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“They’re going to tell Aiden. You know, when everyone comes in to visit you,” I say, glancing at him from the corner of my eye. He tenses. I know he’s worried about that. He hasn’t made much progress on the songs he owes them. “Apparently, my dad is up for traveling, but that won’t be the case when he’s deep in treatment.”
I don’t say any more as I scan the carnival attendees. No one is paying attention to Derek, and they haven’t figured out who he is yet.
“You ready for that?” he asks, pulling me closer to him.
“No, I’m not.”
“You don’t think Ace can handle it?”
The way he slips from my brother’s name to his nickname makes me smile. To me, he’s always Aiden, and I like that Derek usually refers to him as how I know him when we’re together. Calling him Ace is something for the band and bus bunnies. He’s my Aiden.
“He can. I just hate that he has to.”
“I hate that you both have to.”
“Me too.”
“It must be a lot to know this secret about your family but not be able to tell the one person that you tell everything to.” He’s right. Aiden is the one person I can confide in.
“It is. We talk mostly through text, though, so at least he can’t hear the tone of my voice. I’m sure that would give it all away. I’m not that good at keeping secrets.”
“I don’t know. I remember many a time when you had to hide where Aiden and I were. We would sneak out, and somehow we trusted you not to tell your parents. That was no small feat.”
“It wasn’t. And I had to do that so many times because the two of you were always sneaking out.”
“If your parents wouldn’t have freaked about us going to those parties, you wouldn’t have had to.”
“They wouldn’t have let us out of the house with what was happening at those parties.”
We both laugh, and I can tell by the sparkle in his eyes that we’re enjoying the same memories.
“Are you going to tell him or are your parents?” he asks me.
I sigh, wishing we could change the subject. I know he’s only trying to help me and give me someone to talk about this huge secret with, but it’s killing my buzz and the butterflies I’m feeling about being with him like this.
“We’re telling him together,” I finally say.
“You don’t want to talk about this, do you?”
“Not really.”
“Alright, well, let’s go get some fattening food and watch the fire in the sky.” He pulls me into him, and I smile, loving the way his poetic mind works.
“That sounds amazing.”
He looks over at me, and my stomach flips and flips, tricking my mind into thinking that this might be the moment something happens between us.
“What are you hungry for?” he asks after we’ve made our way past a few food stands. Both of us examine the menus as we make our way past them.
“I was thinking of some funnel cake.”
“Perfect.” He leads me over to a stand that claims to have the world’s best funnel cakes. “I think we need to try these out and see if they in fact do have the world’s best funnel cakes.”
I laugh at the mocking tone of his voice when he describes them.
“Let’s do it.”
I decide on a plain one, whereas Derek’s is covered in cinnamon sugar and has apple pie filling in the center. It looks amazing. I almost got a similar one with strawberries, but I was afraid I would end up with it all over me.
