When I was finally put in one of the wagons—it looked like a rickety pod with red paint smeared all over it to symbolize blood—I was alone, even though there was enough space for two people.
I knew nothing would happen to me on a fair ride.
Still, I felt lost, fragile, and unbearably lonely tonight. Like someone had peeled away my skin in one go and left me to carry my bones and veins and muscles in a messy heap.
I’d just lost my best friend. The only one that counted.
I grabbed onto the shirtsleeve of the guy manning the ride, tugging.
“I want to get off.”
He gave me a slow once-over, his gaze lingering a second too long on my bare thighs.
“Hell, sugar, I’d like to get you off, too. But you’ll have to wait till the end of my shift. I need the money,” he slurred, sounding stoned.
I clutched onto his Hurley hoodie sleeve, throwing fourteen years of etiquette lessons out the window in one moment of desperation. “No! I want to get off the ride. Unless you can put someone in the cart with me?” Hope trickled into my voice.
“Bro, it’s, like, a ride anyone four feet or over can get on.” He shook my touch off, frowning. “You’ll make it out alive.”
“I know. It’s not that I’m scared. I just—”
“Look…” he raised a hand to stop my stream of words “…if I don’t press that red button over there every three minutes, I lose my job. You getting out or sucking it up?”
I was about to answer that it was fine, that I was just being silly, when someone stepped forward, cutting the entire line behind them.
“She’ll suck it up, Sir Smokes-a-Lot.”
A curtain of unshed tears blocked my vision, and I knew if I blinked it away, everyone would see I was crying. I was so embarrassed I wanted to die. Blurry Stoner Guy pushed the metal rail open obediently, muttering a quick hello to the stranger approaching us, ducking his head down.
The person slid into my cart, pulling the metal bar against our waists, flicking a cigarette sideways, an umbrella of smoke cocooning us together.
I wiped my eyes, mouthing a mortified thank you. When I looked up, our gazes collided, and my insides crushed like a glass ceiling shattered by a supernova.
Him.
I didn’t know him, but I dreamed of him.
I’d dreamed of this man every night since I was nine.
Since I’d started reading kissing books under the covers about brave knights and the princesses who loved them.
Beautiful and princely, with eyes that could see through your soul.
He looked to be in his early twenties. With tawny, wind-swept hair tousled in untidy sexiness. His eyes were two silver moons—the kind that change color in different lights. His skin glowed, like he’d been dipped in gold, and he was so tall his knees poked out of the cart. He wore a black V-neck that clung onto his muscular chest and biceps and black jeans ripped at the knees.
A Saint Anthony charm was wrapped around his neck, held by a tattered leather string.
“I—I’m Aisling.” I stuck my hand out to him. Our cart jerked forward and whined as two girls my age jumped into the pod behind us, gossiping hotly about a girl named Emmabelle who used to go to school with them and apparently had sex with half the football team then sucked off the other half.
He ignored my outstretched hand. I swallowed, withdrawing my hand and dumping it in my lap.
“Bad night?” His eyes lingered on my puffy eyes.
“The worst.” I didn’t even have the good manners to smile politely.
“I highly doubt that.”
“Oh, I’ll bet you anything my night is going worse than anyone else’s in this carnival.”
He offered me an arched eyebrow, showing me his handsomeness had a devilish quality to it, the kind I suspected very few women could resist.
“I wouldn’t bet with me.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“I always win.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I murmured, starting to think he was a little too confident for my liking. “I bet you anything I’m having the worst night out of all the people in this carnival.”
“Is that right? Anything?”
“Within reason.” I straightened my back, remembering myself. She always told me to behave a certain way. If she was a ghost hovering above me right now, she would not appreciate my attire. The least I could do was not lose my virginity to this handsome stranger in a stupid bet.
“I’m guessing you’re the sensible one.” He twisted his lighter between his long fingers, back and forth, a movement I found oddly soothing.
“One, out of …?”
“Your siblings.”
“How do you know I have siblings at all?” I felt my eyebrows rise in surprise.
He stared at me boldly, his eyes saying things no stranger had any business telling me. It was like the world was his, and since I was a part of it, he could have me, too. Suddenly, I realized whatever was happening here was very odd and at least somewhat dangerous.
I wanted to strip for this man, and I’d never wanted to strip for any man, for any reason, especially not romantic reasons—and I didn’t mean just my clothes.
I wanted to make him explode like a piñata, clawing into his gut, unearthing every single quality, trait, and bad habit that he had. Who was he? What was his story? Why did he talk to me?
“You think you’re nothing special,” he said softly.
“Do people think they’re special?”
“Those who aren’t do.”
“I’m guessing you’re the troublemaker out of your siblings.” I tucked my hair behind my ears. He smirked, and I felt it in my bones. The way the air heated up just because he was content.
“Bingo.”
“You must’ve been a hellion growing up.” I cocked my head sideways, as if a different angle would show me a picture of him when he was nine or ten.
“I was such a troublemaker, my mother threw me out when I was nine.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I piped up.
“I’m not. I dodged a bullet.”
“And your dad?”
“He didn’t.” The man retrieved a cigarette pack he kept in his rolled-up shirtsleeve, a-la Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He cupped his palm over his mouth and lit another cancer stick. I noticed Stoner Guy saw and didn’t say a word. “He was shot when I was a kid.”
“Deservingly?” I heard myself ask.
“Very much so.” Hot Stranger sucked on his cigarette, the orange ember flaring like that thing behind my ribcage. “How ’bout your folks?”
“Both alive.”
“But someone else isn’t. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be crying.” He exhaled a spiral of smoke skyward. We both watched as the gray mist above us evaporated.
“I lost someone tonight,” I admitted.
“Who?”
“No offense, but that’s none of your business.”
“None taken, but just for the record…” he tilted my chin up with the hand holding his cigarette “…everything in Suffolk County is my fucking business, sweetheart, and right now, you’re within county limits, so think again.”