by Tara Sivec
My phone dings with an incoming text, and I quickly wipe my hands off on a towel before pulling my phone out of my back pocket. My mood instantly goes from pissed the hell off to calm and deliriously happy.
Shepherd “Hottest Man I’ve Ever Kissed” Oliver: Where are you? Is everything okay? I’m down by the ferry dock and just got to your booth to help set up. It’s been too long since I kissed you. Hurry up.
“Go, we’ve got this,” my mom reassures me as she reads the text over my shoulder, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “The Summersweet Festival waits for no one, and our booth is always the most popular. Go to your man and get to work.”
With another confirmation from Ed that they’ve got everything handled, I head out of the Dip and Twist and get in my golf cart to drive down to the beach by the ferry dock.
Every year to officially close out the summer tourist season, the island puts on the Summersweet Island Festival down on the main public beach. There are carnival rides, food vendors, and games, and at the end of the night, everyone sits along the beach to watch the boat parade. Any island resident who owns a boat can be in the parade as long as they’ve registered with the festival committee. Everyone who participates in the parade goes above and beyond to decorate their boats with Christmas lights, disco lights, entire themes complete with people in costumes, music blasting from boat speakers, fog machines, and choreographed dance routines. People go all out, the boats are judged by a committee, and someone goes home with the grand prize of a year’s supply of taffy from Chew on This.
Obviously, Shepherd was the first person in line on registration day to enter the boat parade. All the businesses on the island set up a booth for the festival, and once Shepherd and I finish setting up the one for the Dip and Twist, we’ll be heading over to his boat to get it ready. With what else? A Field of Dreams theme. He ordered an obscene amount of cornstalks to attach all along the railing of the boat, bright spotlights that will shine down from the sails, a giant movie projector screen will be set up along the back side of the boat playing the movie, and he even rented authentic, 1910 White Sox uniforms for the entire freshman baseball team to wear while they ride on his boat for the parade. It’s absolutely crazy and so absolutely Shepherd.
Pushing the Dip and Twist break-in out of my mind, I zip down to the ferry dock and my man. I always have fun every year at the Summersweet Island Festival, but I have a feeling this year will top all the rest. Once Shepherd and I finish setting up the Dip and Twist booth and then decorate his boat, we have the rest of the day to have fun, since I scheduled a bunch of teenagers to take the shifts at our booth and, for the first time ever, did not schedule one for myself. And also for the first time ever, Birdie, Tess, and I all have dates, and we’re going on the best triple date ever.
Without even knowing it, Shepherd is going to make another dream of mine come true, even if it’s something as simple as having someone hold my hand while we walk around all day enjoying the festival.
“If you sit back down at the table and finish your lunch, I promise I’ll let you have the rest of this candy apple.”
“You never should have let him enter that cotton candy eating contest,” I tell Tess, trailing off as we all sit at a picnic table, watching Bodhi alternate between giggling and screaming as he runs around our table in circles.
“I didn’t think he’d actually eat fifteen fucking bags of cotton candy with a candy apple chaser,” she mutters. “On top of the elephant ears, funnel cakes, deep fried Oreos, churros, and two apple fritters. Fuck it. This needs to end.”
“You want me to—”
Tess holds her hand up to Shepherd as he starts to get up from his spot next to me straddling the picnic table bench.
“I got it.” She sighs. “This is why I’m never having children. I’m already raising a man child.”
Thrusting the half-eaten candy apple at me from across the picnic table, I have just enough time to grab the stick before Tess bolts up and off the bench like a sprinter out of the gate.
“Oooh, shit!” Shepherd, Birdie, Palmer, and I all wince and shout at the same time when Tess takes Bodhi out like a linebacker, wrapping her arms around his body as she dove at him.
“He might actually need X-rays on that shoulder,” Shepherd mutters, standing up and resting his hands on top of the table to lean over and get a better look at Tess lying flat on top of Bodhi in the sand next to the freshly squeezed lemonade stand.
Between gasps and heaves after getting the wind knocked out of him, Bodhi reaches up and around Tess’s body to smack her ass.
“He’s fine.” Birdie snorts. “Let’s go ride the merry-go-round.”
“You must be as dope as weed, ’cause right now, you’re all I need!”
Tess just snorts at the shout from behind us and rolls her eyes.
“Hey, come on. Don’t walk away. Come over here and give me some sugar!”
“Go on, Tess. Go give the man some sugar.” Birdie laughs.
“He already had some of my sugar, thank you very much,” Tess replies, picking up the pace, suddenly in a much bigger rush to find the gyro stand.
“He really looks sad that you aren’t stopping or acknowledging him. I almost feel bad for the guy,” Palmer muses.
“Not many things cause me grief in life, Tess Powell, but you sleeping with a carnie is right at the top,” Bodhi complains, the happiness from his sugar high long forgotten as he looks back over his shoulder with a frown at the man running the balloon dart game, heckling Tess as we walked by. “I’m not high enough for this.”
“It was just a crazy thing I did in my twenties; I didn’t know he’d be here. Come on, baby,” Tess coos, wrapping her arm around Bodhi’s shoulders. “I’ll let you feel me up in the Tunnel of Love. How does that sound?”
“No, you cannot feel me up in the Tunnel of Love,” I remind Shepherd for the third time as our cart shaped like a swan turns on the metal track, taking us through another curtain of heart-shaped beads and into another dark room with nothing but red heart lights on the walls.
“Come on, just thirty seconds under your sweatshirt; that’s all I’m asking for,” Shepherd pleads in a whisper, his lips right by my ear as we snuggle together in the front seat. “Come on, why can’t I?”
Shepherd’s palm rests on top of my bare thigh, his thumb brushing back and forth under the frayed hem of my jean shorts, making me seriously reconsider my stance on this, his breath against the side of my neck making my nipples harden and beg for his touch.
“Yeah, why can’t he, Wren? Just let him do it.”
“That’s why,” I remind Shepherd, my nipples immediately deflating.
Looking back over my shoulder, I glare at Birdie while she curls up into Palmer’s side then turn back around to move a few inches away from Shepherd.
“I told you we should have gotten our own swan,” he complains as we turn another dark corner.
“You are so bad at this.”
“I know!”
“Maybe you should just stop. I don’t really need a third one.”
“I am not a quitter, Wren! I will give you that third one or die trying. Just let me keep trying.”
“Slow and gentle, Shepherd. Stop rushing it.”
“The more you tell me to slow down, the faster it just makes me want to go. How many times do I have to tell you this?”
“And once again, you’re trying to cram it in there without any finesse and ruin everything. You are so out of practice. Here, let me—”
“Oh no! You aren’t going to get all up on me like you did that day at the Dip and Twist when I kept breaking all the cones! I can toss a fucking baseball into a laundry basket from ten feet away, all right? That third stuffed otter will be yours; mark my words.”
“People are staring.”
“They’re staring, because you’re currently holding seventeen stuffed animals in your arms, soon to be eighteen, and they are in awe at my festival game-winning ability. Step back. Give your man some
room.
“Jesus, Eryka Cook just knocked that woman out with one punch,” Tess says in awe from our blanket on the beach, watching the boat parade right off the shore.
“I had no idea Shepherd bought one of those cannon things to shoot squishy foam baseballs into the crowd,” I reply, wincing when Kimberly Clark straight-up shoves Celeste Devries facefirst into the sand to grab a ball that flies out onto the beach as Shepherd’s Field of Dreams boat slowly floats by, the boys all having a grand old time out there in their old-fashioned uniforms.
Even with a Christmas-themed boat complete with ten giant Christmas inflatables, a snow machine, and a man dressed as Santa who walked along the beach handing out candy canes while their boat went by, I’m pretty confident Shepherd’s Field of Dreams boat will take first place.
Regardless of the small amount of bloodshed, the entire crowd of spectators is laughing and shouting for Shepherd’s boat, having the best time of their lives while they hilariously wrestle and knock each other down along the shore to try to grab one of those squishy baseballs.
“I’m never going to hear the end of how Shepherd’s balls won this boat parade, am I?” I ask the girls.
Birdie and Tess just laugh as everyone finally calms down when Shepherd’s boat is out of sight, and Abba starts blasting from the loudspeaker of the next boat in line, flashing with strobe lights and a disco ball while people dressed in costumes from the ’70s dance around the top of the boat.
“You will literally never hear the end of the ball jokes,” Tess reassures me as we all get up and disco dance with the rest of the beach.
“I’ve never had so many people holding my balls at one time.”
“My balls were just flying at faces.”
“Wars were waged over my balls.”
“Did you see that black eye Jan Rowe gave that tourist just to get her hands on my balls?”
“How many men can say their balls won a parade? Usually people just throw a parade for my balls.”
“Are you finished?” I ask when Shepherd finally takes a breath.
“Yeah, I’m all out of ball jokes. What should we do now that I have you all to myself?” he asks, tightening his arm around my shoulders as we walk through the almost deserted festival. “I was thinking something along the lines of putting my bat in your box.”
A choked laugh comes out of me as Shepherd wags his eyebrows like a dirty, lecherous villain. “Hey, it wasn’t a ball joke. Give me some credit.”
“That was awful, and also, we’re in a public place at a festival,” I remind him, even though we just had sex in a public place last night, it was the hottest moment of my life, and just thinking about doing something like that again makes my skin get all warm and tingly.
My eyes are now darting all over the beach, looking in between booths and calculating ride times in my head, wondering if two minutes and thirty-seven seconds in the Tunnel of Love by ourselves this time is long enough for anything creative, when Shepherd chuckles softly and walks us toward the rides.
“I’m kidding. I’m in the mood for some ice cream. Let’s stop by your booth before they pack everything up, and then how about a walk through the funhouse?”
For a split second, I remember Shepherd told me last night to always speak up and tell him what I want immediately. I mean, I’d only be doing as he requested by telling him I’d like a festival orgasm, please and thank you. I can count on one hand how many people are still walking around, and my kid left to go hang out at Dominic’s house after the boat parade. Tess took Bodhi home to give him a bath and put him to bed, and I have no idea where my sister and Palmer disappeared to. So it’s fine; it’s totally cool. Let’s just bribe someone to shut something down. Hell yeah, I want to be wild and spontaneous!
But Shepherd is looking down at me all soft and sweet, and I really should just be enjoying how romantic this is, walking through the festival with all the pretty lights like we’re the only two people here, and besides. I already made the first, first move. It should be his turn, right? I don’t know how this stuff works, dammit! I should have asked Tess before she bribed Bodhi with another funnel cake for the road to get in their golf cart.
“Funhouse sounds great!” I squeak out instead, wondering where the hell my nerve went.
While also being completely oblivious to the fact that Shepherd’s sweet and soft look quickly changed to that dirty, lecherous villain one as we walked up to the Dip and Twist booth, and he ordered a boring large vanilla cone.
CHAPTER 18
Wren
“I know my way around the bases.”
“Funhouses are creepy.”
“Why are you whispering?” Shepherd laughs, squeezing my hand in his as we come around a dark corner and stop in front of a distorted mirror that makes us look very short and wide.
“Because it’s creepy in here!” I remind him. Each dark corner we’ve turned, I’ve been waiting for something to jump out at us. “It’s the whole clown theme. I hate clowns.”
I shudder as I stare at all the clown faces spray painted multiple neon shades on the walls around us, glowing under the black light from above.
Shepherd just looks away from me with a smile to take another leisurely lick of his vanilla cone while I try not to stare at his tongue and fail. He’s been taking his sweet old time with that cone ever since he got it and we walked over here to the funhouse. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was trying to torture me. And since I don’t know any better, I’m just assuming he really likes that damn cone. Thankfully, my phone dings with a text, and I pull it out of my back pocket, tearing my eyes away from Shepherd while he turns his body this way and that, laughing at his wide reflection in the mirror in front of us.
Spawn: Mom! Are you still at the festival?! Did Shepherd tell you the awesome thing that happened??? Isn’t it the coolest?!
“What is my son talking about?” I ask Shepherd, holding my phone up.
He pauses with his torturous licking to turn his head and read the text.
“Shit, he was supposed to wait until you got home.” Shepherd sighs and then shrugs with a smile. “It was just a little surprise. Something I set up for him. Tell him you’ll be home in a little bit, and he can tell you all about it then. We’ve got a funhouse to finish, and this cone is starting to melt.”
Since I refuse to growl at an ice cream cone, I tell Owen exactly what Shepherd said then slide my phone back in my pocket. When I start walking to the corridor that will take us into the next horrifying room, Shepherd quickly grabs my hand, tugging me back to him until I’m pressed up against the front of him.
Dipping his head down, he presses his mouth to mine, and the coldness of his lips from the ice cream does a little something to me when he deepens the kiss and his tongue slides against mine, warming everything back up. Ending the kiss way before I’m ready, Shepherd pulls his head back, takes another long lick of his ice cream, and then smiles down at me.
Clearing my throat before I scream, I turn away from him and walk down the hall into the next room, my feet stuttering to a standstill a few feet inside, with Shepherd slamming into my back at my sudden stop. He steadies me with a hand on my hip and a humorous look on his face.
“I’m not scared. I just didn’t want to smack my face into a mirror like I’ve seen all those people do on YouTube videos. This is not a room you walk through quickly, man.”
Shepherd just laughs at me as I stare at his reflection in the mirror in front of me while he stands behind me, still licking that fucking cone—oh my God, why hasn’t he finished it yet?
The room we’re now in is one of those nothing-but-mirrors rooms, where people go racing through, thinking they see an opening, when it’s actually another mirror. I’ve been through these things plenty of times to know you walk at a snail’s pace with your arms out in front of you if you don’t want to suffer a concussion or embarrassment when you bounce off the glass and land on your ass. The room is very dimly lit with just the soft glow o
f purple lights above us, black carpet below us, and strips of neon rope-lighting lining the bottom of all the mirrors. As far as the eye can see, there’s nothing but hundreds and hundreds of me, standing in front of Shepherd, while he orally pleasures a vanilla cone over my shoulder.
Wonderful.
“Here, hold this,” Shepherd suddenly says, reaching around me to hand me his cone, grabbing my shoulders, and turning me around to face him once I have it, then pushing me a little until my back rests against the mirror behind me.
Once again, I force myself not to attack an intimate object as I hold his ice cream and take a quick glance in the mirror behind him to look at hundreds of reflections of Shepherd’s perfect ass to make myself feel better.
“I think we need to take a minute before we walk through this mirror maze,” he muses, pulling my eyes away from his great ass as he dips his head back down to kiss me.
Shepherd kisses me until I completely forget we’re in a horrifying funhouse, and the taste of vanilla on his tongue makes me rethink my stance on how boring the flavor is, until he’s ending the kiss and pulling back just enough so he can look down into my eyes.
“Do you trust me?” he whispers, his hands cupping my cheeks.
I let out a shaky laugh, still disoriented from that kiss while also being in a room full of dizzying mirrors.
“Yes, absolutely, but if this has anything to do with clowns, all bets are off.”
Shepherd just smiles at me, pulling his head back from mine and dropping his hands from my face.
“Give me a taste.”
My body pulses and clenches at his words, and then I realize he’s looking down at his goddamn ice cream cone I’m still holding in my hand between us that’s starting to melt. With a sigh, I bring it up to his mouth and try not to weep when he takes a big, long lick before speaking again.