Chapter 21
Greyson
The spring carnival behind the middle school is exactly what you’d expect.
String lights. A small Ferris wheel. Booths with ring toss and balloon darts. The smell of fried dough and popcorn in the air.
Clara actually gasps as a juggler passes by.
“This is so wholesome,” she says, the serious moment we shared behind us now.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“No,” she laughs. “I just haven’t been to something like this in years.”
We walk slowly through the crowd.
People stare—but not in a bad way. More like they’re cataloging something new.
Greyson Cole. In public. With a woman.
Clara nudges me. “You’re being observed.”
“Let ’em,” I mutter.
She stops at a cotton candy stand.
“You ever had this?” she asks.
“I’m not twelve,” I reply.
She arches a brow. “That’s not an answer.”
I buy one anyway.
The vendor hands over a cloud of spun sugar the size of her head.
Clara tears off a piece, pops it in her mouth, and her face goes soft with delight.
“This,” she declares, “is happiness.”
I tear off a piece myself.
It melts instantly.
Sticky. Ridiculous.
She laughs at the sugar stuck in my beard.
“Hold still,” she says, reaching up.
Her fingers brush my jaw as she swipes it away.
The contact is small.
But it’s intimate.
I take a piece of cotton candy and hold it up to her lips.
“Open,” I say quietly.
She hesitates, then parts her mouth.
I feed it to her slowly.
Her tongue flicks out slightly to catch the last strands, and my brain momentarily shuts down.
She swallows, eyes darkening just a fraction.
“Careful,” she murmurs. “You’re playing with fire.”
I lean in closer. “I already did that.”
The sound of balloons popping from nearby catches her attention, and we wait for our turn to play.
The game goes fast, and Clara wins.
She’s so cute. She chooses a tiny pink teddy bear.
But instead of keeping it, Trouble goes and gives it to a little girl who’s near to tears after losing.
“Here, honey, this is for you,” she tells the child.
“Really? Mommy! Mommy look!”
The mother thanks us, and Clara waves goodbye.
Of course she gives her prize away. Sweet, thoughtful woman.
We’re halfway through the carnival, lights blinking overhead, the hum of generators and laughter wrapping around us, when I ask it.
“So,” I say, nudging her shoulder lightly with mine, “did you want to be a teacher or something?”
She looks up at me, puzzled. “What?”
“English degree,” I clarify. “That’s usually the pipeline, right?”
She snorts softly. “God, no.”
I grin. “That bad?”
“It’s not bad,” she says quickly. “It’s just everyone assumes that. English degree equals classroom.” She shakes her head, curls bouncing. “I didn’t want to teach.”
“What did you want?”
She hesitates.
And I see it—the flicker. The vulnerability.
“I wanted to be a writer,” she says finally, quieter now.
The way she says it makes it sound like a confession.
Like she’s admitting to something unrealistic. Childish. Impossible.
I study her face in the carnival glow. There’s a faint blush creeping across her cheeks.
“You say that like it’s embarrassing,” I tell her.
She shrugs, looking down at her shoes. “It’s not embarrassing. It’s just na?ve.”
“Na?ve?” I repeat.
She laughs softly, self-deprecating.
“Everyone wants to write a book at some point. It’s like saying you want to be a rockstar or an astronaut.”
“Yeah but, you did it.” I say, genuinely surprised.
“What?”
“You have to be the first person I know who actually did what they set out to do.”
She stops walking and looks up at me. “What?”
“You wanted to write. You write.”
“No,” she counters immediately. “I wanted to write books.”
There’s a difference in her mind. I can see it.
Blog posts are different. Controlled. Measured.
Books are bigger. Riskier.
“I’ve been reading your blog, Clara,” I say.
Her head snaps toward me. “You have?”
I nod.
Her eyes go wide.
And something warm unfurls low in my chest at that look.
Surprise. A little awe. A little fear.
“You read it?” she repeats, like she’s trying to decide if I’m joking.
“Every post I could find,” I admit. “You’re good.”
She stares at me like I just told her the sky is green.
“You’re not just good,” I add. “You’re honest. You don’t hide behind pretty language. You say what you mean. That’s rare.”
She swallows.
The carnival noise fades for me for a second.
“If you want to write books,” I continue, holding her gaze, “then why the fuck don’t you?”
She lets out a breath that sounds almost like a laugh, but not quite.
“Because writing a blog is one thing,” she says slowly. “It’s shorter. It’s immediate. You post and you get feedback. You know if it landed.”
“And a book?” I prompt.
“A book is,” she murmurs and pauses as she searches for the right word. “Exposed.”
Her voice drops on that last word.
“You spend months. Sometimes longer. You bleed onto the page. And then you hand it over to the world and hope it doesn’t laugh at you.”
I understand that more than she probably realizes.
“That sounds familiar,” I murmur.
She looks at me sideways. “You burn your feelings into wood and pretend it’s about nature.”
I huff a surprised laugh. “You noticed that, huh?”
“I notice things,” she says quietly.
We start walking again, slower now.
“I think,” she continues, “that I hid behind the blog because it felt safer. Like I could say something meaningful without risking everything.”
“And now?” I ask.
She looks up at the Ferris wheel, lights turning slowly against the night sky.
“Now I don’t know,” she admits. “I don’t know if I’ve been playing small. Or if I’ve just been scared.”
There it is.
Fear.
The thing that’s been driving both of us.
I stop walking.
She stops too.
“Clara,” I say, and wait until she looks at me.
“You’re already a writer,” I tell her. “The platform doesn’t change that. The format doesn’t change that. If you want to write books, you can.”
She gives me a look that’s half skeptical, half hopeful. “It’s not that simple.”
“It is,” I counter gently. “It’s not easy. But it’s simple.”
She studies me like she’s trying to figure out if I actually believe what I’m saying.
“I hid behind anonymity for years,” I admit. “Because I didn’t want anyone judging my work against my name. I told myself I was protecting the art.”
“And were you?” she asks.
I shake my head slowly. “I was protecting myself.”
Her breath catches just slightly.
“Don’t do that,” I tell her. “Don’t shrink your dream because you’re afraid it won’t be perfect.”
She goes quiet.
Then, softly, “You really read my blog?”
I smile. “Yep. I even have favorite lines.”
Her mouth parts.
“Which ones?” she asks, almost afraid to hear.
“There’s a post you wrote,” I say. “About standing in the middle of Times Square and realizing you’d never felt more alone.”
Her eyes widen.
“You said the lights were so bright they erased the stars,” I continue. “And you wondered if that’s what success does to people. Makes them glow so hard they forget what the dark looks like.”
She just stares at me.
“That wasn’t just a blog post,” I say. “That was a chapter.”
The silence between us shifts.
Not heavy.
Charged.
“You think I could?” she whispers.
“I know you could,” I answer.
Because I do.
And watching that possibility take root in her eyes?
That might be even better than the cotton candy.
She swallows, then laughs softly like she’s overwhelmed.
“You’re dangerous, you know that?” she says.
“Why?”
“Because you make things feel possible.”
I step closer, not touching her yet.
“Good,” I say quietly. “You deserve that.”
And maybe I do too.
We ride the Ferris wheel.
From the top, the whole town glows under the lights. The mountain looms in the distance.
She leans against me.
Not tentative.
Not unsure.
Just there.
“I like it here,” she says softly.
My chest tightens.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
I look down at her, wind lifting her curls.
“You could,” I start, then stop.
I don’t push.
Not tonight.
Instead, I press a slow kiss to her temple.
Gentle.
Intentional.
When we get off the ride, she slips her hand into mine like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
We stop at a booth, one of those strong man things and I swing the hammer because she asks me to.
“You look good with that hammer in your hand,” she teases and I rill my eyes.
But I do make the bell ring and I win my girl a prize.
And yeah, I feel good about it.
Good about her smile. Her laughter.
The stars in her eyes.
The way she makes me catch my breath every single time I look at her.
And as we walk back through the carnival lights, cotton candy sticky on our fingers and laughter trailing behind us—I realize something.
This doesn’t feel like hiding.
It feels like living.
And for the first time in a long time—I don’t want the night to end.