Grey is holding a thin paper plate covered in powdered sugar and fried dough for me while we wait in line for the zero-gravity spinning ride. I rip giant pieces off with my free hand and stuff them into my mouth as we draw closer to the front of the line. June wasn’t tall enough for this ride, so it’s just us, while Holden and June wait to ride on spinning strawberries.
“We can just throw it away,” he says, his lips curled in a smile as he watches me fill my mouth with another huge bite. I’m sure I have chipmunk cheeks. “I can buy you another one when we get off.”
“Oh, you’re made of money, huh?” I say around the bite in my mouth.
He laughs, and I feel it in every place we’re touching. Hands and hips and shoulders. “Very much no.” Then, leaning closer, he whispers, “I’m saving up in case there’s ever a bookstore opening in this town. I’d love to invest.”
I stare up at him, eyes wide, and his smile grows. His hand drops mine, and I’m momentarily sad at the loss. But then he reaches up, smoothing his thumb over my bottom lip. It comes away white, and my heart picks up its rhythm when he licks it off.
“Powdered sugar,” he tells me.
I say, “You’re really good at this.”
His brows bunch together in question. “At what?”
I’ve never noticed how imperfect his face is from a technical standpoint. I’m trained to look for patterns, colors, and his faceis contrary in every way. His eyes are much too light for his tan skin. There’s a scar above his left eyebrow, thin and paler than the rest of his face. He’s always got stubble on his cheeks, but it never grows much longer than that. His brows are just a hair from being too thick. And there’s just that one dimple, when there should be two.
But regardless of the imperfections, he’s breathtaking. Handsome in a way that feels unreal. Not the kind of sanitized, airbrushed beauty in mainstream media, but a kind that you wouldn’t expect. Stunning in all the imperfections, the way art that’s flawed and rough around the edges tends to be the most treasured.
I swallow back the words I want to say: that I’m starting to see him differently, that I want to know how he sees me. Instead, I say, “At pretending.”
His face changes, his smile growing warmer, softer. Eyes searching. He leans closer, and I feel his lips on my ear. “Who says I’m pretending, Fin? Maybe I just wanted to see if you’re as sweet as you look.”
A shiver runs down my spine, and heat gathers low in my belly. It’s wholly unfamiliar, because this isGrey, but it’s not unwelcome.
I blink up at him, searching for words, and he just watches me, that smile still in place. He looks like he knows he shocked me, and he’s pleased. Before I have a chance to respond, we reach the front of the line, and the teenager working in the booth asks for our tickets. He’s sunburned and sweaty and utterly bored with us.
Grey reaches out to toss the rest of the funnel cake into the trash, but I snatch it up, stuffing the rest into my mouth so I don’t say something stupid. I’m still chewing as we step up between our bars and the ride starts, spinning slowly at first before picking up speed.
I’ve been on this ride before, and one thing I remember is that when it really gets going, pushing you up against the metal at your back with the force of gravity, everything blurs. That happens now too, of course. But what I’ve never done before is look directly beside me. Everything in front of me is a blur of motion, and I can’t see the people across from me in the giant cylinder, but I can see Grey beside me, grin fanned wide over his face as he looks back.
He looks like a beautiful mess, the hair spinning furiously where it sticks out beneath his hat, and I wonder how I look to him. If he’s ever looked at me and been surprised to notice my beauty before. If he’s ever felt attracted to me the way I feel to him right now. If he ever feels that pulse low in his stomach, in the tips of his fingers, urging him to reach out and touch my skin the way I want to do with his.
We’re holding on to the bars next to our heads, but he moves his left hand, covering my right on the bar, and I feel heady, wanting, in a way I haven’t in a long time. Much longer than seven months. Maybe I’ve never felt like this before.
And then my stomach turns over, all the hot, fried dough spinning with the motion of the ride, and nausea hits me with full force. I slip my hand out from beneath his, covering my mouth, and his eyes blow wide.
I absolutelycannotbarf in a giant spinning chamber. Where would it even go? It’s too horrifying to contemplate, and it takes every bit of my mental energy to focus on keeping all the food down.
Sweat is breaking out on my forehead from exertion as the ride finally, finally begins to slow. I’m the first one off, Grey right behind me. I barely make it to the trash can where he tossed my empty plate before throwing up in it.
I feel his warm hands on my neck, catching my wind-tangled hair and holding it back. The hot breeze feels nice againstmy damp skin, and suddenly, this entire situation triggers a memory.
One from seven months ago. Grey’s hands on my neck, holding back my hair as I retched in my bathroom after Wren and Holden’s wedding. He took care of me then. He was so sweet, so attentive, like he is right now, whispering unintelligible encouragement in my ear. But then he said something that I wanted to remember to ask him about when my mind was clear and I could focus on his answer.
I hadn’t remembered, and it had evaporated in the drunken haze of the night. But the words materialize now.
There’s only one woman I’ve ever wanted in Fontana Ridge, Finley.
Finley recovers remarkably fastfrom the zero-gravity ride, although she avoids fried food the rest of the afternoon. The air is hot and sticky, so we buy water bottles every thirty minutes and share them, and when we pause for lunch, we both order mediocre salads from the one healthy food truck in the entire fairgrounds. I haven’t held her hand since the ride, and she hasn’t reached for mine either, but it still feels like something has changed between us.
There’s an awareness that wasn’t there before, and I don’t think either of us knows what to do about it. For my part, I’m forcing myself not to hope, not to read into things. But I can alsofeelthe change, even if I don’t quite know what it means.
When the afternoon heat begins to become unbearable, June asks to go look at some of the show animals in the barns, but Finley and I decide to take a ride on the Ferris wheel to try to catch the breeze.
“You feeling okay?” I ask, looking down at her beside me. She looks overly warm and a little sunburned, but not unhappy.She’s quiet, though, and I wonder if she’s as in her head about everything that’s happened today as I am.
Before she can respond, the woman in front of us spins around, and I recognize her immediately. “Grey, I thought that was your voice.”
