Page 55 of Tourist Season
Tonight kicks off the time of year when I need to be most vigilant. The official start of tourist season. The opening event of the Carnival of Carnage Festival.
There’s already a lineup outside the theater when I arrive on Maple Street. It’s a mix of visitors and townsfolk. Some of them are dressed in costumes aligning with tonight’s show. Others are like me, festive but not going so far as dressing like candelabras or teapots or burly nineteenth-century hunters. Some, mostly tourists, are casual. I eavesdrop on conversations and soak in the atmosphere until my ticket is finally taken and I make my way inside, grabbing popcorn and a soda. I find a seat in the center of the seventh row, using my handbag to save the one next to me for Arthur. I settle in, reading the playbill as I wait for the auditorium to slowly fill up.
“Well, well,” a familiar voice says to my left after only a few moments of blessed serenity. I close my eyes for a beat and blow out a long, slow breath that does nothing to alleviate the irritation that seems to drown me from the inside. Okay, maybe a little excitement too, but I do my best to trample that. “What a surprise seeing you here.”
A waft of sandalwood and cedar drifts around me as NolanRhodes takes a seat at my side. I keep my eyes closed, unwilling to be assaulted by his infuriating hotness. “I’m sure.”
“Cape Carnage Theater presentsBeauty and the Beast. That’s fitting, don’t you think?” he asks.
I crack open a single eye and glare at him. The instant I catch his gaze, one corner of his lips pulls back into a lopsided smile. I barely repress a groan.
“Since I’m so beautiful and all.” He runs a hand through his hair with dramatic flair.
“And I’m such a monster, right?”
“You’re the one who said it, not me.” His smirk dissolves into an unflinching stare, a mirror of my own. It feels like it takes far too long for him to drop his attention to the paper in his hands. “What is this?” Nolan asks as he reviews the playbill, a crease notched between his brows.
“Do you have reading comprehension problems? You literally just read the title to me.”
Nolan rolls his eyes and reaches over for a fistful of my popcorn.
I slap his hand. “Get your own.”
“I got the title part. But what I don’t understand is why there’s a content warning forBeauty and the Beast. It’s Disney.”
“This is Cape Carnage. Nothing is Disney. This is the antithesis of Disney.” I scowl at Nolan, and he returns my irritation with a steely glare of his own. “If you don’t like it, leave.”
A sardonic smile sneaks across his lips. “I’m comfortable right here, thanks.”
Something darkens in his expression, and it summons heat beneath my bones, deep in the cavern where my soul should be. There’s no light in his eyes. No air between us. The voices and laughter, people moving to their seats, the instruments warmingup in the little orchestra pit—it all fades away. There’s only Nolan and the way he watches me, as though he would tear my heart out with his bare hands if I didn’t have his precious book hidden away. Like he would hunt me to the darkest hidden corners of the earth if I ever tried to disappear. I almost want to run, just to be chased by him. To be caught and bound, forced to face whatever fate is lurking in his predatory machinations. But I’m too ensnared by him to go anywhere.
And I’m too slow to react when he steals a fistful of popcorn from the bucket on my lap.
I blink as though clearing my mind from a haze and move the bucket, holding it on the empty seat next to me and out of his reach. When I face him once more, he seems quite pleased with himself, as though he’s fully aware of the effect he has on me, whether I like it or not. “Go. Away.”
“Too late. I paid the ticket price.”
“I’ll personally reimburse you.”
“There’s no amount of money that would mean more to me than your suffering, no matter how minute. Isn’t that what you think?” he says, that darkened, mocking smile of his still fixed on his face. I roll my eyes and lean forward to look beyond him before I twist in my seat, searching the patrons entering the theater. “What is it?”
“Stop pretending like you care, Nolan. It doesn’t suit you,” I mutter, leaning from one side to the other as I try to catch a glimpse past a small group of tourists entering the theater. “He should be here already. He hates being late.”
“Who?”
I glance in his direction, and I’m surprised when I catch the faintest glimmer of concern in his furrowed brow. But I know him. The only thing he cares about is that fucking book, and theonly reason he’d ask is either to assess the risk to his prized possession or to explore the opportunity of getting it back. “It’s not with him, so don’t even fucking go there,” I warn, continuing my thoughts out loud. Nolan’s head tilts and he frowns as though he’s genuinely confused.
I slice him with a final glare and then shift my attention to the back of the room where I finally spot Arthur in an impeccable three-piece suit, one hand wrapped around the indigo handle of his black oak cane, the other gripped to Lukas’s bicep. I let out a long breath through pursed lips. “Thank fuck.”
I can feel Nolan’s gaze on the side of my face, burning beneath my skin. But I don’t look his way. I turn my back on him instead, watching as Arthur and Lukas progress down the shallow steps that lead to the row where I’m sitting. When they get to my aisle, I rise, surprised when I sense Nolan do the same beside me.
“I was getting worried,” I say as Arthur takes my hand and we exchange abisegreeting.
Arthur grunts, casting a vicious glare at his grandson. “I despise being late.”
“We know,” Lukas replies as he leans around the old man to give me a brief hug. “You mentioned it no less than forty thousand times on the drive here.”
“Who are you?” When we separate, Arthur is sizing up Nolan, a look of suspicion folding his skin into wrinkles that seem even more menacing than their resting state, particularly with the stitched gash that’s still healing on his forehead.
