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“Always so testy. You look good without the armor,” he said, nodding with approval.
“Thanks.”
He nudged his head in the direction of the spinning wheel. “Are we ready to do this?”
“We?”I asked incredulously. “No,weare not ready to do anything.” I couldn’t even look up at it. I expected him to try and convince me, maybe even offer up a loaded retort. Instead I got his serious side, which aged him beautifully.
“Okay,” he said. “I understand.” His shoulders rose and fell with his deep breath. “Wait for me?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll wait right here for you.”
Leland whirled to face the Ferris wheel, only pausing for a heartbeat before moving with determination toward the short line of people waiting for their turn to look death in the eye. Guilt poked at my chest. Hadn’t he been there for me a few weeks ago in spite of his own fear? Hadn’t he been willing to look over the edge with me?
“I was thrown out of a fourth-floor window when I was eight,”he’d admitted when he didn’t have to.
“Wait,” I called out against my better judgment. Leland reached back without looking, wiggling his fingers. “You’re such a child,” I said as I caught up and took his hand, because“things are less scary when holding hands.”
***
“I looked you up,” Leland said. We’d survived the Ferris wheel, and while that had been more than enough adventure for me for one day, it had the opposite effect on him. If it moved fast and launched itself skyward, Leland tackled it while I stood back and watched with a mixture of admiration and nausea. “You’re a pretty big deal. Why’d you tell me your name was Franky?”
“The woman who helped raise me used to call me Franky when no one was looking. My father hated the name, which of course caused me to favor it,” I said, as we ambled toward the pier. Leland grinned, shaking his head at me. “What?” I asked.
“This might sound weird, because I hardly know you, but it’s soyouto refer to a nanny as ‘the woman who helped raise me.’”
“Nanny feels too—”
“Privileged?”
“More like insulting to the person who shaped the most important part of me.” The part I desperately sought to recover now.
“Oh,” he said, all traces of humor replaced with something mirroring respect. “I mean, nannyisfewer words, though. I would’ve guessed that would appeal to you.”
“Normally it would, but Gloria deserves more than that, so I suffer through the pain of using more words than necessary for her,” I said with a feigned, agonized sigh.
“That also seems so like you,” Leland said, offering me a piece of cotton candy. I turned the soft, blue confection over in my hand before taking a small bite, then another, marveling at the way it quickly dissolved against my tongue. “You’ve never had cotton candy?” Leland said, aghast.
“No,” I said, stealing a bigger piece.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Forty-five,” I answered, and he didn’t even bat an eyelash. “And you?”
“Twenty-five.” A young couple vacated a bench up ahead that overlooked the water. Leland veered in that direction.
“So, do you have kids?” he asked.
“I thought you looked me up,” I said, settling down next to him.
“Yeah, but there was a lot of information to sift through, and I’d rather paint than read. Plus, I figured it’d be cool to hear it from you.” He kicked his feet up on the pier railing, balling up the empty cotton candy bag and sticking it in his pocket.
“What if we never saw each other again?” I asked.
“I bookmarked the webpage in case of such an emergency,” he said, then pointed a finger at my lips. “That’s three smiles now.”
“The second one doesn’t count. There’s no such thing ashearinga smile.”
“You’re a sore-loser cheater,” he accused, and this time I skipped past the smile and settled into laughter. It was low and swift, but Leland’s breath caught and held anyway.
