Chapter 11
The next booth over turns out to be basketball, and I grin.
I won’t even have to pretend to be bad at this one. I can lose all on my own.
Once again, Orien gets his money on the table before I can pull out my wallet, and the teenager brings us a basketball. “Three throws each.”
“You first this time,” Orien says, motioning to the line on the ground.
I grab the ball and lob the first shot wide. The second clips the rim and bounces away.
Before I can reach for the third ball, Orien steps up behind me, the warmth of his body surrounding mine.
“Elbow in,” he murmurs next to my ear and adjusts my arm.
His thumb grazes the inside of my wrist as he steps back, and for a moment I lose track of what I’m supposed to be doing as I toss the ball.
“No!” I shout as it swishes through the net.
The teenager gives an impressed whistle, while I glare at my own hand as if it betrayed me.
“My turn.”
Orien steps back to the line, picks up the first ball, and misses. The second follows. He takes a long moment with the third and misses that one, too.
He turns to me with a triumphant tilt to his chin. “Guess I’m buying funnel cake.”
“We’re tied,” I grit out through clenched teeth and grab his arm, dragging him to the ring toss booth that’s next in line.
This time, I’m ready, and I slap five one-dollar bills onto the counter before Orien can pull out his money. My victory earns me a scowl, and I take the rings from the teenager with a little wiggle of happiness at having won one over on the Alpha.
I throw first, aiming for the blue bottle with the lowest point, according to the scoreboard hung behind the counter. The ring catches the rim, bounces off to the side, and wobbles on the lip of the neighboring bottle before settling clean over the red top.
The teenager blinks at it before looking up at the board, where red is shown to have the highest score of them all.
“That doesn’t count,” I protest. “I was aiming for the blue.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Orien says. “It landed.”
I grab his arm, giving it a shake. “That’s not fair! I didn’t earn it!”
“The sign doesn’t say anything about intention.” He gestures at the hand-lettered board. “It says land the ring.”
I straighten, arms folding across my chest, and glare at the bottle as if it wronged me.
Orien picks up his first ring, studies his options, and throws toward a green bottle surrounded by yellows. Even if it bounces onto one of the neighbors, the points will be lower than my current score. The ring clips his target, rattles around, and falls between two bottles.
I step up, aiming for the same green bottle, and my second ring bounces to ping off the back wall. Orien’s second attempt nets him a blue bottle, which he wasn’t aiming for, based on his quiet curse. I land a yellow on my third try, and Orien lands another blue.
The teenager points to the lower-level prizes of small stuffed animals. “Which one do you want? You can trade them for upgrades at other booths if you have enough points.”
“Oh, no.” I wave my hands in protest. “I don’t need—”
“The fox,” Orien cuts in and turns to me. “It’s cute.”
A blush warms my cheeks, and I accept the cheap toy.
As I hold the stuffed fox close, the corners of Orien’s mouth twitch as if he’s trying not to smile outright.
“What?” I demand.
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“It suits you.”
I glare at him. “You did this on purpose.”
“You won it, fair and square.”
“It was a complete accident, and you know it.”
“A win’s a win.”
I huff and clutch the fox tighter anyway, because it’s soft and warm from sitting under the booth lights, and because Orien picked it out for me.
The Alpha gestures toward the food stalls lining the far side of the fairgrounds. “All right, I’m declaring myself the loser.”
“You are?”
“I missed every basketball shot.”
“You also cheated by distracting me.”
“Sounds like a skill issue.”
A giggle escapes before I can stop myself, and Orien reacts as though I’ve handed him something precious.
“Come on, trouble.” He jerks his head toward the row of food vendors. “I owe you funnel cake.”
With every step, the scent intensifies, hot oil and sugar thick in the chilly morning air. A few people already crowd the booth, bundled in coats while steam curls from paper cups of coffee in their hands.
Orien takes up position beside me in line, his broad shoulders blocking the wind.
I stare out across the fair while we wait. Kids sprint between booths, clutching oversized stuffed animals while carnival music crackles through old speakers, slightly warped and too loud.
It’s ridiculous.
Cheap.
A little run-down.
And I’m having more fun than I’ve had in years.
Orien nudges my shoulder lightly with his own. “Do you hate it?”
The question pulls me out of my thoughts. “What?”
“The fair.” The remark comes out light, but the concern beneath it isn’t. “You’ve gone quiet.”
I look back toward the Ferris wheel turning slowly beneath the pale morning sky. “No, I don’t hate it.”
His chest vibrates with a rumble of discontent. “A glowing endorsement.”
“No, I mean it.” I hug my stuffed fox closer. “I’m having fun.”
The rumble deepens, and I find myself inching closer to the sound.
Orien doesn’t say anything else. He just stands beside me with quiet contentment vibrating out of him while the line inches forward.
It does strange things to my heart, and somewhere between joining the line and ordering, my arm ends up pressed against his.
“One funnel cake,” Orien tells the woman at the fryer. “Extra powdered sugar.”
I gasp. “That’s going to be so messy.”
“I’ll clean you up.”
The comment warms my cheeks again as Orien pays for my prize.
A few minutes later, the woman hands over a paper tray piled high with fried dough beneath a mountain of powdered sugar.
Heat seeps through the paper as Orien passes it to me. “Careful, it’s hot.”
He grabs a pile of napkins, and we move off to the side to leave space for the next person to pick up their order.
“Want to check out the craft booths while you eat?”
“Sure,” I say, already picking off a hot piece of fried dough. I shove it into my mouth, and the outside crackles while the inside stays soft and steaming.
“Oh my god,” I moan around the bite.
Amusement flickers across Orien’s features as I immediately reach for another.
And another as I wiggle with pleasure.
“At this rate, I’m going to develop a complex about fried dough,” he says.
“Mind your business.”
“You have sugar all over your mouth.”
“I do not.”
“You do.”
I try to wipe at my mouth with the back of my hand, but Orien catches my wrist before I can.
“Hold still.”
Instead of using the pile of napkins he holds, his thumb brushes the corner of my mouth, and my breath hitches.
The fair keeps going around us, shouts going up as someone wins a game, and a child shrieks nearby, but none of it reaches me as his thumb skims over my bottom lip, gathering more of the powdered sugar.
When he pulls back, his eyes hold mine as he slides his thumb into his mouth.
My stomach clenches in response. “Orien—”
He moves before I finish his name, one of his hands finds my hip, and he walks me back one step, two, until my back meets one of the support posts. His hand slips under my cardigan to splay warm over my ribs, and as his mouth slants over mine, the funnel cake hits the ground.
He kisses me slowly, as if time belongs to us. I grab the front of his jacket with both fists, the stuffed fox somewhere on the ground with the funnel cake. When his tongue traces my bottom lip, finding the last traces of powdered sugar, I whine into his mouth.
Orien kisses as he does everything else. Controlled. Intentional. Thorough. His tongue sweeps once across the corner of my mouth, then again, unhurried, as if he has every intention of accounting for each grain of sugar before he’s done.
When he finally pulls back, my lips throb, and I struggle to draw air into my lungs.
He licks my bottom lip one last time. “Sweet.”
I blink up at him, a little dazed, and frown in confusion as he crouches in front of me. When he picks up my fallen fox and dusts it off, I spot my abandoned funnel cake and whimper in protest.
“Don’t worry, trouble.” Orien rises and places the fox back in my arms. “I’ll buy you all the funnel cake you desire.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to demand a fresh one right away, especially if it means more of those kisses, but Orien takes my hand and tugs me back into the thick of the fair, and an artist’s booth draws my attention.
We meander through the craft booths before heading back to the game side, stopping at each booth to play. I win the balloon pop, while Orien wins the bean bag toss, and we both become a little too invested in the whack-a-mole.
At some point, my small fox becomes a big fox, and I find myself grinning as I drag Orien from one game to the next.
The games eventually give way to rides, and Orien balks at the roller coaster. “That thing is a death trap.”
“Come on!” I tug on his arm. “I’ve never been on a roller coaster!”
The ride operator, a man in his fifties with a patchy beard and a worn name tag, takes our money, gives us a tag for the fox, which goes into a cubby behind him, and directs us to the last car. We sit side by side, the safety bar lowering across our laps with a clank.
“I don’t like heights,” Orien mutters, the words so quiet I almost miss them over the creak of the track as we start our jerky ascent.
“Too late!” I shout as we arrive at the top.
I raise my arms into the air as we teeter for a moment, and Orien throws his arm across my torso as the front car vanishes over the edge, dragging the rest of us behind.
A scream rips from my throat, followed by a laugh, and I throw my head back, reveling in the wind whipping through my hair.
As we whip around the next curve, I grip the safety bar, laughing as my body slams into Orien’s side.
When I peek at the Alpha beside me, a smile tugs at his lips, and his hand covers mine on the safety bar, holding it in place.