He takes a few breaths and I turn his chin to face me. “You don’t like the spinning rides do you?”
“I get a little nauseous. I try to wait until after doing those to eat.” He gives me a boyish smile.
I pull his arm around me and hug his side while kissing his cheek. “I loved both rides. Thank you.”
“We can do the scrambler next,” He offers.
“You just said you don’t like the ones that spin. I’m not going to ask you to get on one. I can ride alone.”
“And have someone else smushed against you, absolutely not,” He says seriously.
When he meets my eyes, we both end up cracking up. We get on the ride and he insists on being on the outside so I don’t hit the side. And when a young girl’s friend wimps out, he invites her to join us.
I stare at him as he flashes a smile and promises that it’ll be fun and that she doesn’t have to worry since it’s not too intense. On the ride, he isn’t afraid to be louder than she is and she lights up.
I just stare at Matthew until I’m thrown into him and he wraps an arm around me as I squeak. He beams, his eyes squinting. “I’ve got you, beautiful.”
I let go of the bar and throw my hands up, enjoying the rush of wind, the jerking motions of the ride, how unpredictable it seems. When we get off, the girl thanks him and runs up to her friends, bragging about how she was able to handle it even when they couldn’t.
I take Matthew’s hand. “That was really nice, Matthew.”
“Sometimes I’m nice.”
“I think it’s pretty much always.” I lean against him. “Now that we’ve done all the crazy rides, let’s eat.”
I insist on buying the beer, the nachos, the fried Oreos that sound amazing and get us an elephant ear – whatever that is. When it comes out, I realize I’ve always called it a funnel cake. We laugh as we talk together.
“I’m serious, Bella. I really thought that I could be G.I. Joe. Why else would I join the military.”
I nearly choke on my fried Oreo. Matthew rubs my back until I cough out the bit that was stuck. I expect him to be disgusted, but he’s completely worried about me. I wipe my mouth. “I lived. I still have seven lives left.”
“Just seven?”
“Well, I fell out of a tree when I was a kid. One of the boys in the neighborhood swore I couldn’t climb as high as he could, so I had to prove it. But apparently, the top of the tree doesn’t have the most stable branches. I landed on one of the big ones at the bottom, broke my collarbone, fell the rest of the way, and just ended up with a lot of bruises.”
“You love a challenge, don’t you?”
“I like proving people wrong when they make assumptions about me.” I rub the back of my neck as I think of my ex again. “But I realized that sometimes a challenge is there because you’re not supposed to be in the situation.”
“Bad breakup?” Matthew guesses, holding my hand.
“Things started well, but then he wanted me to be someone I wasn’t. when I wouldn’t change completely, he found someone else after two days and then called her a wife less than six months later.”
“He’s the one missing out, Bella.”
“You barely know me, Matthew,” I remind him. “I’ve been working for you guys for a month.”
“And I already know that he fucked up,” He insists. “What does that say about him?”
I smile and lean toward him, pressing my mouth to his. Even Miles only gets kisses in the car after our dates. But Matthew is special. Miles makes me feel beautiful and sexy, but Matthew … it’s like he really sees me.
We go through a haunted house and I jump a few times, but Matthew gets that same pale look when he sees a bunch of blood in one of the scenes. Rather than dealing with it by squeezing him, I walk closer, making one of the workers confused.
I touch the blood and can hear Matthew gasp.
“What did you guys use? This is way better than the Halloween stuff.”
“Um … It’s … it’s blood.” The guy says, trying to stay in character.