Chapter 18 #2
Em wouldn’t come within a ten-mile radius of a carnival.
The phobia of clowns is strong in that one.
Although to be fair, there’s nothing creepier than a grown-ass man hiding behind a fake smile, basically plotting your death.
One Halloween at university, one of the fraternities all dressed up as clowns.
They roamed the campus scaring the shit out of everyone.
We were on our way back from a party, Em in her Buffy costume and me in my Giles costume, you know, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
One of the clowns ran out from behind a tree.
There was a cackle behind us and so I turned and kicked that clown right in the nut sack. He bitched as he went down.
And that’s how I learned that it’s simply a matter of realizing that a clown is just a sad man in a costume. And they all have a crotch you can kick them in, should you need to.
“First stop,” he says cryptically, interrupting my thoughts. He takes my hand and gently pulls me farther and farther into the carnival, turning back to wink at me, which I want to say is grosser than the clowns but I can’t. Because it gives me a little dopamine hit and I find myself smiling.
We weave our way through the legs of the guy on stilts breathing fire and an elephant wearing an ugly hat, which I’m pretty sure constitutes animal cruelty, my feet continually tripping up as I start to process my surroundings.
The soundtrack is basically an electronic keyboard whose battery is about to run out and die.
The shrieks of children remind me I should not be here.
The only other adults are those chaperoning the children.
Whichever Buzzfeed correspondent wrote carnival into their list of Top 10 Date Ideas should be fired.
And then I smell it. The scent of deep fried everything. And sugar. And it smells so good, my mouth starts watering.
Okay, maybe the carnival isn’t so bad.
Xander stops us directly in front of the cotton candy booth and turns to face me. “This is the only way one should consume sugar,” he says, before ordering the puffiest cloud of sugar on a stick.
Then, he holds the stick with a cloud of candy bigger than my head between us and proceeds to rip off a massive chunk and shove it in his mouth.
There’s a bit of cotton candy sticking out that his tongue sweeps up in a matter of seconds.
He’s the one eating cotton candy, and I’m the one who’s drooling.
“Is this the ‘fun’ you were talking about?” I say.
Xander takes another chunk and holds it inches from my lips. “You tell me,” he says, waiting.
The longer I wait to swipe the cotton candy, the more suggestive this gesture gets. So I open my mouth and lean ever so slightly forward to take the chunk while trying to avoid his fingertips, but I misjudge and only get the tiniest whisp of spun sugar between my lips.
Before I know it, Xander’s palm is over my mouth, essentially shoving the entire chunk in. Something I’d expect from Em, not my “date.”
The cotton candy melts in my mouth on contact, but I’m too distracted to care that I’ve just mainlined sugar in the tastiest format. “Hey!” I say, reaching for a hunk of cotton candy myself. I shove it in his mouth.
He ducks my first attempt, a twinkle of mischief in his eye, but I get him on my second one. The difference between us is that I keep my hand over his mouth.
“Oh, this is the only way one should consume sugar, is it?” I say, mocking him. He tries to say something, but it’s all just muffled noises. “Are you enjoying it?”
He’s eyes widen and before I know it, he bares his teeth and takes a nibble of my palm.
I pull my hand back really quick. A smug expression is on his face.
“Do you know where these hands have been?” I say, cocking my head. “From the sleep study to the carnival. I haven’t washed them, once.”
“Ew, gross,” he says, trying to channel the sass of a preteen who found out girls have cooties.
We both descend into fits of laughter before he grabs my hand and we’re off, past the food vendors and into rows and rows of rides.
“This way,” Xander says, as he does a double take before veering us off the path. He pushes me up against the back entrance to the haunted house, keeping us out of sight.
I look down and his chest is so close to mine that if I take a breath, we’ll be touching. So I don’t. Then, he leans forward and looks past me. The problem? His neck is inches away from my lips. And that signature smell dares me to nibble on his skin.
Okay, so turns out carnivals aren’t just a great place to murder someone. It also seems like a great place to hook up with someone. So many places to make out off the path, hidden between rides, and moaning so loud no one can hear you.
I do not take the dare to nibble Xander’s neck, though.
“What are we doing?” I say instead, and he turns to look at me, a lingering smile on face.
Then, he leans in. I want to say that I remain completely frozen. I want to say that I will not kiss Xander. I want to say that dating is the death of lust. But I can’t. Because I feel myself leaning in.
Instead of meeting my lips, though, he pushes on the door behind me I didn’t realize I was leaning on, and we fall into the haunted house.
Nope, I am not going to make out with Xander against the haunted house.
“I call this the private tour,” Xander says, as he spins me around. Now I’m the one leading the way in this total darkness.
“Xander?” I say, wondering where he is.
“Here,” he says. His voice is next to me.
I feel his fingers interlace with mine, and then he starts leading me farther into the Haunted House.
With our vision now lacking, my body focuses all its attention on the other senses available.
Xander’s signature scent mixes in with the smoke machine used for spooky effects.
I’m sure the soundtrack is a Spotify playlist called “Murder House.”
Every single nerve ending in my body has migrated to my fingers that are intertwined with Xander’s. Sure, we’ve held hands when pretending to be a couple at the sleep study, but there’s something more intimate when you wind your fingers around each other’s. There’s more surface area to touch.
A spine-chilling scream echoes through the house. An evil cackle erupts. Xander wraps his fingers around mine even tighter as he steers me to the right, past a skeleton that plunges from the ceiling, without flinching.
“Should I be worried that you seem to know your way around a haunted house in complete darkness?” I ask.
“My best friend worked in one during our summer break when we were sixteen. He snuck us in all summer.”
I did not expect that answer.
“So not because you take all your dates here to be scared horny?” I tease.
“Busted,” he says, deadpan. “Is it working?”
“Totally,” I say, sarcastic to hide that I am finding this groping around in the dark kinda hot.
“Tell me, what do you do for fun in your summer breaks?” he says, steering the conversation back to the theme of this date, it seems. Fun.
“What don’t I do?” I say, reminiscing about all the summers Em and I have spent together. I feel the faintest squeeze of my hand, reminding me that sharing is caring.
“Last year, Em and I took a self-defense class.”
“Is that how you flipped me the other day?” he says, amusement in his tone.
“Ummhmm,” I say, willing my mind not to remember how it felt to have our groins completely smashed into each other.
“What else?”
“Another summer, Em and I entered a salsa dance competition and won a month’s supply of margaritas,” I say. I leave out the part that every time I took a sip of the bloody thing, I thought about the first time I had one. The night I met him.
“A perfect victory,” he mutters, his playfulness toned down. Is he thinking about the night we met? Don’t know. Don’t care.
“And a very rowdy summer,” I say, trying to bring the F! U! N!
“Ummhmm,” he says, lost in his own thoughts. My turn to give him the faintest squeeze.
“What about you now? Your inability to lead us through this Haunted House clearly shows you do not attend carnivals like you used to. Are lawyers allowed to have fun?” I say, elbowing him gently.
“Lawyers are. Insomniacs not so much,” he says, and the image of Xander front and center at a Cardi B concert flashes in my mind.
“But you like music?”
Before he can answer, someone grabs my other arm and a blood-curling scream filters through the air. Without thinking, I yank myself free from Xander’s hand, turn around and kick the perpetrator responsible as hard as possible in the general crotch region.
A pubescent voice lets out a howl, echoing through the darkness, and just like that the lights are on. Standing in front of me is a pimple-faced teenager, doubled over with his hands covering his crotch.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, walking toward the kid in an attempt to placate the situation.
“You assaulted me!” the kid squeaks, his voice shaking, backing away from me while still clutching himself.
That stops me in my tracks. In the stark light of day, the only thing scary about this haunted house is getting arrested for assault, even if it was self-defense.
“There’s a clear sign at the entrance saying our staff won’t take abuse from customers,” he says, lifting a shaky hand in the direction I assume is the front.
I turn to Xander, expecting him to step forward and spout some fancy legalize. But instead, he grabs my hand and drags me as we break out into a run.
“Hey! Come back! I need your details to sue you!” I hear the kid squeak, but his threats are lost over the sound of Xander laughing his ass off. I can’t help it, I join in.
We run past the food vendors and the Gravitron, through a maze of baby animals, finally stopping at the Ferris wheel.
Without skipping a beat, Xander slips us into the next carriage before the attendant can even register what’s happening.
The carriage lurches forward, and the carnival disappears below us.
“What that the hell just happened?” I say when I’ve caught my breath. I can’t tell if this is the best date. Or the worst. And I realize I don’t care.
I’m having a blast.