Page 88 of Even After Sunset

Silas launches another one and we both hold our breath for a second because it comesreallyclose to the waving hand. But not close enough.

He curses under his breath and whips two more in a row, without even bothering to aim this time. He’s going for quantity over quality now and I lean my body into his, totally ruining his next throw.

“You can’t do that! You can’t launch a bunch in a row,” I laugh. “We need to take turns or we won’t be able to tell who’s Fruit Loop hits the hand!”

He throws another one. “Won’t matter,” he says. “Caus it’ll be mine.”

But he waits this time for me to throw my own orange Fruit Loop, which also comes close, but then falls like most of the others onto the burger truck’s roof.

Burger Dude smiles back at us with his goofy grin; taunting us both, and soon, we’re flinging our Fruit Loops in rapid-fire succession. We’re both laughing the whole time, the longer the silly game draws on. But still not enough to slow our pace.

Silas has always been ridiculously competitive. He would make competitions out of everything with the neighborhood kids: who could somersault highest off the dock, who could eat their hot dog fastest, who could spit the farthest along the crosswalk on the way to school…

I always participated just so I could feel like I was part of the fun, but it never even occurred to me to care about winning.

But today, I do.

My fruit loops get closer and closer to the target, while Silas’ are all over the place—mostly sailing way over the food truck.

“Focus over power,” I whisper in his ear, just before his next aim, and he lets out a loud laugh.

The Fruit Loop misses even more than the others.

And my next one lands smack dab in the middle of Burger Dude’s smiling palm.

“Bullseye!” I shout.

And Silas groans.

I pat him on the shoulder. “Aw… good effort, Sport. Maybe your skills just lie in other areas. Like, I don’t know… washing dishes.”

“I was so close,” he mutters.

He really wasn’t.

“If only you had an axe,” I muse. And Silas grins.

“Yo HO!” he calls, punching his fist in the air. And we both fall back against the mattress in peels of laughter.

After we’ve put away everything from the morning (except for the puddles of Fruit Loops now littering the roof of theBurgers Burgers Burgersfood truck), we head to nearby Acadia National Park and set off on an easy hike that takes us to a waterfall. Obviously.

I was wrong when I told Silas that once you’ve seen one waterfall, you’ve seen them all. I’m starting to realize that every waterfall is amazing and totally unique.And I get why he’s become almost as obsessed about scouting out waterfalls along our route as I am about scouring for weird roadside attractions. Honestly, the two are a perfect pairing.

We pick up ingredients and supplies on our way back to the festival grounds and spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon baking. Actually, Silas bakes while I work on my second book cover from those two commissions. It’s the one I’m most excited about doing: a teen fantasy novel, which will allow me to combine my favorite aesthetic with some cool new techniques I’ve been playing around with.

And that’s not even the best part. The best part is that when I log into CreateHire, I have four more sales and another commission request! I am kind of in awe of this whole spontaneous endeavor. I enjoy it too much for it to feel normal to get paid to do it. It’s one of the best feelings ever, honestly.

I’m in such a great mood that I even tell Silas to make up a selection of “cookie sandwiches” to sell tonight, using Nutella and Marshmallow Fluff and whatever else he wants to slather on them. The offer isn’t as spontaneous as it sounds, though. I’ve been thinking about it lately, and the idea of Meryl being proprietary about anything to do with me is totally off-base. She’d probably be proud that we added a unique twist to her famous cookie recipes.

Shortly before the gates open for the second and final day of the Bar Harbor festival, Silas sets the cotton candy machine up outside the camper, just beside the order window. I have no idea why we didn’t think of that yesterday. Secretly, I’m glad we didn’t, though. Even if it took us almost a full hour to clean the sticky sugar off every single surface last night.

We’re having an even better night of sales tonight, and I’m on cloud nine. Silas seems happy, too, so he’s kind of bummed that Richard told him he wants to talk for more than five minutes tonight. Those longer conversations are tough for him.

He closes up the cotton candy station temporarily and calls Richard from inside the camper. But after the first two minutes, he walks off somewhere else for the rest of the conversation. I try not to be hurt, but I am… just a little. I know it’s normal for him to want to discuss a lot of that stuff in private, but it’sstill hard. I want to be the one who helps him deal with the baggage from his past. And it sounds ridiculously messed up when I put it that way, but I can’t help how I feel. I have this unrelenting need to balance out the after-effects of the tragedy that changed both our lives.

At least I have the foresight not to question him about anything he talks about with Richard in private. I can respect his need for privacy even if I resent it sometimes.

After serving four middle-aged men who bought six cookies each, I hear a group of teenagers somewhere close to Trudy’s large rear end.

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