by Zoe Chant
"Hah! Me either! Oh, look." Missy pointed ahead of them, where one of the biggest game booths lay. There were stuffed animals on the back wall, ranging from about the size of her palm to almost as tall as she was. "You can win me one of those."
"It's a throwing game," Ryan said dubiously. "Those things are rigged, you know."
"They're all rigged," Missy replied cheerfully. "The fun is in the trying. And I have extra tickets, because I work the fair." They got in line, chatting with each other and cheering when a little kid threw two surprisingly good balls and got himself a medium-sized teddy bear that he immediately gave to his father to carry.
The kid's dad looked at it like 'how did this end up my job?' and exchanged rueful glances with a couple other parents in line, but they went off happily, and after a minute, it was Ryan and Missy's turn.
"All right all right all right," the barker called. "Seven balls for seven tickets, you hit seven targets and you win the big row! You hit six, you win the second row! All the way down, folks, now step on up and win the little lady a prize!"
"Little lady?" Missy asked. "Really? In this day and age?"
"All right, you can win the little gentleman a prize!" the barker replied, and despite herself, Missy laughed. Ryan handed over his tickets and shouted with surprise as he hit the very first target.
"I'm gonna win you something!"
"I always knew it." Missy fluttered her eyelashes at him, and Ryan missed the next two throws, which made Missy laugh again. "A small prize is nice."
"Hnf." Ryan hit the next one, missed the next two, and to his own obvious surprise, hit the final one and let out another shout. "Pick your prize!"
"Well, obviously…" Missy pointed out a seal in the third row, and the barker took it down and handed it to her. She squeezed it and grinned up at Ryan. "I'll name it after you."
"What, Ryan?"
"No, 'Hero!'"
"Awww." Ryan ducked his head like a kid and all but dug a toe in the dirt. "That's cool. Thanks. Okay, what next?"
Missy's eyes widened. "Next? Next it's my turn!" She handed Ryan the seal and gave the barker her tickets, then stood there for a minute, watching the pattern of the targets as they slid by.
Then she started pitching as fast as she could: clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Whiff! Clang!
By the third hit, the barker was yelling, "Oh we got a ringer!" and Missy shouted with impatience as she missed the sixth target.
The seventh ball went true, though, and she punched the sky with both hands. "Yeaaaah!"
Beside her, Ryan yelled, "Yeah!" as well, and picked her up to spin her around. "That was amazing!"
"Aaah, I shouldn't have missed the one!" Missy was grinning, though, incredibly pleased with herself. "Pick your prize!"
"How can I pick? What's going to remind me of you the way the seal reminds you of me? The orangutan," Ryan said to the barker.
Missy laughed with offense. "I remind you of an orangutan?"
"They are super strong," Ryan said as the barker handed over a genuinely huge fluffy orange orangutan toy. "Great pitching arms!" he said from somewhere behind the fluff. "You're a lot cuter, though!"
Missy laughed again, somehow thrilled and embarrassed all at once. "Should we bring that back to the dunking booth? It's huge to carry around all night."
Ryan emerged from behind the stuffed animal, getting it situated so he could see and carry it simultaneously. "Are you kidding? No way! The coolest girl at the fair just won me this thing! I want everybody to know! Guys winning a big prize for a girl is the norm! Nobody ever wins things for guys! This is the most exciting thing that's happened to me in—" He broke off, laughing. "In almost an hour!"
Missy tucked her seal under one arm and took Ryan's hand with her free one. Between themselves and the stuffed animals, they took up about twice as much room as usual, but people stepped around them, smiling hugely, especially at the happiness on Ryan's face. "A whole hour, huh? You've had an exciting day."
"Oh, you have no idea," Ryan said. "I met this amazing girl and embarrassed myself in front of her, but she was really cool about it, and then she stood me up for a mini-date thing, and then she almost drowned, and now she won me a prize. I've never had such an exciting day. Do you like Ferris wheels?"
Missy laughed. "That is an exciting day. And yeah, kind of. Are we going there next?"
Ryan made the orangutan peer toward her and nod. "I think we can't win any more prizes. How would we carry them? So it's time to go on a ride."
"Nothing more exciting than the Ferris wheel," Missy warned. "I just ate a giant burger and don't want to throw up all over my new seal."
"Oh yeah," Ryan said in a deep, orangutan-y voice, bobbling the toy's head like it was talking, "throwing up would be bad. Okay, let's do the nice sedate Ferris wheel."
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Ferris wheel operator took one look at the orangutan and said, "You can't take that thing on here."
Ryan, who had been incredibly relieved when Missy giggled at his orangutan voice instead of thinking he was certifiable, said, "Aww," in the orangutan voice, and made it slump sadly.
The ride operator did look at him like he was certifiable, but that didn't matter as long as Missy kept laughing. Ryan, in his own voice, said, "Is there somewhere safe we can put them, then?" and the operator, with a mighty sigh, indicated a space just behind him that a handful of other too-large toys and bags were already piled.
Ryan put the orangutan in, and Missy safely arranged her seal in his arms, which sent them both into fits of laughter as they passed through the gate and got on the ride. "Technically it should have been the other way around," Missy said through giggles. "You had your arms around me, when you saved me. But seals don't have arms!"
"Well, they have front flippers, but compared to an orangutan…" Ryan clicked the seat bar down over their laps and they were suddenly snug and secure and smooshed together. "Uh, is it okay if I…?" He waved his arm that was stuck between them, and Missy nodded.
"Sure, yeah, that'd be more comfortable."
So he put his arm around her, and then Missy Clark was all snuggly and warm against his side. Not that they needed the warmth on a muggy evening with the sun still up, but having her pressed up against him was nearly the best feeling Ryan could imagine.
Nearly. He could think of a handful of other scenarios which involved a much more intimate pressing together that he bet would feel even better, but those would be difficult to do on a Ferris wheel and would probably also get them banned from the fair for life.
"Oh, wait." Missy squirmed around without leaving the curve of his arm, and took her phone out of a pocket. "This will be a prime selfie setting. The Virtue valley all spread out behind us, and the fair below, and the…well, I guess we're a couple hours too early for the sunset, but still, it'll be pretty."
"Any picture with you in it would be."
"Hah! Thank you, but even, like, Lupita Nyong'o has some less-than-perfect pictures, and she's a lot more flawless than I am."
"With all due respect, I can't imagine a bad picture of Lupita Nyong'o," Ryan said solemnly.
"Well, that's why I said less-than-perfect. I bet she's got some terrible ones on her camera roll, just like the rest of us, but the worst I've seen online are just less than perfect." Missy squeaked as the wheel moved them higher, allowing other people to get on. "Okay, this is the part I don't like, is the stopping and waiting. I don't mind it being in motion, but I hate hanging here. I feel like I'm going to fall, somehow."
"I'll—" Ryan broke off. "I was going to say, I'll catch you, but...how about we just don't fall."
"Good idea." Missy still made faces and squeaked as they bumped higher one place at a time. She sighed and relaxed, though, as the wheel began turning properly, and looked out over the fair with a smile. "It looks like controlled chaos from up here, doesn't it? Was it what you expected, when you came up for the weekend?"
Ryan, gazing at her, thought he could nev
er have expected with his weekend had brought him. His voice deepened as he murmured, "No," and thought he'd gone too far when she glanced up at him with surprised interest.
"Yeah? What'd you expect?" She didn't sound like he'd said anything too melodramatic, so he chuckled in relief and shook his head.
"I did not expect to turn into a seal in front of someone and then rescue her from the same dunk tank later, that's for sure. And I didn't expect to spend the evening with an amazing woman, either."
"Me either! What's it like?" Missy sounded almost wistful. "Being a seal, I mean. The actual being a seal part. I imagine when you're in a human shape you're basically just…human."
"A little stronger than most, maybe, but yeah. Being a seal is…hm. People don't usually ask. It's simple, especially in the water." He chuckled again. "My seal does not understand why I wanted to get scuba certifications when we can swim much deeper on our own. Not for nearly as long, but much deeper."
"How deep?" Missy sounded genuinely interested, which made Ryan happy.
"Deep diving in scuba is up to around 130 feet or so, which is about…" Ryan looked toward the ground as they approached the top of the Ferris wheel's turn. "It's probably about two times as deep as this is tall. I think these transportable ones are usually around forty or sixty feet high and this one's a bigger one."
Missy, looking down, said, "Wow. So how deep can you go as a seal?"
"About ten times that, as a seal. Even a little more, if I felt like it."
"You can dive over a thousand feet?" Missy's eyes popped. "No wonder your seal thinks you're crazy for using scuba equipment!"
Ryan smiled. "Yeah, but it's usually a solitary dive, because there aren't lots of seal shifters. It's more fun to go scuba diving with a group of humans than alone as a seal."
"Ah. Yeah, that makes sense. Still, a thousand feet! That would be amazing! I'd love to see what it looks like down there!"
"Maybe there are deep water video cameras I could strap to my head and take a video for you."
Missy examined him critically and a rush of embarrassment swept him at the absurdity of the idea. But then she said, "Seals have kind of smooth heads. I think we'd have to strap it to your stomach."
Ryan laughed. "Right! Yeah, good thinking."
"We'll have to be careful not to get caught, though. Hasn't the military tried training dolphins and things to do deep-water surveillance? We wouldn't want them to find out about shifters and use you guys." Missy made a face, while Ryan shuddered.
"You're right about that. Okay, let's talk about something less awful. Look, there's the dunking booth! And your funnel cakes line is still a million miles long." Ryan pointed, and Missy leaned closer to look along the line of his arm. Or maybe she just wanted to snuggle closer, which was Ryan's hope. They spun down the back side of the Ferris wheel and up again, waving at kids in the line.
"It's so much quieter up here," Missy said, just as the wheel gave a huge clunk and came to a jarring stop. She squeaked and froze like a mouse, voice high as she said, "We stopped."
"We did." Ryan leaned to the side, looking down to see the ride operator staring upward in dismay. Then he ran toward the engine, and Ryan straightened up, his eyebrows lifted. "This is probably a good time for that selfie. You'll be able to get any angle you want without the background changing."
Missy squeaked again. "I told you I only like these things when they're moving!"
"It'll probably be moving again by the time we're done mugging for the camera."
"Okay, but you take the pictures. I'll get all shaky." She scrunched close to Ryan, and he thought he could feel her heartbeat accelerating through her ribs. He took a couple pictures of her making scared faces, showed them to her, and took more as she laughed, if a little nervously.
"How come you said yes, if you don't really like Ferris wheels?"
"Well, a cute guy asked me, but also, I really don't mind them so much as long as they keep moving. I just don't like hanging motionless in the air, which is not an invitation to start rocking this seat," Missy said sharply.
"I wasn't going to," Ryan promised. "That would be mean."
Missy exhaled quietly and nodded. "It's the kind of thing a lot of guys would do, though. And maybe a lot of girls, too, I don't know, but a lot of guys think it's funny to scare somebody more when they're already scared. Especially women."
"Well, that's a real jerk move, and I try not to be a jerk."
"Thank you." Missy hesitated, looking up at him with her bottom lip caught in her teeth. "Would it be okay if I just kind of…hid against your shoulder? I don't really want to be looking around right now and I can't stop myself otherwise."
"Yeah." Ryan's voice went gentle. "Yeah, of course." He tucked her more closely against his side, pressed his lips to her hair, and held her quietly while they waited for the wheel to come to earth again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Missy had never felt so comfortable or safe anywhere in her life as she did in Ryan's arms. She stopped even caring that they were sixty feet above the ground in a broken Ferris wheel, and was able to just concentrate on being cozy and protected by the warmth of his body pressed against hers.
Somebody was going to be really lucky to be his fated mate someday. It gave Missy a little pang—maybe more than a little one—to think it wasn't her, but she reminded herself she wasn't going to think about that. They had the rest of the evening and maybe the weekend and maybe even another date for scuba diving together, and even if it wasn't going to be forever—
She gave a sharp little laugh that, luckily, coincided with the Ferris wheel suddenly jolting into motion again. Forever? What was she thinking, forever?! Nobody started thinking about forever on the same day they met somebody.
Ryan's arm tightened around her and he murmured, "There we go. We'll be back on the ground in a minute. You okay?"
"Yeah." Missy looked up at him sheepishly, without moving from the circle of his arm. "Yeah. Thanks. It's not that I don't like heights. I just don't like being stuck in them."
"That seems reasonable. Me, I don't actually like them."
"What?" Missy sat up, genuinely surprised. "But this was your idea! And you've been so calm!"
"Getting to go around in circles with a pretty woman for ten minutes sounds like a good idea to me," Ryan said with a smile, "even if it was ten minutes high in the air. And you were nervous, so I thought maybe I shouldn't fall apart."
Missy spluttered a bit, accepting his hand as they climbed out of the wheel when it reached the bottom. "Look at you, the big brave man and all. Thanks. Next time I'll be the brave one."
"Works for me." Ryan, obviously cheerful, went and got their orangutan and seal toys and lugged them back to Missy. "What next?"
"Would it be too boring to go look at the quilt and vegetable shows? I never get to see them on the first day, before the judging."
"Nothing about today has been boring. Are the quilts made of vegetables?"
Missy laughed. "No, you dork. Come on, they're this way." She took his hand again and dragged him off through the fair, apologizing as they bumped people with their stuffed animals.
The quilt show wouldn't let them take the toys in, either, because the orangutan was so big. Missy pursed her lips. "Maybe we should bring them back to the booth after all."
Ryan said, "Nooo!" and clung to his orangutan, making Missy laugh again. They tucked the stuffed animals into the space behind the door watcher, and went in to admire the quilts. Ryan stood in front of one for nearly fifteen minutes, staring at it incredulously. "It's like stained glass," he said, when Missy finally dragged him away. "All the tiny pieces and the color. It's hard to believe it's actually fabric. I've never seen anything so gorgeous."
Then he looked at her, and with a clearly exaggerated correction, said, "Well, almost anything."
Missy flipped her hair and put her nose in the air. "Yes, yes, admire me, for I am all that is beautiful and wise." Then she giggled as Ryan made sill
y star-struck eyes at her.
The impulse to stand on her toes and kiss him hit her, and she felt herself blush. She thought he probably wouldn't mind, but they were having such a good time she hated to risk making a mistake that could make things awkward.
Ryan tugged her out of the quilting shed down toward the vegetables, where there were enormous cabbages and pumpkins, and ears of corn so beautiful it would be a crime to eat them. "I never knew there was prize-winning corn," Ryan said, mystified. "Or at least, I didn't know it was so pretty! I like the yellow and white kernels!"
"Have you seen the multi-colored cobs? I don't think anyone's growing them here, but they've got blues and reds and pinks and purples in them. They're amazing. I guess they're not eating corn, though, not straight off the cob. You make cornmeal from them, and stuff." They swung back around to get their stuffed animals, and more lazily walked through the petting farm, where a very handsome goat tried to eat the orangutan's arm.
"Hey! Naughty goat! No!" Ryan pulled his orangutan away, looking mortally offended. "My orangutan! Get your own!"
"What if he did?" Missy asked, amused, and Ryan turned an expression of alarm on her.
"If a goat can throw a ball that well, I don't know why humans are the ones ruling the earth."
"True. It would probably cheat and just jump into the booth and steal what it wanted. And then eat it." Missy stopped to offer the palm of her hand to an enormous, mild-mannered cow, which snuffled her hand and moved away disappointed that it hadn't found a snack there. "Sorry, Bessie."
She looked up from the cow to find Ryan smiling at her. Self-conscious, she glanced around, then back at him. "What?"
"Nothing. I just like how nice you are to the animals."
"Oh. Oh, well, I'm one of those people who says hello to birds and stops to move caterpillars and worms off the sidewalk, so…I don't know what that has to do with anything." Missy scrunched her face up and ducked her head, feeling silly.