his smug face.
“You’re an ass,” I scold him.
He shrugs with apathy, my words only serve to turn him on. Or something. “You miss it, don’t ya?” He looks out into the distance as if he’s searching for his own existence. There’s a world beyond the max height of the three-story buildings but the trees don’t ever let us see that far.
