31
Zavier came back as I was mid-phone call with Lysa, setting up a coffee date so I could meet her to ask about ghosts.
I glanced at the time on my phone before I said, “I could maybe meet in like an hour—”
“Nope! No meeting anyone in an hour. We have a date!” he declared.
“Is that your old lady?” Lysa’s amusement was obvious even through the phone.
Zavier put his mouth on my neck and gently ran his lips up and down over my pulse. “Move it to tomorrow,” he ordered.
“Sorry, Lysa, his lips are very persuasive. Can we meet in the morning?”
She laughed. “Fine. But I’ll ask for details.”
Zavier reached for the phone and hung it up for me.
He turned to Malcolm. “We’ll be gone for a while. Don’t come looking for us.”
Malcolm just waved us off as he flipped through his notebook, poring back over the limited knowledge we’d drizzled on the pages.
I followed Z up the little creek bank and onto the asphalt path. “Where are we going? And isn’t it my job to seduce you?”
He waved a hand lazily in the air. “Potato, po-tah-to,” he used the various pronunciations. He led me to a split in the path and took the right fork. As soon as he did, he got a little jump in his step. My Firefly was excited. “Now, this first bit is a fancy schmancy carriage ride. You’re going to have to pretend you’re wearing a fur coat and have roses in your lap and champagne in your hand because Gray took all the damn disposable wands in the car so I couldn’t whip up any spells.”
I giggled, because Z’s smile was as wide as it could possibly get. He led me past some bathrooms and over to … a ride for toddlers. There were metallic little ponies, not more than two feet tall, pulling tiny wagons in a circle around a giant motor that had been covered and decorated to look like the prairie.
“Take a seat and hold onto your bonnet! It’s gonna get wild up in here!” Z chortled.
He helped me step into a wagon, which barely fit my hips. My knees were squished up against my chest and I couldn’t help shaking my head, even as I grinned. Zavier’s boyish enthusiasm was contagious.
“One moment madam,” he said, as he ran over to the controls. A second later, with a giant screech, the ride began to move. Slowly. As in, maybe two halting miles per hour. I probably would have lost a race with a snail.
“Hmm…” Z said, walking back over to me. “It went much faster earlier when I tested it.”
“I think I’m a little over the weight limit.”
Z circled behind my wagon and started to push. The ride moved faster. He pushed harder. It went faster. He ran. And then I felt like I was on one of those merry-go-rounds at the park that can make kids sick with dizziness.
“Whoa!” I finally declared.
Z slowed to a stop, and he was panting a little when he helped me out of the still-moving ride.
“My horse was a little unruly,” I beamed up at Zavier.
“Uh-oh. Maybe he’ll have to be whipped later.” His eyes took on a naughty glint.
“Maybe,” I kept up his playful banter. “He’s got to realize, not everything is a race to the finish line.”
“Hmmm. He might need some retraining then. Maybe a harness.”
“A crop?” I suggested.
“A bit.”
“A tail?” I started to grab my ribs even as Zavier scrunched his nose. “Okay, you just made it icky.”
I laughed and kissed his mouth. “I’ll let you make me icky later.”
“What kind of icky?” His grin immediately returned.
“The drizzled in frosting then licked clean kind?” I proposed.
His mouth crashed down onto mine and we made out in the middle of the abandoned children’s rides. His hand covered the back of my neck and one slid down to squeeze my ass. I stepped closer so that I could feel his hardness. I let my hands fist in his shirt at his waist, and slide beneath the fabric so that I could touch his skin. He hiked my knee up near his hip and ground into me as he kissed my jaw. Then he swept me backward and dipped me, pecking my lips one more time.
His breathing was as rough and ragged as mine when he said, “I don’t put out until the third date.”
I groaned.
He laughed and pulled me back up to my feet, smacking my ass hard in a way that made me want to beg him to do it again. As if he knew what I was thinking, he shook his head. “No means no.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the kiddie ride. “Fine. What else still works?”
“Not much,” he said, sounding disappointed. “Vandals have stripped or ruined a lot of it.”
We walked up to a ride labeled “Wacky Shack.” It was a one-story ride that led into the double doors of a faux wood shingle house with a crooked chimney.
I glanced up at him. “Have you gone inside?”
He shook his head. “No. It looks like it’s one of those lame haunted fun house kind of things.” But something about the way he said it made me think he wasn’t as dismissive as he was pretending. He wouldn’t quite let his eyes land on the place. Almost as if he was nervous. Or scared.
“Zavier, do you not like fun houses?” I asked.
He shrugged.
I glanced at the sky. It wasn’t dark out yet. “Okay. We don’t have to go in. But, if you do, I can promise you’ll have a lot of fun in the fun house.”
His eyes widened and he immediately started to drag me toward the silly little ride.
I laughed, briefly wondering if it would be too mean to scare him while we were in the dark.
We pulled open the double doors at the entrance. I lit my hand with a bright floating ball of light so that we could see and then let my door fall shut with a bang. Z jumped.
“Come on and protect me, hot stuff,” I teased, grabbing his hand and taking the lead. I followed the tracks for the ride cars, which went through a black hall before veering to the left.
We rounded the turn and laughed, because as soon as we saw the "scary" murals on the walls, there was nothing else we could do. I swapped the light in my hands for a purple black light and we shone it over the glowing paint, which had a cornfield scene where a demonic scarecrow surrounded by red-eyed crows appeared to be reaching toward us. Only, some vandal had spray painted a dick in his hand.
"Damn, a scarecrow that will rip off your dick! No wonder this place got shut down!" Z exclaims.
"I don't know. Maybe he's just tempting the birds to cum near," I quipped.
Z hugged me into his side and I felt his chest rumble as he chuckled. "This is why you're epic," he declared, placing a kiss on top of my head before he returned to staring at the picture. "It's kind of hard to look at, because that scarecrow looks so damn cocky."
"You think they peck at that pecker?" I asked.
"I want you to peck at my pecker," he replied.
I poked him in the ribs but laughed and we left the naughty scarecrow and continued down the tunnel, skirting around the tracks whenever a car blocked our path. There was a werewolf next, which looked like a taxidermic animal, but when I shone a light over its face, the eyes had red light bulbs instead of the normal marbles. So, the wolf used to flash red eyes at riders and a speaker in the wall behind him indicates that he probably "howled" too.