CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
brYCE
“It’s meat… ish, Moneybags. Be brave.”
The suspiciously shiny hot dog wiggles in my hand.
Heat seeps through the wrapper, the bun is damp from steam, and some viscous goo glistens on the surface—ketchup, allegedly.
I have no clue what the protocol is here.
Do I unwrap the entire thing? Peel it like a banana? There should be instructions.
I tilt it.
Rotate it.
Sniff it.
It is—without a doubt—the most unappetizing food I’ve ever considered eating. And I once sampled casu marzu, the world’s most dangerous cheese… intentionally infested with live maggots.
“Earth to Bryce,” she sing-songs. “Food goes in mouth.”
“I have never… I don’t—” I glance down again. “It’s wet.”
“Watch and learn, B.” She parts her lips and wraps them slowly around the end of the bun, taking a deliberately slow bite. Her tongue darts out to catch a drip of relish .
“I’m experiencing… a different kind of hunger now.”
She waggles her eyebrows. “Fun first, naughty times later. Eat the damn hot dog.”
I take a breath. Tilt it… And bite.
It’s unholy. Greasy, salty, spicy. My tongue is confused and delighted. My eyes close with pleasure.
“Oh my God,” I moan loudly.
“Okay, easy there, Fifty Shades,” Petra says through a laugh. “There are children here.”
I finish it in four rapid bites. “Another!”
“Slow down. We’ve got a whole night of artery-clogging deliciousness ahead. Fried Oreos, fried funnel cakes, fried corn dogs. Sensing a theme here?”
“Explain corn dog .”
“Oh, you delicate rich boy.” She pats my cheek condescendingly. “I’m about to ruin your taste buds forever.”
That wicked smile. I’d follow her into hell.
I take her hand in mine. “All right, show me how to misbehave.”
“Careful what you wish for, B. Now, how’s your stomach handle being flipped like a pancake?”
Ten minutes later, we’re at the base of a towering beast of twisted steel and flashing lights. Petra hands the bored teenager two tickets and tugs me toward the ramp.
“I feel I should be paying,” I say, stepping onto the platform behind her. “If this is a proper date—”
“Bryce Sterling!” She whirls to face me, arms crossed. “Let go of your grip on your wallet. This is my treat. Your job is to survive without puking on me.”
“That is not particularly motivating. ”
When was the last time someone refused to let me pay? The answer is never.
Petra hoists herself up with ease while I climb in beside her awkwardly like a penguin on stilts. The seat creaks ominously.
“Pull this down till it clicks,” she instructs, locking her harness in place. “Don’t worry—only three people have died so far this year.”
“Real funny.” She’s joking. Right?
I glance at the semicircle of riders. We’re facing each other. Excellent. Not only am I about to die—I get to make eye contact with strangers while I do it.
I fumble with my restraint, the clicking mechanism rejecting my increasingly sweaty palms. Finally, it locks securely. “Why exactly is this machine called Rueda del Miedo ?”
“No clue. Sounds sexy, though.”
“ ?Rueda del Miedo! “ chirps a tiny voice beside me. “ Es … how you say… Wheel. Of. Fear!”
My seatmate can’t be older than seven. She’s sporting lopsided pigtails, light-up sneakers, and a grin so wide you’d think we were boarding a unicorn, not a death trap.
My throat closes. “I beg your pardon?”
“ Sí, sí! Very scary pero muy fun! My tío , he cry like bebé when he ride!”
Her uncle cried. A grown man cried.
“Kid, you made this experience ten times cooler.” Petra leans over me and high-fives her new best friend.
A man in a sweat-stained polo with a name tag that reads Emilio does a half-ass tug on Petra’s harness, then mine, then the little girl’s. That’s it. That’s the extent of the safety protocol.
“Perhaps I should just watch— ”
The opening guitar riff from “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC explodes from the speakers, and my escape plan dies. The ride lurches to life, and Petra lets out a full-body whoop.
“ ?Aquí vamos!” the kid yells.
The platform shudders. The curved row of passengers begins to rise. The first swing is mild—a lazy pendulum stretch. Deceptive, because then it builds.
Each new arc of movement picks up more momentum. Higher. Faster.
Forward—pressure pins me to the seat, my body’s organs protesting gravity itself.
Backward—my chest lifts, and I feel myself straining against the harness.
Then the semicircle spins.
DA-NA-NA-NA-NA. S yllables of song jibberish fill my skull as the chaos ratchets up. A teenage couple across from me starts screaming. We rotate again. We swing higher. The arc tips farther.
“Thunder!” Petra and the pigtailed girl chant in unison.
The speed intensifies, and wind rushes against my face. I can taste the sweat of my own panic.
We swing again, and, for a split second, I’m weightless. The restraints bite into my shoulders—my ass lifts clean off the chair.
Beside me, Petra laughs with untamed joy, her hair dancing in the wind, while the young girl to my left puts both hands in the air as if gravity’s just a suggestion.
Vertigo sets in. The music feels faster. The lights strobe in broken rhythm—yellow, red, purple, white, nothing. My vision blurs, and I can’t tell if the pounding in my ears is from the machine, the song, or my heart fighting to exit through my eardrums .
The hot dog— Christ! —is waging an all-out revolt against my digestive system.
And then, the contraption swings upside down.
And freezes there.
Sweet mother of God.
I’m dangling like a chandelier, white-knuckling my harness—the only thing keeping me from becoming street art on the pavement. I stare at the tiny people below, moving like ants. My stomach is in my throat. My balls? Anyone’s guess.
Don’t pass out. I’ll have to be rescued upside down with wet pants.
“Bryce!” Petra’s voice cuts through my panic. “Look at me!”
I turn my head, fighting the disorientation, and find her hanging beside me with that wild grin plastered across her face, arms dangling free.
“Let go!” she shouts over the screams.
“Absolutely not!”
“Trust me! Let go of the harness!”
“Have you lost your goddamn mind?” I grip the bar harder, my knuckles pure marble.
“ ?Sí , let go!” the tiny terrorist beside me chimes in. “?Es más divertido! More fun when you no hold!”
I’m suspended forty feet in the air. Taking life advice from a seven-year-old and a bartender.
“Bryce! Stop being a pussy. Let! Go!”
“Yeah, senor , no be pussy!”
God help me, I let go. My fingers fall away. And then—
I scream. Something inside me releases.
The spinning beast bucks beneath us. This time, a full, violent 360-degree spin. It whips around then loops again. I roar. But it’s not panic. It’s the sound of freedom.
I’ve never felt so fucking free in my entire life.
I’m soaring. Untethered from it all—the board meetings, the impossible expectations, the suffocating legacy of being Bryce Sterling. I scream like a maniac.
The second we touch the ground, I grab Petra’s hand. “Again. We’re doing that again.”
She raises an eyebrow, cheeks flushed, wind-tossed hair sticking to her red lips. “Hold on, daredevil. Pace yourself. We’ll come back. Each ride here gets two rounds. That’s the rule.”
I’m already tugging her toward the exit. “Then we better get started.”
Next up? The Scrambler. We cram into the too-small seat, thighs pressed tight.
The ride jerks to life, and suddenly we’re a streak of spinning color.
Each wild spin hurls her into me, full-body , no apology—her breath hot against my neck.
She laughs like it’s breathing, and I’m laughing too—loud, unfiltered, completely gone.
If this is what losing control feels like… maybe I’ve been doing life all wrong.
I’m obsessed.
Petra is reshaping me, pulling me into her beautiful world of chaos where anything feels possible.
We finish the bumper cars, and suddenly she’s handing me a golden mystery stick.
“Emergency corn dog!” Petra declares.
I chomp down and nearly sear off my taste buds. “OW— what the hell!”
“Rookie error, rich boy. That meat just took a swim in molten lava.” She snatches it, blows on it, then bathes it in mustard. “Now try.”
My next bite sends me into a food coma of happiness. “I can honestly say this is superior to any meal I have ever consumed.”
A blob of mustard decorates her chin, and before my gentleman’s education can stop me, I lean over and lick it clean.
Petra freezes.
I shrug. “You’re still my favorite flavor.”
Her face flushes. Then she shoves the corn dog in my mouth. “Focus, Casanova. We’ve got more spinning to do.”
The swings ride catapults us into the air. Suspended like kites on chains, we drift in wide, unhurried arcs over the carnival lights. I throw my arms wide, allowing the cool night air to slap my face. Everything transforms into a blur of lights.
I glance over. Petra’s shrieking with glee, her boots kicking like she’s dancing with gravity, and something in my chest splinters.
How does she know exactly what I need when I don’t even know?
She remembered an eight-year-old boy’s disappointment and turned it into magic. She saw through twenty-nine years of careful conditioning to the me who just wanted to be a kid at a carnival, eating junk food and screaming with friends.
She sees me.
Not the man my father engineered.
Me.
For the first time in my life, I wonder. Maybe being myself is enough.
Thirty minutes later, I have powdered sugar in places I didn’t know could get sticky. I’m not accusing Petra of lacing that funnel cake, but I’ve never inhaled anything so fast. Or with such a lack of decorum.
“Were there… narcotics in that?”
“Confectioner’s cocaine,” Petra deadpans, tearing a bite from the edge. “Highly addictive. If I let you get a second one, we’ll have to add ‘vomiting’ to our date itinerary.”
I give the food truck a final, longing glance. “You’re cruel.”
“I’m keeping you alive.”
Apparently, that includes rushing me straight to the next death machine: The Turbo Drop.