Chapter 19 #2
It’s adorable that she still doesn’t realize the control she has over me. Staten Renault needs to come with a warning label, and I need to become more adept at heeding caution. The ear-to-ear beam overtaking her lips is more rewarding than breaking the carnival’s cheap game.
The bear dwarfs her when she nestles it into her arms. I know this will sound beyond Neanderthal, but there’s something gratifying about being able to provide for the person you care about.
And if Staten wanted a prize from every game at this goddamn carnival, I’d spend the rest of the night making sure she got her wish.
Luckily, though, she caps her game quota at one, and we hit up a cart that specializes in fried desserts and cotton candy, toothsome to the rest of the group yet unwise for me given the insomniac nerves that have begun their nightly sweep of my body.
Where’s an exorcist when you need one? I’ve got a demon of self-mediocrity that hasn’t given me a break since I was six and lost my first youth hockey game.
I’ve never seen Staten so happy to get a cavity before. She orders the largest cotton candy off the menu, and I make sure to pay for it before she has the chance to fight me on it.
At last, a tornado of pink fluff is plopped into her hands as I accept partial custody of Mr. Cuddles and place him on my shoulders.
She tears off a radioactive-looking tuft and offers it to me. “Do you want some?”
My ribs are a steel trap around my barely beating heart. “I’m good, thanks. You enjoy it.”
“Suit yourself.”
Staten lays a piece of cotton candy on the flat of her tongue, letting the sugar follicles dissolve like breath on frosted glass. A little bit of pink-tinted drool sluices down her chin, a moan shaking loose from her perfect, pouty lips—a moan that brings me to a fever-pitch I can’t abate.
Her tongue peeks out to dart at the mess she’s made, gliding over flawless skin in a purely languishing stroke. I can’t take my eyes off her, which won’t fare well for the way my cock is starting to pitch a four-person tent in my pants.
She’s just eating, Knox. Don’t be so perverted. Oh my God, have I been staring at her this whole time? She probably thinks I’m a creep because…because I am!
Staten begins to suck her fingers clean, unaware of the hell that she’s currently putting me through, her eyes closed in utter satisfaction—a goddess indulging in the finest ambrosia, lounging over an ottoman in the cloud-studded heart of Olympus.
My stomach flip-flops, my brain is fried, and anyone in the immediate vicinity can tell that I’ve been bewitched by my tutor-turned-fake-girlfriend. It’s taking everything inside me not to push her up against a wall and lick the sugar straight off her mouth.
“You know, for someone who I spend most of my time with, I don’t know that much about your family,” she comments with her mouth half full.
I blink out of my trance, trying to adjust the crotch of my jeans as discreetly as possible. Thankfully, Staten is too busy staring diabetic death in the face to pay much notice to our uninvited guest.
I look around to find that the majority of our squad has been beckoned by a churro stand a few ways down the road. My home life isn’t really a group discussion, if you know what I mean.
Nerves weld my throat shut. “What’s there to know? My dad is a dick.”
“Do you have any siblings?”
“I have a sister, Livia, but we aren’t that close. At least, not anymore,” I tell her, a distant sadness pulling at my voice.
A frown tarnishes Staten’s face, and she backpedals. “I’m sorry, Knox.”
“It’s okay. She’s just living her life, and she’s always busy, you know? I don’t expect her to make time for me.”
“But she should. People should always make time for family.”
If only it was that easy.
I really don’t feel like spending the night talking about my fucked-up family, but I don’t have it in me to switch the subject. Staten means well. She’s genuinely interested in getting to know more about me. This is her way of making an effort.
“Mine is a little unconventional, if you haven’t noticed.”
She nods, running her thumb along the rim of the paper cone. “Mine is too. My dad, well, he left when my mom found out she was pregnant with me. It’s just been the two of us ever since.”
God, what a pathetic excuse for a father.
Seriously, who does that? Who just up and leaves because they can’t take responsibility for their own actions?
Who devotes their body and time and love to another human being just to rip it away?
Staten didn’t deserve to be abandoned. Her mother didn’t deserve to raise a child all on her own.
Anger—the kind that’s grown teeth—steamrolls over me. “He left? Jesus, Staten. I’m so sorry. What a fucking piece of shit.”
There are a lot of other insults I have for him, but I don’t think Staten told me about her past to watch me blow my top.
She flaps her hand dispassionately. “It’s alright. I think my life would be worse if he was in it, honestly. Anyone who dips at the first sign of trouble and rescinds their love isn’t someone I want to associate with.”
I think back to the conversation I had with her during one of our many tutoring sessions. She’s always been so guarded with her emotions—so hesitant to let people in. The pieces are finally starting to fall into place.
“Temporariness,” I recall.
“My greatest enemy. That and a Costco-sized bag of pumpkin-shaped Reese’s,” she says with a chuckle.
Harlan’s voice, unfortunately, pulls me back to the present. It seems as if they’ve returned from their detour. “Hey, you guys want to ride the roller coaster next?”
An undertone of fear makes itself known, and Staten taps her foot against the ground like she’s studied the anatomy of her anxiety extensively. “That roller coaster? You mean the one that looks like it was jerry-built on toothpicks and dreams?”
“I’m sure it’s just for aesthetic reasons,” Merit says.
Staten scoots closer to me, as if I have the power to protect her from some Final Destination-esque death sequence. “I’m, uh, not big on roller coasters. But you guys should go ahead! Yeah, I can wait here. I’m good with waiting.”
With Mr. Cuddles still riding on my shoulders, I use my arm to pull her into a side hug, trying to provide a safety checkpoint for her and her fairly rational fears. “Staten is just being nice and covering for me. I hate roller coasters,” I lie.
When she looks up at me, the gratitude in her eyes makes the heavy stone in my belly lighten. Gratitude reminiscent of a castaway finally finding land after days adrift.
The truth is, I’m a thrill seeker through and through. I love shit that’s dangerous. It makes me feel alive, you know? It’s probably why I’m so inclined to test all these limits between me and Staten, because I have no sense of self-preservation.
Crew tilts his head in confusion. “But I thought you liked—”
My voice jumps to a prepubescent, pitchy squawk. “NO! No. I…nope. I’ve always hated them. Something about the drops and stuff. They mess with my stomach.”
Crew, Merit, Harlan, and Irelyn all stare at me like I just admitted to murder. Good to know that I can’t rely on any of them if I ever need help disposing of a dead body.
“O-kay then. We’ll just meet you guys back here once we’re done.”
Still squeezing the life out of Staten, I adhere my fakest smile and wave my friends off, my whole body sagging with relief once their silhouettes vault into the night.
She breaks free from our weird side hug, then whips around to face me, eyes squinted. “Did you just lie to cover for me?”
“What? Of course not.” I feel like she’s cornered me into a kill zone, and I’m on the other end of her rusty catch pole.
“But—I—”
Before she can finish her sentence, I think fast and drag her toward the funhouse a few feet away, clamping down on Mr. Cuddles’s leg to keep him from flying off from the momentum.
She yelps and falls into step behind me, clinging to the cone of her cotton candy with the headstrong ambition to not waste my perfectly good five dollars.
“Where the hell are we going?!” she shrieks.
“It’s a surprise! You’ll love it. Or hate it. Who knows!”
I’m not kidding when I tell you that the funhouse looks like some undercover moniker for hell itself.
The exterior is a two-story building with a large, checkered awning hanging over the entrance, bookended by two unnerving clown statues on either side.
The color scheme is comprised of gaudy neons that could probably be spotted from space, naked lightbulbs are popcorned along an obnoxious trim, and flags of varying sizes have been affixed to the ridges of the roof, looking down on customers like sentinels stationed in watchtowers.
Call it destiny or coincidence, but I, Knox Mulligan, have been strumming the strings of fate to carve out this moment of uninterrupted privacy with Staten. And I have my patience to thank for outlasting life’s nuisances.
The moment we step into the building, divisions of S-shaped mirrors enclose us, warping reality as we know it, bending light and compressing our reflections as a dozen Statens populate before my very eyes.
“Why are we in here?” she pants, trying to catch her breath.
“I just wanted to go somewhere quiet with you.”
“You did?”
I lower Mr. Cuddles, hanging on to his arm and dropping him by my side. “Staten, I—”
She situates herself in front of me, elongating that delicious length of her neck where I’ve fantasized about leaving my mark for everyone to see.
My heart palpitates. I’m a creature of habit, and right now, my instincts are telling me to fog up the glass with our bodies, sink my teeth into the soft parts of her until she’s keening from my touch alone, and splay her out like a buffet spread for hundreds of mirrors to reflect our indecency in blinding HD.
Staten interrupts me. “Knox, I—what I feel for you…it’s something I can’t make sense of. I’ve been trying to suppress it, but you keep being you and doing all these sweet things and—and I don’t know how much longer I can pretend like there’s nothing between us.”
Is this another daydream of mine that grossly mischaracterizes Staten? This can’t be real. I feel like I’ve waited forever to hear those words come out of her mouth. How do I even respond to that? Do I question the authenticity and risk popping my utopic bubble?
It’s suddenly ten degrees hotter in here.
“What about Leif?” I can’t believe I’m even bringing up that dick when Staten might be confessing her feelings for me.
Her cotton candy falls to the floor—splatting against polished tile—and she brings her body close enough to mine that touching her isn’t an unrealistic facet of my dreams anymore.
It’s Pavlovian the way my mouth waters to taste her kiss, the way my arms hover until they receive the green light to crush her against my chest.
“I don’t want Leif,” she enunciates, refusing to break eye contact.
I see my teaching skills have been put to good use.
She doesn’t want Leif? Did I miss a chapter? I don’t know what to think right now, and it doesn’t help that all the blood in my head is rushing for the other head.
Pressure coalesces at the apex of my thighs, my heart ticking so loudly that I’m afraid she can hear it in the stillness of the maze. This is the same girl who practically treated the distance between us like it was court ordered. And I, in good faith, did the same.
“Where is this coming from?” I ask.
“I guess…I guess I’ve always sort of felt this way?
I don’t know. It’s hard to come to terms with something that I never planned for.
I thought Leif was my end goal, but then you, Knox, you got under my skin with your little jabs and your careful wordplay, and I didn’t want to ruin our relationship by not being truthful with you.
You’ve been so patient with me, so understanding.
You’ve been there for me when I needed you the most. I didn’t want you to think that I never considered the possibility of us being something more, because trust me, I did. ”
“I don’t want you to think that you have to suddenly start liking me because I’ve been nice to you, Staten. You don’t owe me anything. Would I be more than ecstatic if you wanted to pursue something real? Of course I fucking would. But none of this is some debt you have to pay off.”
“I don’t think that at all. I feel it. Against my better judgment to protect myself from every emotion under the sun, I feel something for you.
And it terrifies me. Leif is the safe option, the familiar one.
You—you’re a risk that I’m willing to take, no matter how it might end.
I just wish it didn’t take me so long to realize it. ”
I can smell the sweetness on her breath—can imagine the winding hills of her supple curves trapped beneath my hungry fingers. “Ace, if things happen between us, I don’t think I’ll be able to control myself.”
Staten ascends on her tiptoes, brushing my nose with hers. In this single moment, the walls fly away and strand us under a moonlit sky, a chiaroscuro of shadows playing hide-and-seek amongst her heavenly bone structure.
“Then don’t.”