Chapter 10
“I swear to God, Oliver!” Stella exclaimed, her gaze snapping from the camera screen to her boyfriend. “If you ruin the picture one more time…”
He threw a taunting smirk in her direction. “Yeah? What are you going to do about it? Punish me? I’d be okay with that.”
Flushing, Stella turned to me for support, and I hid a smile behind my hand.
“Come on, Stella. We’ve been at this for hours,” JJ complained. “I wanna have some fun.”
“Don’t be a baby,” she told him. “It’s only been thirty minutes.”
“Yeah, thirty minutes of torture,” he grumbled dramatically.
I had to admit, I felt JJ’s pain. As soon as we’d pulled into the parking lot at Soul Harvest, Stella marched the boys over to a festival sign surrounded by straw bales and overgrown pumpkins for a photo shoot.
Which was our plan all along, but I hadn’t expected Stella to be so…
thorough. She treated her role as photographer as if I’d hired her for a job, taking shots of the band as a group and each member individually.
Then, after our tickets were scanned and we went through security, she made them repeat the process inside the front entrance as a stream of happy concertgoers populated the background.
“Hey, Stella. I bet you have plenty of great material,” I said. “Why don’t we take a break, enjoy the festival, and if need be, we can take more pictures before we leave?”
Her face fell. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” I replied, and Xander mouthed me a thank you.
She lowered her camera. “Well, I suppose.” The words were barely out of her mouth before Oliver whooped with joy and the boys broke rank.
“So where to?” JJ asked, rubbing his hands together as he looked around.
“Hold that thought.” Felicity strode off in the direction of an information booth.
Two minutes later, she returned with a map, and as she unfolded it, everyone crowded around to get a good look.
According to the map scale, there were eight stages spread across fifty acres, some big, some small.
In between the stages were icons representing beer tents, food vendors, merchandise stalls, and bathrooms.
“Look,” Xander said, jamming his finger at the page. “There’s a giant slide! Why don’t we check that out?”
“Don’t need to ask me twice,” Oliver replied, and everyone nodded in agreement.
The slide was on the opposite side of the grounds, so we set off in that direction.
While we walked, Xander and I entertained each other by pointing out our favorite costumes in the crowd.
There were your boring Halloween standards, like witches, nurses, vampires, and superheroes, but we focused on the more creative outfits like a blood-covered Patrick Bateman, an Edward Scissorhands worthy of winning a cosplay contest, and a couple dressed as Ash Ketchum and Misty.
We were halfway across the park when JJ stopped so suddenly I nearly crashed into him.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Yo, Ariel!”
Following his gaze, I spotted a group of girls dressed like Disney princesses. There was Belle, Tiana, and Jasmine, but JJ waved at a redhead in a purple seashell bra and a sparkling green mermaid skirt.
“I think we need a picture together,” he said, smirking and crooking a finger at her.
Ariel spared him a brief glance before turning back to her friends, but then Tiana whispered something in her ear, and she turned back to JJ.
A small smile inched onto her face as she looked him up and down.
Sure, JJ’s face currently resembled Ursula, but even I understood why someone might appreciate the rest of him; he was wearing a pair of fitted jeans and a sleeveless Nirvana shirt that left his broad shoulders, muscular arms, and tattoo on full display.
Minus the makeup, he looked like the kind of guy that protective fathers everywhere had to chase off with a shotgun.
“Hi, I’m Alice,” Ariel said, stepping forward.
JJ grinned. “JJ Morris.”
My mouth dropped open at his declaration—how could he tell her his name with no thought for the hours I’d spent trying to conceal the boys’ identities?—but Alice laughed and rolled her eyes. “No, really. What’s your name?”
“Well, I thought it was obvious,” JJ said, smoothing a hand over the bangs of his white wig.
“I’m Ursula, misunderstood antihero and cunning businesswoman.
Not to mention badass sea witch. Not sure what’s wrong with your memory, but you’re Ariel.
Youngest daughter of King Triton? Traded your voice to me for a pair of legs?
And can I just say they’re looking stunning in that skirt today? ”
“Honestly,” Stella grumbled under her breath.
“We can’t take him anywhere. He’s such a perv.
” But her annoyance didn’t last long. Alice seemed flattered by JJ’s comment, so she agreed to a picture, and the prospect of another photo shoot cheered Stella up.
Soon she was beckoning Alice’s friends over, declaring that everyone in a Disney costume needed to be in the shot, then barking orders to position everyone.
She didn’t even care that Belle latched onto her boyfriend as if she planned on stealing him away.
Twenty minutes later, after parting ways with the princess squad, stopping for another photo shoot with a group of frat guys in kigurumi, and crossing the rest of the grounds, our destination came into view.
The first thing I noticed about the slide was that it looked like a giant wavy rainbow.
Riders could pick from six tracks—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple—that plunged into four steep drops on the way to the ground.
The second thing I noticed was that despite droves of attendees, there didn’t appear to be anyone waiting in line.
Which was probably due to the daunting number of steps one would have to climb.
Or maybe it was the price? Ten dollars for a single ride seemed pricey to me.
This didn’t bother Oliver though. He pulled out his wallet, slapped two one-hundred-dollar bills on the counter of the ticket booth, and told the lady inside to give him his money’s worth.
She raised a brow but counted out twenty tickets and slid them under the glass.
We made our way through a turnstile and toward the base of the steps, where a second person was accepting tickets in exchange for felt mats.
“I’m staying here,” Stella said, pointing to the bottom of the slide. “I want to get more pictures.”
Oliver rolled his eyes but shrugged. “Whatever. More rides for me.”
“Make sure to read the rules,” the man announced in a monotone voice as we started our ascent.
The rules he’d referred to were listed on separate, equidistant signs along the climb in bright red capitals letters.
Things like MUST BE 48 INCHES OR TALLER TO RIDE!
and NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SLIDE! For safety reasons, the signs also warned us to ride sitting up with our legs straight, not to hold hands or lock arms with other riders, and to remain on our mats until we came to a complete stop.
Everyone was winded when we reached the top, but we were rewarded with a stunning view of Soul Harvest, the festival grounds spread out before us like a jumbo version of Felicity’s map.
“Christ,” Xander gasped, extracting an inhaler from his back pocket. “How many steps was that?”
“Two hundred and fourteen,” said another employee. He appeared to be in charge of manning the top of the slide but had barely glanced up from his phone when we crested the last step. “You guys can pick any track you want and go when you’re ready.”
Wanting purple, I crossed the length of the platform and laid out my mat on the far track. As I took a seat, Xander claimed the blue one beside me.
“Wow,” he said, peering over the edge. “That’s a much steeper drop than what it looks like from the ground.”
I turned to him in surprise. “Not scared of heights, are you?”
“Petrified,” he said, struggling to subdue a smile. “Will you hold my hand on the way down?”
It was only a joke, yet my heart gave a sudden thump against my chest at his question. “Wish I could,” I answered in what I hoped was an equally teasing manner. “Honestly, I’m crushed, but it’s against the rules. Didn’t you read them on the way up?”
“No, actually. I was too busy trying to breathe.”
“Ah, well, that’s understandable,” I said. “Priorities and all that.”
“Everyone in position?” Oliver called, taking a quick survey of our line. We were. “All right then. On your marks,” he said, rocking back and forth like he was on a luge. “Get set… Go!”
Grabbing both sides of the track, I pushed myself forward.
Gravity took hold, and as I plummeted toward the ground at a stomach-dropping speed, I threw my arms in the air and let out a scream of exhilaration.
Much to my surprise, I was the first to reach the bottom, followed closely by JJ.
Oliver came in third, and he didn’t look too pleased about either of us beating him.
“Let’s go again,” he said, holding up his stash of tickets, a competitive glint in his eyes.
“Pass,” Felicity answered, knees wobbling as she stood. “I’m going to keep both feet planted firmly on the ground, but you guys have fun.”
“Same,” Xander said, tossing both his and Felicity’s mats into a return pile. “If I climb those stairs again, my lungs might actually catch fire.”
I couldn’t help it when my eyebrows drew together. You okay? I mouthed to him.
My concern must have been amusing, because Xander smirked.
He hooked a long, elegant finger around my belt loop and tugged me forward.
Lips against my ear, he whispered, “Totally fine. Ripe old age of ninety-five, remember? Make them eat your dust.” Then he gave me a gentle push in the direction of the stairs.
Too stunned to do anything other than move on autopilot, I tackled each step with the efficiency of a robot, my face in flames from Xander’s sudden proximity.