Chapter 18
Astrid
I thumbed through pages, scanning last summer festivals’ attendance numbers, vendor profits and losses, and notes on the town’s complaints, and survey notes.
“There was nothing cool for us. Just kids' stuff and boring competitions” - Jacob, Ashbourne High School
“I saw someone literally dump sugar into their lemonade last second, and they still won. Judges are being unfair” - Matilda, baker
“The prizes for the competitions were lame—just cheap gift cards” -Tyler, sack race winner
“The food was way overpriced. $6 for a hotdog? - Wendy, resident
“My friends and I volunteered to help, but the organizers didn't assign us any tasks” - Lisa, Ashbourne High School
“Loki?” Kelly teased, walking out of the kitchen holding up the ice cream tub I’d stashed in the freezer. She sat on the couch beside me. “You seriously called him Loki?”
I’d called Kelly the second I got home from the Ashbourne’s, asking her to come over the minute she was done with work, but I’d avoided mentioning anything that happened there. If I had, she'd instantly have switched into interrogation mode before I could even catch my breath.
Aeron had already left me breathless enough. I didn’t want another.
Of course, Kelly being Kelly and completely unable to hide her curiosity, she was knocking on my door barely five minutes later, demanding answers.
I reached for a scoop, but she jerked the tub out of my reach, clutching it like it was the last pint on earth. Gluttonous bear. “Leave some for the person who actually bought it!”
“I needed this whole tub of ice cream just to recover from the Aeron-is-No-Talk-Timmy reveal,” Kelly said, brandishing her spoon like a tiny weapon. “But Loki, Azzie? Really? You couldn't have stretched your imagination just a tiny bit more?”
“Still better than you confidently assuring me he was out in the jungles digging up soil,” I shot back.
I wondered if Aeron had any idea that half of Orange Falls cooked up their own stories about what exactly he was doing in the forest. A Nat Geo photographer reduced to digging soil. I almost felt sorry for his profession.
Kelly waved her spoon. “Hey, blame Aunt Dee for that. I’m just repeating what I heard.
” She scooped another bite into her mouth.
“Honestly, Aeron’s always been the type who says three words when you expect ten.
He has been a closed book, even back in school.
When you’re that secretive, and an Ashbourne, no less, people fill in the blanks however they want. ”
Orange Falls had exactly two schools, so it wasn’t particularly surprising that Kelly and Aeron attended the same one.
A closed book since school. It wasn't hard to picture Aeron that way, quiet and reserved.
“Why secretive?” The question slipped out absentmindedly, before my mind could catch up. But I did want to know. Those eyes of his, they seemed to hold a hundred secrets all at once, yet they revealed nothing.
“Hard to say. He’s just always been that way.” Kelly shrugged lightly. “After his dad passed away, he rarely came back home. If he hadn’t given us that ride, and if you hadn’t told me today that No-Talk Timmy is Aeron, I wouldn’t have even known he was back in town.”
Now that I thought about it, I remembered Mabel’s eyes going soft and sad when she mentioned her husband.
I wanted to ask Kelly more about Aeron’s dad but held back.
Knowing how private Aeron was, prying into his family life, even indirectly, felt like stepping into a room I'd never been invited into.
I turned my attention back to the file. “Last year’s summer festival seems to have left a bad taste.”
“Don’t even remind me.” Kelly shuddered.
“I'm still traumatized from the lemonade. It tasted like dish soap.” She scrunched her nose to emphasize the horror of the memory.
“Hang on, my comment has to be in there somewhere.” She peered into the file, but no matter how hard we looked, her review was nowhere to be found.
“Obviously, they removed it,” Kelly rolled her eyes. “Guess the town council couldn’t handle a little brutal honesty.”
“You’re the mayor’s daughter, Kel,” I pointed out. “Pretty sure the council considered your honest review as bad PR.”
Kelly groaned. “Rookie mistake. I should've gone under a fake name. Maybe something believable like Lemonade Victim .”
I laughed, shaking my head. “What exactly does the town expect from a festival?” I muttered, clicking my pen on and off. Sure, the complaints told me plenty about what went wrong but nothing about what people actually wanted, what would genuinely make them excited again.
Kelly was the place to start.
“Alright, Kel,” I glanced at her. “As my unofficial festival ambassador, tell me, what’s on your festival wish list this year? And don’t start with lemonade. I promise it won’t taste like dish soap this time.”
“Something different.” Kelly set the ice cream tub down on the table, her face shifting into one of seriousness. “I’ve tossed rings onto bottles and popped balloons at the same carnival booths since I was six. It’s like living the same summer on repeat. I want creative games this year.”
“And?” I prompted, already mentally scribbling down notes.
Kelly rattled off her list of complaints: pancake-bland food, carnival games older than both of us combined, cheap stuffed animal prizes, music at eardrum-shattering volume. And then she talked about the overcrowded Ferris wheel, and some Orange Falls legend….
I paused, thumb stilling mid-click. “Legend?”
“Oh, you haven’t heard this yet?” Kelly’s eyes brightened, savoring the chance to educate me. “If a couple kisses at the very top of the Ferris wheel and it starts raining at that exact moment, they're destined to stay together forever, or so the town’s legend says.”
I stared at her for a second, processing. “That legend sounds…odd. What happens if it rains but you’re alone up there? Eternal loneliness?”
Kelly rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Azzie. No singles—or soon-to-be-exes—are climbing onto that Ferris wheel.”
I nodded. Kelly was right. Nobody wants to gamble with ending up as the cat lady. “Who started this?”
“I think.” Kelly folded her legs beneath her and scooping another bite of ice cream, “it started maybe a hundred years ago. There was this couple right on the edge of divorce, who decided for whatever reason, to take one last ride on the Ferris wheel. Sort of a bittersweet goodbye. When they got to the top, they kissed, and it started raining. They never went through with the divorce and supposedly lived happily ever after. The whole town took it as a blessing from heaven. Aunt Dee, though, says the Ferris wheel operator cooked up the story just to sell more tickets.”
Silly town myth. Not that it mattered to me. It wasn’t like I’d be kissing anyone on that Ferris wheel.
“Azzie, are you sure about working with Aeron?” Kelly eyed me skeptically. “A whole month with him? I'm worried you'll turn just as grumpy and mysterious. I don't think Orange Falls can handle two Aerons.”
“Even if I tried my hardest, I could never achieve Aeron-level grumpiness, Kel, so don’t worry.”
He’d helped me a lot, offering us that ride, saving me from the train, rescuing me from my trash-can humiliation, even quietly covering for me when I was bad-mouthing him in front of his mom, but not before making sure I suffered enough first.
He wasn’t bad. Just moody. And prickly. And had loads of attitude. Okay, fine—a truckload of attitude. If I accidentally lit a match, he'd return fire with a flamethrower.
How was I supposed to survive a month with him?
After Kelly left, I stayed up absorbed in the festival file. An hour later, I put it aside and grabbed my phone. I checked Aeron’s website until my eyes gave up and shut on their own.
The next day flew by: Researching, planning out what to discuss with Mabel, handling a call from the LA mom about the wedding, and then meeting another couple who showed up at my place, making me realize my table setup wasn’t going to cut it as an office anymore.
By evening, I'd emailed Mabel the festival proposal and quote. I texted her just in case emails weren’t her thing.
After that, I crashed into the bed.
I forced my heavy eyelids open at the sound of the doorbell, silently cursing the inventor of doorbells and whoever was currently abusing mine.
Kelly. Of course. I'm going to kill her. Maybe I should give her the spare keys, or else she'd torture me every morning, ringing at the doorbell like a woodpecker.
I dragged myself out of bed, rubbing my eyes, and stumbled toward the door.
I opened the door mid-yawn, silently promising myself I'd give Kelly an earful the second I stopped yawning.
Eyes still blurry with sleep, I squinted at the figure standing there and immediately snapped my hand up to hide the rest of my yawn.
Even through my blurry vision, it was painfully obvious the person standing there wasn't Kelly.
My brain needed a solid five seconds to process what I was seeing.
First, Kelly grew a foot taller.
Second, my stomach dropped.
Third, Realization that it’s no Kelly.
OH MY GOD, IT’S AERON.
I'd just given him a front-row seat to my tonsils.
He knew my house!
“Your eyes seemed to have baked some fresh crust overnight.”
My hands immediately flew up in panic, and I scrubbed my eyes.
“And some drool,” he added helpfully.
I don't drool. I know I don't, but my hand shot up to my mouth anyway, panic overriding logic.
No drool.
“Aeron!” I yelled, furious at being played. I spun around, shouting over my shoulder as I ran to my room. “You’re such an ass . I hope you step on a Lego!”
“And also fix that Medusa hair, Dizzytrid.”
I grabbed the closest thing, my pencil binder, and hurled it straight at his smug face. “Go to hell.”
I slammed the bedroom door shut, his voice still echoing in my ears.
My hands flew to my hair in horror.
What state am I in?