“After frog legs,” Shannon said around a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie.
Daisy and Aiden grimaced, glancing at each other.
“They’re good,” Chelsea assured, laughing through her words. “When they deep-fry them, it looks like they’re wearin’ a pair of bread pants—”
Chelsea laughed harder, and Daisy squeezed her eyes shut and said, “Whatever, that’s gross; go get your weird fair food so we can find the haunted carousel.”
“Is it open to the public?” Chelsea asked as she shoved the rest of a cookie in her mouth.
Aiden barked a laugh.
They walked past the World’s Largest Crocodile enclosure, and Daisy’s stomach flipped. Poor thing, she thought and looked away from the large poster displaying a vintage ringmaster cracking a whip.
Chelsea darted to the right, pulling Shannon with her. “Frog legs!”
As Shannon and Chelsea bounded to a food truck plastered with signs for fried this, fried that, frog legs, and giant turkey thighs, Daisy and Aiden leaned against a tree wrapped in a string of tiny white lights.
“Look at us,” Daisy said, glancing from Aiden to their Roses at the food truck. “How’d we end up with those two?”
“I’m still trying to understand that,” he admitted. One shoulder lifted in a shrug, and he shook the bucket of cookies at her. “But I love him, Daisy.” Aiden’s voice changed. His words slowed, and he exhaled a long breath. “I never thought love like this was real.”
“I don’t know if we’ll ever get there,” Daisy said. She took a cookie and glanced at Aiden, who stared down at her. “How could we? I’m just this,” she swiped her hand over her torso, “and she’s that. I don’t know how to do this.”
“I still have no idea what I’m doing, but I like who am with Shannon. Do you like who you are with Chelsea?”
She nodded, because it was the truth. Daisy liked who she became when Chelsea was around; she liked the two a.m. conversations, and the kissing, and Chelsea’s perfume. She liked that Chelsea thought she was beautiful—but Daisy didn’t know if she believed it. And she liked that Chelsea wanted to be with her—but Daisy didn’t know if she believed that either.
“Did you tell him?” Daisy asked.
Aiden bristled. He chomped on a cookie and shook his head. “It was a long time ago. He doesn’t… I don’t need to get into that with him.”
“Are you still yourself with him?” Daisy already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it anyway. Everyone knew Aiden had no idea how to be anything other than what he was.
“Yeah, but I feel loved. Feeling loved and wanted can make a person into a better version of who they were before.”
A lump grew in Daisy’s throat. You’ve always been loved. “Did he save you?”
Around them teenagers held hands and chatted while they walked. A country band played on a stage a few yards away. People laughed and drank beer and crunched kettle corn. Aiden stayed quiet so long that Daisy almost said I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that. But he took a cookie and caught her gaze, trapping her while he pondered.
“No,” he decided and shoved the entire cookie in his mouth. “I didn’t need saving, just like we don’t need fixing.”
Shannon had a distinct laugh, genuine and rough, and they heard it all the way from the food truck.
Daisy didn’t say anything, because she didn’t know what she could say to that. Aiden was right, which was profound in itself. She was stuck between allowing herself to be loved by Chelsea Cavanaugh, and loving herself.
“See, pants,” Chelsea chimed in her ear, wiggling a grotesque pair of fried frog legs.
Daisy tried not to gag and hid behind Aiden. “Gross.” She fought to keep at bay the words gathering behind her lips.
I am ruined, she thought.
She snaked her arm around Aiden’s chest and snatched another cookie.
I will ruin this.
Chelsea stumbled over an empty box as they made their way into the old warehouse behind the barn.
A very clear sign that said No Trespassing was zip-tied to the door, but even after Chelsea protested, and Shannon made one of his disapproving noises, Aiden picked the lock, and he and Daisy bounded inside. Chelsea and Shannon followed. It wasn’t the best decision, but Chelsea couldn’t help it—the tiniest bit of recklessness felt powerful.
“We’re not supposed to be in here,” Shannon said wearily. “Is the carousel that big a deal?”
“It’s haunted,” Daisy whisper-yelled, clutching her purse in one hand and half a cookie in the other as she tiptoed around the corner. “Of course it’s that big of a deal. How many times do you come across a haunted carousel in your life?”
“She has a point,” Chelsea mumbled. She arched a brow at Shannon and tried to smile. “It’s not like you can’t get us out of trouble if worse comes to worst, right?”
Shannon’s mouth flattened, and he narrowed his eyes. He was obviously gearing up to say something.
Aiden forestalled him with a sudden, “Ah-ha! There it is!”
Daisy shushed him.
They walked around a giant pyramid of stacked crates, stepped over a few saddles discarded from the barrel racing, and found the carousel sitting by itself in the middle of the wide-open warehouse floor. From the rafters, a light, dim and hazy in the dust-riddled air, shone on it. Horses stood on their hind legs like mannequins, alongside giant frogs with pink-painted saddles, elk sporting massive racks of bright red horns, and whimsical mermaids—one side of their bodies the tawny head of a lion, the other side a swirling cerulean dolphin tail. Gold trimmed the top of the carousel, arching into an extravagant cupcake-like top, pinks and yellows and teals glittering together. Poles shot from the top of the ride to the bottom, which fanned out in waves of blue and purple. The bottom of the giant hexagon was paneled with mirrors, so were the top and the tall sphere in the center.
“Vintage,” Aiden quipped, and nudged Daisy with his elbow. “C’mon, let’s see if it’ll turn on.”
“Let’s not,” Shannon said dryly, but Aiden and Daisy were already on their way, and Daisy had ahold of Chelsea’s hand, which meant she was going too.
They navigated through the shadows, dipping in and out of the fuzzy light from above, and tried to quietly climb atop their chosen animals. Chelsea slung her legs over the saddle of a navy toad and Daisy perched herself sidesaddle on the back of a horse. Behind them Aiden leapt atop the tallest elk, and Shannon leaned against it with his arms folded over his chest.
“Lighten up, Detective,” Aiden said softly.
Chelsea glanced at Daisy, met with her knobby knees at eye level, and Daisy staring down at her. “What’s it like being a doctor?”
Chelsea shrugged. “Challenging, I guess. I do my best to fix what’s broken on people, but it’s not like anything, really. My daddy did it. His daddy did it. Just is what it is. What’s it like workin’ for Blizzard?”
“Sometimes it’s exciting; sometimes it’s not. I get to create things from nothing for people who want to immerse themselves in a world other than this one. It’s thrilling when I see my scenery during live gameplay, but making it isn’t that big of a deal.”
“What about the rest of your art? What’s it like having that much living inside you?”
Daisy swung her legs, hitting the back of her ankles against the side of the giant horse. She looked from Chelsea to the mirrored floor of the carousel and back again. “It varies.” She took the question as seriously as Chelsea had meant it. “I’ve never thought of it as a bad thing, but sometimes I get stuck inside myself. I focus on what isn’t real instead of what is.”
“I was always encouraged to be more academic. Did your parents support you?”
“They supported me being a graphic designer, because that’s a glorified artist without the title attached. It meant success and stab
ility, and don’t get me wrong—I love my job, I really do. But like you said, I have a lot living inside me…” Her voice trickled off. Chelsea listened to the effort of each inhale and exhale. It must be heavy, Chelsea thought, to have so much battling for the right to be created in one body. “I have to figure out what’s mine and what isn’t.”
“But they’re all yours, aren’t they?” Chelsea met Daisy’s gaze.
Daisy shook her head, but before she could speak, the carousel lurched. The round bulbs that lined the cupcake-top flickered, musical notes stretched and bludgeoned, and the animals dipped and lifted, moving slowly counterclockwise.
Aiden laughed behind them, and, out of the corner of her eye, Chelsea saw Shannon stumble and his hands scramble for purchase on Aiden’s legs.
The lights flickered. The music sounded haunting; their steeds creaked as the ride stuttered, trying to keep going as the power faded.
“Who’s there?” A gruff voice came from behind the black tarp.
“Run?” Daisy whisper-yelled.
“Run,” Aiden agreed.
Chelsea barely had time to ask, “What?” before Daisy’s fingers latched around her wrist and pulled, forcing her to leap off the carousel, to hit the ground and run.
They stumbled along, a wild quartet, trying to stifle their laughter and be light on their feet. Daisy jumped over a broken sign with the words PSYCHIC painted across it, and Chelsea watched her legs stretch, one foot landing after the other. Aiden moved like a deadly animal, Daisy like a phantom, Shannon with purpose beyond the situation—as if he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop when they hadn’t dropped the first one, and Chelsea ran the way she always did. She followed her heartbeat and the flutter in her stomach. She felt at once out of place and right where she should be.
“In here,” Aiden snapped. He grabbed Chelsea’s elbow and pulled her roughly into a corner.
They huddled together, Chelsea’s back to Aiden’s chest, her shoulder shoved against Shannon’s. Daisy was pressed tight to her side, snug against Shannon’s stomach. Aiden made a quiet shhh, and went impossibly quiet. Chelsea could feel him breathing, but couldn’t hear him—a testament to his old habits.
Footsteps echoed, loud, louder, right past them, and the bounce of a flashlight swept across the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Daisy shuffled backward, forcing them all to duck closer together. The footsteps faded. The beam of light disappeared out the back door.
“What happens if Shannon gets arrested for this? Will you be the laughing stock of—ow,” Aiden grunted, enduring a hard jab from Shannon’s elbow.
“Well, the carousel is haunted,” Daisy said. She heaved a sigh. “Are there any other haunted attractions you’d like to tell us about, Aiden?”
“No, but we could always let the ostriches out of their enclosure just for shits and giggles—”
The flashlight returned, bathing the pack of skittish wolves in bright light. “Stay where you are!”
Aiden was the first to bolt, followed by Daisy.
“Hey!” The security guard grabbed for Shannon.
“Run, Chelsea,” Shannon gritted out, took her by the hand, and ran after the other two.
Chelsea’s boots made hard clicks against the warehouse floor. Daisy almost toppled over when she slid around a corner. Aiden knocked the door open with both hands, held it with his boot, and motioned for the other three to follow.
Once they were in the dark, running for the parking lot, Chelsea burst into laughter—hard, jolting, frantic laughter—that sounded pretty and ugly at the same time.
It ended in panting and laughing and falling into each other as they tried to climb into Shannon’s Jeep. Aiden threw Chelsea’s legs into the car, hopped into the back seat with her, and fell over into her lap in the process. Daisy swung into the front seat while Shannon was turning the key in the ignition.
Daisy batted at the steering wheel, at Shannon, at the steering wheel again. “We’ll come back for my car later, just go!”
The flashlight had long since lost them. The security guard had given up. Still, they laughed and laughed and laughed.
18
Daisy’s chunky pleather boots made hoofed thuds against the loft’s wood floor. She wrung her hands, flipped pieces of too-long bangs out of her face, and picked at leftover nail polish. Shannon sat on the edge of the couch, popping peanut M&Ms into his mouth, and wondered what he could do to calm her down. Unlike Aiden, Daisy stormed about in an unpracticed, disorganized way. While Aiden was well aware of his temperament, Daisy refused to acknowledge her own and became a cluster of fragmented emotions: childlike, birdlike, stampedelike, so many -likes that Shannon couldn’t possibly keep up with all of them.
She inhaled, and her cheeks bulged. “How did this work for you guys?” The words gathered as a puff she collected and pushed away from her lips.
“How did what work? Nothing worked. Literally, nothing.” Shannon chewed on a red M&M.
“Oh, come on!” Daisy swung her hands in an extravagant pattern that Shannon assumed was supposed to tell him something. “You guys are the poster couple for physicality. What do I do? How am I supposed to make…” Another strange hand gesture, palm to palm, fingers jibber-jabbering at one another. “Us a thing.”
“Are you talking about sex? Because Karman is much better suited for this, I assure you.”
“Shannon!”
“Aiden was a virgin. How do you think we handled it, Daisy?” Shannon shoved more M&M’s in his mouth, aggressively ignoring the conversation as a whole.
Daisy tilted her head, very birdlike of her, and blinked, very childlike of her. “Seriously?”
“Well, yes, seriously, but also carefully, and slowly, and mindfully—”
“No, no, god, you’re dense, Abercrombie. Aiden was seriously a virgin when you guys met? He never…?”
Shannon blinked, sharing her childlike perplexity. “No, he’d never slept with anyone before last year. That’s what he told me, at least. I don’t think he’d lie about…” Shannon narrowed his eyes. “He wouldn’t lie about that, would he?”
Daisy flapped her hand at him. Her eyebrows were pulled toward her nose. She scoffed and said, “Of course he wouldn’t. I just assumed he’d… I don’t know, I didn’t realize he’d been alone for that long.”
“Yeah, I didn’t believe it at first either. It’s not like he came with an instruction manual.”
He ran a hand through his hair and reached for the bag of M&Ms, concentrating on the candy rather than Daisy, who was making it a point to stare at him. Her dark eyes crinkled at the edges. Shannon chewed on a blue M&M. He was more than certain he didn’t want to know what revelation she’d just made, because it was obvious she’d made one. Daisy snatched a yellow M&M from his hand and tossed it in her mouth.
“You’re my instruction manual,” Daisy whispered and crunched the candy.
“I am not,” Shannon countered.
“You dated her for like a decade!” Daisy’s exclamation mingled with the clank-clunk of her strappy hooves as she resumed her frantic pacing. “You can totally be my Chelsea Cavanaugh How-To.”
“We dated for five years, not even close to a decade. And no, I can’t be your Chelsea Cavanaugh How-To because I don’t understand a damn thing about her anymore. I highly doubt she’s anything like she was when we were together.”
“Was she into, like,” Daisy’s hands floundered, “gentle, sweet, you know—”
Shannon’s head hung back, and he heaved a sigh. “We were teenagers!”
“Okay, yeah, but still.”
“Daisy, we barely knew what we were doing. How am I supposed to know what she’s into now? You guys seem fine. You were fine at The Hollow, at the fair. You guys are obviously into each other, so just go from there. Ask her what she likes.”
“How about you ask her?”
Shannon threw an M&M at Daisy. She tried to catch it with her mouth and was unsuccessful.
“No.”
“C’mon, please. Just ask her if she’s—”
“Hell no,” Shannon stressed, eyes squeezed shut.
Daisy spun on the square toe of her heelless boot and fell onto the couch. Her shoulders smacked Shannon’s lap. Since he’d met her, Daisy had never ceased to surprise him. Her pale skin was paler against the backdrop of black that covered her body: a short jumpsuit put together with lace and buttons and clasps. She was a very small, very loud, very aesthetically confusing woman.
They hadn’t known each other for long, and yet here he was, brushing hair out of her face and flicking the tip of her nose as she lay in his lap. Friendship was a muddy institution, riddled with complications and mandatory stagnancy between the time when friends became friends and then became friends. But Daisy didn’t stand for it. Once she’d made her decision, it was executive.
“Has Aiden told you I’m demi?” Daisy asked, her voice softening.
“Yes, he did. Have you told Chelsea?”
Daisy nodded.
“Okay, well, she’ll definitely understand your boundaries, if you have them. You two are emotionally receptive,” Shannon said.
“We’ve talked about boundaries. Well…” Daisy wrinkled her nose. “… not boundaries, just what we both are good with, and now I’m good with more, but…”
“Just talk to her,” Shannon said.
“Just talk to her,” Daisy repeated, lifting her brows.
Shannon rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay, I get it. I had the same problem with Aiden, but if you don’t try, you’ll never get anywhere.”
“You and Aiden talked about sex?”
“Hardly,” Shannon admitted. “But eventually, yes, sort of. We weren’t emotionally communicative, though. Physicality was the natural progression of our relationship. The only thing that threw me for a loop was his lack of experience.”
“Was he totally shy?” Daisy whispered. She snorted a laugh.
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