I can’t look down or I might hurl, so I look up at the sky. It’s lit with stars and a bright partial moon.
It’s pretty. Other rides are lit too and now I’m sort of looking down as well, and I’m not afraid to do it. The song playing through the carnival is kind of poignant. Dua Lipa’sBe the One.
Our eyes meet and he smiles big. “I was about to gesture to the carny to stop for us. But you don’t seem scared.”
And I’m not. Shockingly.
I’m up in the sky with Jason Creed, listening to music, seeing the flashing lights of a carnival he drove me to so he could feed me a corndog, deep fried carnival desserts, and win me another stuffed animal.
And he fought today. He was up all night fighting his urges and fought today with one of his closest friends, bleeding out the excess testosterone so he could greet me for a dream date, smiling with dimples like he didn’t have anything weighing him down.
Too soon, a ride I would never have voluntarily gotten on and one that I’d only ever get on with Jase is over and he’s helping me out of the gondola with his hands on my waist.
He stares into my eyes. I stare into his.
And we’re in some sort of frozen moment before something drags his focus away from my face.
“Over here,” he says, and tugs my hand. “Let’s win you another stuffed animal. Want another lemonade?”
He pays five bucks, throws three baseballs, and each one hits the targets. We get told, in a semi-disgruntled way, that we can pick one of the big stuffies.
But there’s no big wolf one. They’re all dogs and bears. So I ask if I can have a small wolf instead. The carnival worker looks at me weirdly but agrees and passes me a black and white wolf with blue eyes.
“Not this one,” Jase says, grouchily, tossing it back to the carnival worker. “What else you got?”
That wolf obviously looked too much like Joel for his liking. When our pack had the carnival, we had the stuffed wolves specially made, to look like each of our council alphas. They screwed up the Jase one, unfortunately, but I fixed mine by dipping the end of his tail in white out.
This gives me an idea. I want to organize another pack carnival, this time with seven stuffed wolves, because that one only had six.
The carny says he has no other stuffed wolves, suggests we dig through the bin of whatever they’ve got. I find myself lifting a small Tinkerbelle fairy stuffy.
I examine her a minute until my eyes hit Jase’s. He’s staring at the doll and now at me.
I shrug and we say nothing for a pregnant moment.
I think he’s thinking what I’m thinking. Not that he knows about the booties, but about the little fairy. A future grandchild?
“I’ll take this one,” I tell the carnival worker.
“You wanna play any games?” Jase asks, tone gruff.
I wrinkle my nose.
“Anything else you wanna do?” he asks.
“Um… how far until we get to the drive-in? And which movie is first? I’m not sure I can sit through two. I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“Breakfast Club is first.” He looks at his phone. “Starts in an hour and a half and we’re a little over half an hour from there. Want some dessert?”
“I’m kind of full,” I say, but he leads me toward the deep-fried cheesecake bites truck, saying, “I’m not.”
“Apple for me,” Jase orders and looks at me with innuendo in his expression.
“Okay, me, too,” I say, meeting his gaze and holding it.
He leans in and says, “It won’t smell as good as you,” and kisses the side of my head again. “Without firsthand knowledge yet I still know it won’t taste as good as you. But maybe it’ll help hold me over.”
Goosebumps rise on every inch of my body.