Page 54 of My Karmic Destiny

“I didn’t though.” He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles. “It made you laugh, and that’s a win in my book. Worth all the money and game points.”

“Fuck, you’re corny as hell,” I say, with a stupid grin on my face.

My cheeks hurt from laughing so much. I don’t think I’ve laughed like this in years. Maybe ever?

Then tears threaten to appear because he’s almost too sweet. My wounded pieces wonder if this is all a lie, but I shake it off. Those are old, damaging thoughts that no longer serve me. I have to let go of the negative thinking if I ever want to truly heal.

“House of Mirrors or Ferris wheel?” he asks.

I’m about to answer when I see the carnival’s psychic reader peeking out of her ornate booth. The older woman is dressed in the stereotypical garb of a psychic reader. With another glance, I sense she isn’t faking. She’s a real Romani, packed with the power of her ancestors.

Our eyes lock onto each other and an itch travels down my spine.

She’s giving me the evil eye, likely sensing I’m an agent of Death.

Kurtis sees the odd exchange and pulls me in the opposite direction to the Ferris wheel ride line. “You alright?” he asks.

“Fine. It’s just intense when one highly psychic person meets another. She sensed my reaper power, I think.”

“Never thought about that before,” he ponders. “I suppose it’s like two apex predators who stumble upon each other in the wild. They have to assess the threat and decide if the other is worth the trouble to engage.”

“Usually, we don’t engage because we’ve sensed each other far enough away. But places like this can muddle our abilities,” I explain.

“Like an ADHD person getting too much stimuli.”

I consider his words, and I realize being psychic is a lot like being overstimulated.

I’m relieved when we crawl into the bucket bench seat, even though I know these rides are always thrown together in a rush and are constantly on the verge of collapse and ruin.

We get to the top and the wheel stops to let people off and on. We can see far out onto the ocean. The setting moon reflects on the waves for miles. To our right, we can see the city lights. The view takes my breath away.

“Beautiful,” Kurtis whispers next to me.

“It is,” I agree.

“No, you are.”

A blush creeps up on my cheeks. “Thank you.”

His warm hand guides my face to look at him. “Why does it feel like you have a hard time believing me?”

“I have a hard time with compliments,” I admit. “I never felt all that beautiful or desirable growing up. And then you guys teased me so much with your outrageous flirting at Instant’s bidding to haze me. So, it’s become second nature to avoid attention and deflect when someone shows interest.”

“Let me make sure you understand my motivations. I didn’t have to hit on you to do her bidding. We did it because we’re actually into you.”

“Oh,” I say, realizing I still haven’t come to terms with all their attention. “I just assumed you were messing with me the whole time. Or at least, at the start.”

“I suppose Dante was just better at making it clear that he really liked you,” he sighs and leans back to look at the stars above. “I fucked up so much with you.”

“We had our rough patches.” I’m reminded of the strange dynamic we had from the start. Mostly, it was when he attacked me to provoke my powers during my training and I almost killed him. Well, I did sort of kill him, but then I brought his soul back, healing him at the cost of my life force.

The wheel turns again in a half revolution and then jerks to a stop to let off more people.

“I didn’t mean to be so rough with you then.” He frowns, grasping my hand and running his thumb over my knuckles in thought. “I think I was frustrated because I didn’t believe you would ever give me a chance. Or that anyone would love me.”

“You don’t think you’re loveable?”

He shrugs as we spin again. “Not usually. Not for long.”

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