“Thank you, Gaston,” I chide.
We dip our brushes into the inky liquid and delicately dab strokes of color back onto the wall. Our bodies are in near-constant contact, a shoulder here, an elbow there, an occasional lean on Luke’s back for leverage.
“If this were a cheesy movie, you and I would start playfully paint-fighting each other right now,” Luke notes.
“But it’s not, so don’t you dare,” I threaten.
We work in comfortable silence. As great as it is to be able to talk with someone for hours on end, it’s just as valuable to be content in silence. My mom told me that once, and I recognize it in my relationship with Lish. Sometimes I’m so comfy with her, I fall asleep while we’re in the middle of a conversation. And she doesn’t mind. Now here I am with Luke, feeling pretty content without speaking. This is what things are supposed to feel like, right? It’s not that we’ve already run out of things to say?
The sun begins its late descent, closing in on the longest day of the year. “I guess we’ll have to stop soon,” I say, wondering what’s next for our night or if it ends when the sky turns dark.
“Then I better take the time to do this,” Luke replies, and I feel a paintbrush stroke across my back.
“You didn’t!” I yell, and turn around violently to wrestle the brush out of his hand. Our fingers become locked in death grips, and with some effort, I manage to knock him over, pinning him to the ground while straddling him.
I am straddling Luke Jacobs.
And he is laughing hysterically.
“There wasn’t any paint on it,” he gasps through guffaws.
I remain on top of him, holding hands, and our fingers relax into one another’s. My hands are dwarfed by his, and the size differential is a bit daunting. In a good way. A protective, this-guy-is-really-strong-but-would-never-hurt-me way. A but-what-will-he-do-to-me kind of way. Luke stops laughing, and he lightly pulls my hands to bring my face closer to his. I let go with my right hand and drop it to the grass next to his head to steady myself. He cradles the back of my head and draws me in for a kiss. I try to ignore the sausage flavor on his lips because everything else about him is so damn delicious. He’s a gentle kisser, slow, deliberate. I lean in farther, dropping our other handhold to rest my fingers on his chest. It feels so cliché, but the solid, muscular build of this guy is completely turning me on. I have never been with a guy so sturdy, and I find myself essentially feeling him up. He totally has man boobs, but, like, the really good kind. I get a sense of what guys must enjoy from groping me.
Luke’s newly freed hand clasps around my waist, then slides its way down to cup my butt. He grinds me against him, and I am made aware of how much he is enjoying all of this through his shorts.
The kissing continues with added tongue bonus. Extra sausage flavor surfaces, but I don’t let it deter me. Smoothly and effortlessly, Luke rolls me to my back and holds himself above me, balancing on his arms to avoid crushing me. I really think he could crush me. Again—way too turned on by the thought.
It’s his turn to feel me up. His enormous hand on my enormous breast. Perfectly matched. He is being gentlemanly in his groping, keeping his touching above my clothing. Through my blazing orange t-shirt and my industrial-strength bra, my senses aren’t adequately engaged. I take his hand and ease it toward the hem of my shirt. Luke slides his fingers up my stomach and manages to dig his way into the top of my bra cup, not an easy feat for a mere mortal man. Now Luke Jacobs’s actual hand is touching my actual breast, and the skin-to-skin contact is so exquisite I think I may lose all control of the rest of my body.
My mind, however, kicks into overdrive. “What if someone catches us?” Without losing contact, Luke scoops a hand underneath my back and shimmies the two of us to a slightly more private locale behind the Dinghies tunnel. I laugh at the absurdity of what he just did, what we are doing now. His dimples make being this clothed unbearable, and my fingers tug at the bottom of Luke’s shirt to raise it over his head. We break from each other for the painful amount of time it takes to remove the clothing, first his shirt then mine, then we hurriedly reattach at the lips, his hand back underneath my bra.
The sun is nearly set, and in a startling instant the bright evening security lights burst on like police searchlights. The beams illuminate our bodies, and there they are: Scarlett Dresden and Hendrix Cutter. Are they taunting us, or are we mocking them? Luke’s large hand must have felt Hendrix Cutter above my breast. Is he able to ignore it?
I am now completely aware that I am on the grass at the Devil’s Dinghies at Haunted Hollow with my glaring white bra on full display.
“Luke,” I mumble into his mouth. He takes it as encouragement and kisses my neck. I let out a pained sigh. “Luke.” This time I press my hands against his chest. He lifts off me to look dazedly at my face.
“Yeah?”
“We should probably stop here. Security lights mean Sam Hain is going to be walking around the park soon and—”
“And neither of us is wearing a shirt.” He looks down at himself, then me, and smirks. He sits up, offers me his hand to help me sit, finds our shirts, and we dress ourselves. We stand up and survey our work on the mural, as though we weren’t close to naked mere moments ago.
“We actually accomplished quite a bit tonight,” I say.
He nods and says, “I’d have to agree with you there.” He rests his palm on my lower back. “More than you thought would happen tonight.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I actually did get to see you in something besides your orange work shirt.”
CHAPTER 18
I step out of the shower after replaying last night’s tryst, solo-style. It’s my day off, and I have the rest of the day to fret about tonight’s introduction to Travis. What if I genuinely dislike him? Do I have to feign interest because he’s Lish’s MTB? The stakes are so high. It’s like my best friend has a fiancé that I somehow never met. Except she’s barely met him.
Why did I have to wake up at eight a.m. on a day with the potential for sleeping in? I could have avoided several more hours of overthinking.
Here I am in front of the bathroom mirror with way too much time on my hands. Hendrix Cutter is looking at me.
“What?” I snap at him. “What do you want? Do you want to contact me so we can enjoy hours of get-to-know-you Viddles?” I stop myself when I realize, “Why haven’t you contacted me, Hendrix Cutter?”
It’s absurd that I’m somehow offended by this. I haven’t contacted Hendrix Cutter, nor do I want to, nor do I want him to be the type of person who even gives a shit about Empties.
Except his Empty is me.
And it would be just a little nice to know he gives a shit.
Damn you, Hendrix Cutter, and all that you stand for!
I shrug a shirt over his name and attempt to waste the day by playing Halo.
Uncle Jim slides into the kitchen around lunchtime. Our kitchen opens directly onto our family room, so on nights when we don’t want to speak, we all sit on one side of the table and watch TV. It also gives Uncle Jim a clear view of my game.
“Back in my day, we jumped over mushrooms instead of killing people in video games.” He opens the fridge.
“I’m not killing people. I’m killing aliens,” I correct him.
“A shame. People aren’t all that great,” he muses.
It’s comments like that that make me sad all over again for Uncle Jim. I get the whole introvert thing, not needing to go out and be around a lot of people to make you content. But Uncle Jim doesn’t seem very contented holed up inside our attic all the time, either. “You want to go out for lunch? I’ve got Subway coupons,” I offer.
“Ick. All their sandwiches taste exactly the same. No thank you.”
“We could go somewhere else. Jimmy John’s? Free smells,” I attempt to entice him with sandwiches.
“Sounds like you need a sub. We have some rolls, actually, the pretzel kind.” Uncle Jim ri
fles through plastic bags on the counter.
“You sure you don’t want to go out? We don’t have to get sandwiches. Sushi?” I ask, making a huge concession, seeing as I can’t stand sushi. But even that doesn’t sway him.
“No, I’m sure. I’m on a deadline. Savannah Merlot waits for no man. Or should I say, no woman waits for Savannah Merlot?”
I give up and allow Uncle Jim to make me the most amazing sub sandwich I’ve ever tasted. “What’s on this?” I inquire at the kitchen table, taking a break from my game.
“Rémoulade. A fan sent it to Savannah at her PO box from New Orleans.”
I stop chewing and ask, “How do you know it’s not poisoned?”
“People love Savannah Merlot too much to kill her. They send New Orleans stuff all the time, since the books are based there.”
I resume chewing and figure death by tasty sandwich wouldn’t be the worst way to die. “When was the last time you went to New Orleans for research?” I realize the load in the question.
“Fifteen years ago. I know a lot has changed. That’s what books and the interweb are for.”
“I thought you didn’t like the ‘interweb,’” I air quote Uncle Jim’s word.
“For communication. Too many assholes who can say awful things in real time from the safety of their anonymous lairs. Research is another story. When I can get the blueprints for a church or see a live image of a street corner without leaving my house, why bother?”
I want to tell him, Um, I don’t know … because actual people can be kind of interesting, but recognize I’m pressuring Uncle Jim in a way I would hate to be pressured. The way I already do hate: having someone telling me how I should do things because that’s how things are supposed to be done.
Fuck that.
I switch gears. “So, things are getting interesting with Luke Jacobs at work.”
“Is that the tall kid?”
“Yes. Very tall. And he’s not so kidlike anymore.”
Uncle Jim stands to run his empty plate under the faucet.
“Promise me two things: You won’t get pregnant, and you won’t fall in love.”
“Uncle Jim!” I bumble over his response.
“That’s Wise Ol’ Uncle Jim to you, Agatha.”
After lunch I attempt to shake the heebies that having your uncle discuss your sex life creates. Shooting buffed-out aliens isn’t doing it for me, so I flip through my worn copy of Abandoned Amusement Parks, the book that began my love affair with carnival history when I checked it out from my school library in fourth grade. In gory detail, the book explores amusement parks once in their full glory, now rusted and shrouded in plants. Then-and-now pictures reveal each park’s twisted history and why it closed forever. The juxtaposition of happy kids and gruesome casualties was a combination I couldn’t resist. So much so that I pretended to lose the book and had my mom write a check to pay for it. If pictures of Ferris wheels devoured by weeds weren’t scary enough, the true stories of deaths on rides were pure catnip. Darkness and light, danger in a place of seat belts and safety harnesses, smiling children and dead bodies, are all metaphors for life itself, really. It is why I love to work at Haunted Hollow, why I want to travel the world and see other places like it. Life should be unpredictable. It should keep you in suspense. We shouldn’t always know what’s coming next.
My phone buzzes on my desk.
Luke: Come over tonight? (Part 2)
Instantly I’m hit in the loins (do I have more than one loin? Do I even have one?) at the thought of seeing—and touching—Luke again, but I can’t punk out on Lish two nights in a row.
Me: Meeting best friend’s MTB. Wish me luck.
Luke: Good luck. See you at work tomorrow?
Me: Yup
I scold myself for the unenthusiastic reply, but it was either that or YES I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL YOU TOUCH MY BOOBS AGAIN.
There are still three hours until I meet Lish and Travis at Casa Louisa for dinner, so even though I already showered, I go for a run.
I try to focus only on the music, on the pounding of my feet on the concrete, on my raggedy, only slightly in-shape breathing. It’s been a while, and I slump into a walk. I pass house after familiar house, the same streets I’ve lived near my entire life. I don’t want to go to college here. I don’t particularly want to be in school anywhere right now, sitting at desks or in fancy auditorium chairs with tiny flip-up writing trays (Lish is especially excited about those). I don’t know what kind of classes I don’t want to take. I don’t want to do homework anymore or get graded, and for what? A future job I have no idea what it should be? Paying tens of thousands of dollars to do something I don’t want feels wasteful.
So what do you want, Agatha?
“What do I want?” I talk to myself, my heart rate steadying.
An old song hits my player, a 1970s singer named Jim Croce singing about making a phone call using a dime. There once was a time when people used pay phones. Talked to operators. Paid ten cents for something. A time when he could make that call to any woman or man he wanted, and no one had the added complication of an MTB to screw up the already overly stressful concept of future.
What if I’m not meant to go to college? What if I’m meant to go to Australia, to work in amusement parks across the globe? What if finding a creepy library book all those years ago was my destiny? People call these fucking Names meant-to-bes. Are they the only things in our lives that are truly meant to be? Or is it just more obvious when they’re staring back at us in the mirror every day?
Why did it have to be a name? Why not advice?
Be a carny
Wait on college
Fall in love with Luke Jacobs if you want
Exhausted and frustrated, I pick up my pace again into a jog. I manage to shuffle about a mile, then allow myself to walk the rest of the loop back to my house. Exercise isn’t so bad. Aside from the change of clothes, sweating, and general exertion of it all.
I have time for a second shower (Luke Jacobs daydream, part 2) and select a casual army-green skirt and plain black t-shirt for the occasion. The outfit reads, “Look, I made the effort to put on a skirt and a t-shirt without an ironic statement on it. Points for me!” I shove on my fanciest flip-flops (the ones without the erosion in the shape of my foot) and sit in my car. Three deep breaths later and I’m backing out of the driveway. Ten minutes later and I’m at Casa Louisa. I recognize Lish’s car in the parking lot and scan the front of the restaurant to see if Lish and Travis are waiting outside. They are not, so I park and take the opportunity to look at myself in the rearview mirror.
My hair is still damp, and I sweep it up into a loose bun so I don’t look quite as bedraggled. I roll red-tinted gloss over my lips to give me a hint of color, check my nose for boogers, and I’m ready.
But I’m not ready. Because the second I cross the threshold of Casa Louisa and meet Travis, this whole MTB thing becomes real. Lish is on a path to the rest of her life while I’m flailing around at a haunted amusement park trying to avoid reality with the boy of my dreams who is not technically my soul mate.
I’m about to turn around to check for a lurking booger again when the Casa Louisa doors open and Lish barrels out to grab me. “We saw you through the windows, and I couldn’t wait anymore for you to come in! What? Were you farting outside before you entered the building?” she jokes loudly. Now she’s giving away my trade secrets?
I chuckle awkwardly and see Travis, who is not, per my imagination, wearing a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and an NRA belt buckle. He’s medium tall (not Luke tall by any proportion) and has sandy brown hair cropped neatly into a slightly-longer-than-buzz cut. He sports a blue t-shirt with an Adidas logo on the front, and his cargo shorts hover over fluffy, hairy legs. On his feet are gray running shoes, the kind I would only wear while running, providing little insight into whether or not he does, indeed, have a style. Travis looks like a guy Lish and I would pass in the halls and not look twice in his general direction, nor would he
look in ours. MTBs don’t have a clause somewhere about being stylistically compatible?
Travis juts out a hand, a hand that will someday grope Lish. Why is that the first thing that comes to my mind? Oh, I don’t know, Agatha, because you’re a total perv? No, I’m not. I’m merely trying to make light of a dire situation. See? My brain is injecting visions of Travis’s hand on my best friend’s butt to avoid imagining a wedding band on said hand when he marries her and moves away to Kentucky to have sixteen babies and film a reality show about their lives.
“Hi, I’m Travis. Nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.” He smiles genuinely, and I feel a twinge of guilt for the mockery my brain made of his outfit.
“Wow. That’s so nice. I’ve heard a lot about you, too.” That’s what I’m supposed to say, right?
Lish bounces up to the hostess and informs her, “Our entire party is here!” She is very loud and springy. Part of me loves seeing Lish in this blissed-out state, and the other part questions whether or not Travis has ever seen the real Lish or only this hyperpleasing version.
At our table, Lish sits next to Travis and I sit across from Lish. Immediately she busts into cheery conversation. “How is work? Were you with Luke last night?”
I look at Travis uncomfortably. What must he think about me cavorting with a man who is not my Empty? “Yeah,” I start, “but we don’t have to talk about that now.”
“It’s okay! I’ve told Travis all about you guys!”
“Really?” I raise one eyebrow at Lish, and Travis interjects.
“She said you two have flirted the last couple summers, and now that his girlfriend is gone and you two haven’t met your MTBs yet, you’re having a summer fling.”
When he says it, it sounds so unsexy. Also, haven’t met our MTBs yet? Who says that is part of the equation? I mean, maybe I did, but not to him. And it’s none of his business anyway. But if he thinks he’s so chummy with me by proxy because of Lish, then why hold back?
“We made out last night.” I lay my napkin on my lap triumphantly. “After work. At the Devil’s Dinghies, the ride where I’m stationed, although I’m sure you already know that.”
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