“Yes, oh great God of War and Love, Conqueror of Roller Coasters?”
“Are you a sadist?”
“I might be. Will you still like me if I am and get on another roller coaster with me?”
He sighs and immediately nods, which makes me grin, and Mickey smacks the back of my head. “I hate you for finding aman who puts up with your shit. I want someone to put up with my shit.”
“You have a lot of shit to put up with,” I inform him.
Mickey gasps. “I have a perfectly normal amount of shit to put up with,” he says as Joy, one of his undead, fixes his hair while Tommy, another undead, brushes the wrinkles out of his shirt. Tommy was a medical examiner before he died, which is why Mickey brought him back to life.
I snort. “Mickey is perfectly normal… you hear that, Torin?”
“I can hear Mickey just fine, but I can’t hear any of the words from the man who betrayed me,” Torin says.
“Betrayed you? I just wanted to show you the wonders of our world, Torin. I wanted to show you what you worked so hard to save.”
“I would have worked a little less hard to save this world if I knew I was saving shit like this,” he grumbles as he glowers at the roller coaster. It must have been rather traumatic if he would let our world go to ruin just to end roller coasters. Even so, I gleefully pull him over to the screens that line the exit so we can see the pictures they took of us during the ride. We were in the front, so we should have a pretty good view of our faces.
“Right there,” I say when our pictures come up. I get a good laugh after seeing Torin’s face. His eyes are wide, he has a death grip on me like he’s going to save my life from the drop, and still… he looks far too sexy. I just look like I’m having fun and Mickey… Mickey looks like he’s dead asleep.
“Were yousleeping?” I hiss.
Mickey appears offended that I would even ask. “No… I just closed my eyes for a minute. I like to close my eyes when I’m on a roller coaster.”
I gesture at the picture. “You look like you’re over there dead asleep! Look how relaxed you are! Look at the way your body is being tossed about!”
“Definitely not,” Mickey says, stifling a yawn.
“I want this,” Torin proclaims as he points at the screen. “How do I take it?” He grabs the whole screen like he’s just going to tear it off the wall and take it home with us.
“I have to buy it. I’ll get you one,” I say, taking a picture of the information needed to purchase it online.
“I will hang it above our bed and remember it as the day you tried to kill me.”
“I didn’t try to kill you,” I assure him. “What about a snack? Will that make you forget the error of my ways? You’ve never had popcorn, have you?”
“I’ve had corn. It is edible.”
“No… it’s different,” I say. Kit gets excited when I head over to the popcorn stand she’s been staring at, like she thinks that if she forces me to look atonlythat stand, I will eventually cave. Obviously, it worked since I buy a large bag. Kit can eat her weight in popcorn—it’s a good thing she’s a familiar and not a real genet with the way she eats—and Torin strikes me as someone who will happily eat the entire bag.
I open it up and hold it out for him while Kit makes an offended noise that I didn’t give her first dibs. He takes one little piece and eats it before I see enthusiasm cross his face as Kit reaches her little paw for the bag, straining to pull it to her.
“I want this for every meal,” he says, grabbing a handful.
“You say that about everything you eat,” I remind him as Mickey grabs some too. I hold up a handful to my shoulder so Kit can loudly crunch it in my ear and leave popcorn chunks all over my shirt, which is less than pleasant, but she’s pleased.
“Okay… so after careful examination, we now know that roller coasters are not your jam… but what about a water ride?” I ask.
“I like water,” Torin says.
“He likes water,” I tell Mickey.
Mickey shrugs. “He might survive.”
Torin suddenly looks concerned as I haul him off toward the raft ride. He ends up enjoying this one, at least, or he might have dragged me right out of the theme park and let the world fall to ruin just so he wouldn’t have to ever go again.
“Let’s do this 3D one,” Mickey suggests as he points.
