Quentin was nodding as he met me around the front of his truck. “Wanted to check out the California coast during the summer?” His eyes lifted to the beach in front of us, like it was an explanation.
“Kind of,” I started, not sure how much I wanted to explain. I definitely wasn’t bringing up my birth father. “Mainly, I just wanted to spend a summer like everyone else my age.”
His head cocked as he started down the wide walkway running along the beach. He only took a step before waiting to make sure I was following. “How have you spent your other summers?”
“Like I have the rest of my life. On the road. Traveling. Seeing the country. Visiting the world. That kind of thing.”
His mouth hung open for a moment as he stared at me. “And you wanted a break from all of that traveling stuff because…?”
The way he was looking at me made me smile. It was similar to the way my mom had gaped at me when I told her I wanted to spend the summer with Aunt Julie. “Because what if I was missing out on something?”
“What if you’re missing out on nothing?” he argued as we wandered down the walkway.
“Then I’ll know for sure come the end of August.”
He was still shaking his head, like I was clinically crazy. “So? Where have you been?”
“It would be easier to list where I haven’t been.”
He groaned, like he was in pain. “You’re killing me.”
“What? Haven’t you traveled?”
“Eh, yeah. To Phoenix to see my grandparents and Wisconsin to see my other grandparents. Whoop-de-do.” He circled his index finger in the air. “Where’s the best place you’ve ever been?”
“That’s hard. I like lots of places.”
“If you had to pick one place to spend the rest of your life, where would it be?”
My eyes narrowed as I considered that. I’d visited some crazy-beautiful places and seen a good chunk of the world, but nowhere felt like home.
“Why have you spent so much time traveling?” he continued when I stayed quiet. “Is your dad in the military or something?”
I didn’t really “know” my dad, but what I did know of him made me almost laugh when I pictured him saluting in camos.
“No, definitely not. My mom’s in a band, so they travel a lot. They have a big international following, too, so we got to go all over, from Reykjavik to Sydney.”
Quentin came to a stop. He grabbed my arm when I kept going. “Your mom’s in a band?”
“Yeah,” I answered, like she was no different from moms who rolled up to carpool lines in minivans.
“Is this a band I’ve heard of?” He wasn’t letting go of my arm. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to.
“That depends. Do you listen to grunge-meets-glam-chick-rock?” I failed to mention that if he ever listened to the Top 40, he probably would recognize a few of their hits.
“Yeah, I stick to classic rock, so probably not.” His hand dropped away from my arm as he started walking again. “If you were on the road all the time, what did you do for school?”
“I was homeschooled.” Up ahead was a big pier where a carnival had been set up. There was a Ferris wheel towering above the rest of the rides, and I could already smell the food and hear the game vendors challenging bystanders to become customers. He was taking me to a carnival? I loved carnivals. Every city in the world had one, and they were all the same—from Akron to Zagreb.
“Homeschooled, really? Wow,” he said, pulling me out of my cotton-candy revelry.
“Yes. Explain the not-so-subtle surprise.” I nudged his arm, giving him a look.
“I don’t know. I guess I think of homeschooled kids as being socially inept or something. All of that being alone and not having other classmates to help build the thick skin all of us public schooled kids have by the time we reach second grade.”
“Nah, I think the opposite is true. We have to try extra-hard and go out of our way to make friends and fit in. We’re easily adaptable.” I checked my phone in my purse to make sure I hadn’t missed any frantic calls or texts from Aunt Julie, you know, in case she discovered the sleeping niece was really a strategically placed line of pillows. “So what about you? What’s your life story?”
Quentin rubbed the back of his head, keeping his eyes forward. “Well, it isn’t anything close to as cool as yours, that’s for sure. My mom is currently a stay-at-home mom, not in a rock band. The most exotic place I’ve ever been is Baja, and I’ve gone to public schools since kindergarten.”
“That’s not a life story. That’s just random facts.”
When we came to the pier, he steered us toward it. “Well, neither was yours,” he stated, carving a direct path to the closest fried food vendor he saw. “You want something to eat? I’m starving.”
“Didn’t you have dinner?”
“Yeah. Three hours ago.” My face must have been blank because he went on to explain, “That’s like an eternity to a growing boy.”
“Unbelievable,” I mumbled when I realized we were waiting in line at a fried ice cream vendor.
“What do you want? My treat.” He had his wallet in his hand and was getting some money as we moved up in line.
“I want…not to be diagnosed with type two diabetes by the time I’m forty.” I pointed at the menu, where the healthiest thing listed was fried strawberry cheesecake on a stick because, ya know, fruit.
Quentin suddenly spun and grabbed me by the shoulders, looking me dead in the eye as if we were discussing a matter of life and death. “Listen, Jade, we only have a small window of time to eat what we want and do what we want and be who we want before that all changes and we have to start thinking about cholesterol and regular bedtimes and turning into this mature, responsible model citizen. Live it up while you can.”
“You seem to be living it up enough for the both of us.” I laughed, as Quentin let go of me and listed off his order to the girl behind the register. He didn’t hear me, though, because the girl had gotten his attention, asking him some question that I’m sure didn’t have anything to do with his order. To be fair, any girl wearing a shirt that low and a bra that elevating was bound to garner some stares.
I stepped aside as they chatted it up and he waited for his fried feast on a stick. This wasn’t a date, I reminded myself; this was hanging out. One coworker inviting another one out for a good time. This wasn’t a date. But I found my jaw locking as she rubbed at his arm, laughing.
And she wasn’t the only one giving Quentin the eye. A trio of girls in line behind him were not being discreet about what they thought of his posterior.
My stomach churned. Not with jealousy, I didn’t think—I felt almost…protective of him. He was more than just a nice butt.
Not cool. Not cool at all. I needed to get my emotions in check before I started to think they meant something.
Once Quentin got his food, he waved good-bye to the girl and wandered over to where I was waiting. “Want a bite?” He held out the fried cheesecake, offering it to me first.
“No thanks.”
“Live it up….”
I rolled my eyes as he shook it in front of me. “Find me something vegan fried on a stick, and I’ll try it, I promise.”
He blinked at me. “You’re vegan? Well, crap. If I’d known that, I would have gone for the fried-broccoli-on-a-stick stand on the other end.”
“Fried broccoli on a stick. I bet the demand for something like that at a carnival is off the charts. Besides, the hippie dude manning the broccoli stand isn’t nearly as stacked.”
Quentin glanced over at me as we milled through the crowd, looking almost amused. “Stacked?” He repeated it like he’d never heard the term.
“Oh, please. Don’t pretend your eyes weren’t about to go crossed back there.”
Quentin bit into his cheesecake. “I wa
sn’t staring at her boobs, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
His blunt word choice took me by surprise. “Then what were you staring at?”
Quentin was trying to keep from grinning, I could tell. “Her heart. Naturally.”
“Uh,” I groaned, shoving his arm.
“It was hidden from view. I had to look really, really close to see it.” He took a bite of his cheesecake to keep from laughing. “Joking, joking.” He raised his hands in surrender. “For your information, she’s the girlfriend of one of my surfing buddies, Sam.”
“Does Sam know how buddy-buddy you are?” I smirked.
He leaned in, unfazed. “Sam’s a girl.” He let that simmer for a minute, until he started to see the realization hit me.
“Oh.” Another brilliant response from yours truly.
“Still have room to be surprised, do you, cultured world traveler?”
“Oh, shut up,” I grumbled, which only made him chuckle. What was wrong with me? I was way off my game. Making assumptions, jumping to conclusions, acting like a possessive psycho.
“Games.” He pointed.
“Those things are designed to take your money. The chance of actually winning something is slim to none,” I said, nudging him with my arm. “At least for people like you who aren’t carnival junkies.”
Quentin was already handing over a five-dollar bill at one of the stands where you threw a baseball at some creepy-looking stuffed clowns to try to knock one over. “Why do I feel like you’re making a habit of underestimating me?” he teased, tossing his first ball into the air and catching it. I was about to offer to hold his food when he started to wind up. His wild pitch made me step back.
One clown down. Two balls to go.
“Impressed?” He grinned over at me, reaching for his second ball.
“That you can throw a ball?”
He cocked his head, and then he fired his next throw.
Two clowns down.
Okay, so I was semi-impressed. He was two for two.
“Now you’re impressed.”
“That you can throw a ball at a stationary target fifteen feet away?”
Tossing his hand into the air like I was impossible, he picked up the third ball right after and sent it flying. Like, so hard I could hear it whizzing through the air.
Three clowns down.
“I’m not even going to ask if you’re impressed this time.” Quentin thanked the person who handed him his prize, a cute stuffed bear.
“Fast learner.”
Quentin got back to his food, holding the bear out. “For you,” he said. “I know, I know, you’re not impressed by how I won it, but I’m pretty sure you girls still secretly love it when a guy wins you a cuddly toy.”
Taking the bear, I dug my own five from my purse, heading toward the closest game. Which, in this case, happened to be a softball toss into silver milk jugs.
“Do we, now?” I said, handing over my money in exchange for three big balls.
Quentin leaned on the counter to watch.
Focusing on the first jug, I lightly lobbed the ball. It circled around the spout before falling inside.
Quentin let out a low whistle.
The second ball dropped almost directly inside the second jug, and by the time I’d moved down to the third, he was staring at me like I was some kind of alien life-form.
When the third ball made it in, I dusted off my hands and glanced over at him. “Well, most girls can’t win their own.”
He shook his head. “Seriously impressed.”
I laughed at the note of reverence in his voice. When the guy handed me a stuffed unicorn that was practically the same size as me, I held it toward Quentin. “For you.”
He was still shaking his head. “Who are you?”
I shrugged and smiled.
“How did you do that?” he asked, wrangling the unicorn around his shoulders like he was giving it a piggyback ride.
“I know people who know things. All kinds of people and all kinds of things.” When he rolled his hand, waiting, I added, “When we were in Munich one time, I met some boy whose family owned a big traveling carnival. He taught me a few tricks to the games that he probably shouldn’t have.”
Quentin took the last bite of his cheesecake and tossed the skewer into the closest garbage can. “And why ever would this boy want to give you his family business’s most valued secrets?” From his tone alone, I knew exactly what he was getting at.
I elbowed him in the ribs. “Because I was nice to him and he was a nice person.”
“A nice person who was hoping you’d exchange ‘nice’ favors for his trade secrets.”
Another elbow. “No, he wasn’t.”
Quentin stared over at me with a little smile on his face. “You’re kinda adorable when you’re naive.”
I ignored the jab and checked my phone again. It was close to eleven, and I wasn’t sure how long I should stay out. The later I was out, the worse it would be if I got caught, I guessed. With Mom, I hadn’t hesitated to be gone all night. But this was my first time under Aunt Julie’s watch, and I was with a boy. A boy I liked, despite knowing I probably shouldn’t. It felt different being out late with a guy I liked, more serious.
“Rides,” Quentin said, pointing to the next thing. He wasn’t ready for the night to be over. I wasn’t, either. Stopping in front of the ticket booth, he freed his wallet again. A reminder chimed in my head.
“Here’s your change.” I retrieved his money left over from the other day and handed it to him. “I would have gotten it to you a while ago, but family emergencies and Mr. Snuggles searches kept getting in the way.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” Quentin added the money to what he already had in his hand and gave it to the cashier. “I promised to cover you during a break, so now I owe you two breaks next time we work together.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“But I told you I would.” He somehow managed to keep the giant unicorn balanced on his shoulders with one hand while he pocketed his wallet. “I do what I say I’m going to do, and I take care of my responsibilities.”
My head tipped as he took the tickets and started toward the rides. “But I’m not your responsibility.”
He cleared his throat, moving into the back of the Ferris wheel line. “But maybe I want to take care of you.”
“Why?”
“Because I like you.”
I shifted. “In what way?”
It was our turn to step up and hand off our tickets. After the operator motioned us toward the car, Quentin glanced over at me. “You know what way.”
He didn’t say anything else as he rolled the unicorn off his shoulders to get it situated. I did my best not to look surprised or thrown, but I felt it. Big-time. One moment Quentin seemed like the type of guy who kept everything to himself, and the next he was looking me in the eye and admitting he liked me.
I got in, clutching my small bear, and Quentin climbed in after me, putting the unicorn on the end so we were next to each other. Like, right beside one another. As in, his leg running down the side of mine, his shoulder and arm sandwiched against mine.
After the Ferris wheel operator made sure we were locked in, the wheel started to move to the next couple.
“Sorry if I made things weird saying that,” Quentin started. “I know I’m supposed to play it cool or whatever, but you seem like the kind of person who would appreciate the up-front and honest approach.”
I was that kind of person. Except maybe not in this instance, because I wasn’t ready to be up-front and honest about how I felt about him yet. Since I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t say anything. Thankfully he played along and didn’t push the issue.
The Ferris wheel started to circle around, distracting us both as we took
in the sights. I couldn’t decide which was more fun to look at—the dark ocean or the bright lights glowing beneath us. I’d ridden lots of Ferris wheels, all different kinds, but this one was my favorite yet.
That might have had to do with the way Quentin’s hand had just slipped into mine, his fingers braiding through mine one at a time. He didn’t say anything; he simply took my hand. I didn’t say anything, either; I just held his hand, too.
A few more turns later the wheel came to a stop; the slow process of unloading and reloading passengers began. I wasn’t sure if fate was responsible or if Quentin had tipped the ride operator, but it couldn’t have been a random coincidence that we were stuck up at the very top.
His hand pressed a little deeper into mine as I noticed him angle his body toward me. He didn’t say anything.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed his mouth start to slide into a crooked smile, like he was reading my thoughts. “You can kiss me, you know, if you want to. Just putting that out there.”
My mouth fell open a little. “I don’t want to kiss you. Who do you think I am?” I did my best to sound insulted, but I felt more panicked than anything.
His head moved. “Some girl who wants to kiss me?”
“Um, no. Got that wrong.” I tried to scoot away, but because of the ridiculous unicorn, I mostly ended up rubbing against his leg.
He scooted along with me. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.” I shook my hand out of his. “Why? Do you want to kiss me?”
“Well, I did,” he said, motioning at me, “until you started acting like you’d rather make out with a pissed-off porcupine.”
The Ferris wheel suddenly lowered us down a notch. We were still up high, but we weren’t at the tippy-top.
“You seriously missed out on a great first kiss.” Quentin’s eyes drifted above to where we’d been. “One straight from the pages of one of those romance books you like so much. But I guess I was right about you wanting to read about life instead of live it.”