Page 35 of Pick-Up
Ethan catches my eyes with his own. Shoots me a small smile. It’s pretty disarming—bordering on a panty dropper. “Sorry your ex-husband’s not on top of things,” he says meaningfully. “Sorry he screwed you.”
I laugh, but I am also oddly touched. Because he is joking, but he also seems genuine.
Maybe to avoid eye contact that’s too full of stuff, I look up at the sky pockmarked by the occasional star. Or maybe they’re airplanes and planets. These are things I do not know.
Warily, I let my eyes settle back on Ethan. The way he’s studying me, like I’m theNew York TimesSpelling Bee, is making me shift in my seat. He leans forward, resting his impressive forearms on his thighs. Lets his head drop for a beat. He feels too close for comfort, close enough that I can smell his grassy cologne (not cotton candy!). But I can’t will myself to move. Then he drags his gaze up to meet mine, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake. “I think we both know it’s time.”
I am caught off guard. For reasons I can’t fathom, panic courses through me, followed by a shock of heat between my thighs. “Time?! For what?”
He nods his head toward the cotton candy line. The crowd has multiplied like soggy gremlins in our absence.
As I realize what he means, I catch a wave of something complicated, on the continuum between relief and disappointment.
“Damn.” I’d lost track of why and how I landed here. “The hungry hordes.”
He rises. “Ready?” He stretches out his hand to pull me to standing. I am in no way about to take it. Instead, I shove the flask in his direction one last time.
“To fortify,” I say.
He looks surprised, but he accepts it. As I hand it over, his fingertips graze my knuckles. A shudder passes through me like it’s Jane Austen era and I’ve caught a chill. We freeze for a beat, looking at each other. I can’t look away.
What is happening?
His lips part, as if he’s about to speak.
“Hey, Mom!” Nettie’s voice breaks the spell. Or curse. Or whatever the hell this night of cotton candy, bourbon and Halloween magic has done to me. Either way, she offers an out. I whirl around to find my daughter waiting, her Maleficent makeup cheerfully smeared. “Are you going back to the cotton candy booth?”
“Yes. I think maybe for all eternity. Why?” I ask, coming back to myself.
“Bart and I want to know—can we get a cotton candy without waiting on line?”
I smile at Ethan and then at Nettie. “Oh, hell, yes, sweetie. You’re a VIP.”
What seems like days later but is probably only hours, the very last fairy-unicorn-witch-princess-Violet-Baudelaire procures a blue cotton candy and our job is done. We are awash in a sea of red tickets, the hottest show in town.
As Ethan and I ready to part ways at center schoolyard, he inone direction and I in the other, I swallow enough pride to say, “Hey. Thanks for helping me.”
“No problem.” He shoots me that charming half smile. “But I didn’t help. I took over.”
I dig into the supply box I’m carrying back toward the cafeteria, grab a paper cone and throw it at him. I miss by a mile.
“Good throw,” he says. He picks the tube up off the ground, returns it to the box I’m holding. Lets his hand linger there, on the box’s edge. It is a conduit between us that I can feel.
I blink up at him.
“Have a good night,” he says, finally.
But I already have.
17 | I Want CandyDEMON DAD
If Monster’s Ball had awards, I’d win the one for self-control. No joke.
Sure, I let myself step in to help when I spotted Sasha all tangled in spun sugar and that vintage Toxic Avenger T-shirt (which I kind of covet). That was just basic decency. She was drowning.
But there are a lot of things I didn’t do: I didn’t gently wipe the stray cotton candy from her cheek with my thumb.
When it felt like there was a moment between us during our break, I didn’t even think about leaning in and kissing her sticky lips—until long after I went home. (Then Imayhave thought about it a lot.)
