Page 43 of Phoenix Falling
“What, are you worried?” The fact that we were both unlikely to die no matter what happened sat on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t let it out. No talk about death tonight, he’d said. I could do that. “I’ve never had any problems. Come on!”
It was after nine, not late for us but later for most humans, so the crowds were a bit sparser than they would have been earlier. Just enough to add to the ambiance without constantly getting jostled by too many people. We hit the food trucks first. After much more debate than carnival food probably warranted, I settled on a couple of corn dogs and some fries. Sun went with a double-bacon half-pound burger with all the fixings. “That’ll take you two bites to get down,” I teased, already feeling my heart lighten.
“You’re right.” Nodding to the server, he said, “Make that two.”
“So more like four bites?”
As the server went to fill our order, Sun leaned down and put his mouth to my ear. “It would take a lot more than four bites if I was eatingyou.”
I almost gave myself whiplash turning my head to look at him. “What?”
His grin was wolfish, and his eyes had silver strands blending through them. “You heard me.”
“Hmm.” I pretended to think about his words, fighting a blush at the same time. When was the last time I’d blushed? “I guess I’ll have to remember that then.”
“It’s a promise.”
I shivered.
I was about right on the bite count—and didn’t thinking that phrase make my nerves do weird things—though Sun said the burgers weren’t as good as the ones at the Diner. He shared my fries while I finished up the corn dogs. It was such a human thing to do, sharing salty crinkle-cut fries and chatting at a picnic table. When my corn-dog sticks were bare, we decided on deep-fried Twix bars for dessert. Or I decided on the Twix bars. Sun’s response was, “Some things shouldn’t be deep-fried.”
“Trust me, this isn’t one of them. You’ve got to try this.”
When he bit through the crispy outer shell, through the melty chocolate and caramel and hit the cookie inside, I could tell he agreed with me. Pulling back, he left a trail of gooey caramel that I dared to lick from the corner of his mouth.
“Delicious,” I said, grinning. “Right?”
“Damn right.”
Of course, the fact that he gripped my hair and pulled me in for a kiss right then made me think he didn’t actually mean the Twix bar.
Next up, rides. Since I was a kid—a long, long time ago—I’d loved rides at carnivals and fairs. Swings, roller coasters, pendulum rides. The Double Shot was one of my favorites, a drop tower with two passengers on either side. So much fun. Tonight we started with the Gravitron.
“Do they even make these anymore?” Sun asked as we strapped in. “How do they maintain them?”
I gave him a cheeky grin. “Twine and bubble gum.” The ride started up that very moment. “Keep your fingers crossed the bubble gum holds!” I teased.
Bumper cars. The Viking. The Tilt-a-Whirl. The classic wooden roller coaster. When I threw my hands into the air on the final drop, laughing like a loon, I noticed Sun staring at me, a funny look on his face.
“What?” I yelled above the racket as our car pulled into the station.
“You enjoy flying.”
I thought about that. “I guess it is a little like flying. We’ll have to do the swings next.” I loved being swung out on the cables, my feet dangling as the breeze blew my hair away from my face.
“That’s nothing,” he said. “I’ll take you flying sometime. You’ll love it.”
My eyes went wide. “Are you a pilot?”
He smirked down at me. “Something like that.”
After we’d exhausted the rides, we played games long into the night. None of it had changed from when I was a kid in the ’80s. It was almost like going back to my childhood, to a time before evil had entered my world and I could no longer go home. Sun even won a two-foot-tall teddy bear with soft, curly hair and floppy arms.
“Here you go.” He handed the bear over.
I refrained from a simpering,For me?“Nice,” I said instead. “Cuddly.”
Sun wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “He can keep you company at night when I’m not there.”
