Page 22 of Steal My Breath Away

I don’t know how long we stood in the middle of the quad, but the noise faded, and the silence came until all I knew was the warmth of his body and the steady beat of his heart.

CHAPTER 11Haley

EIGHT AND A HALF YEARS AGO

No one was around to take me to the Riverstone summer fair. It was a busy time for Dad at the restaurant; Mom had a trial; Matt was away at scout camp and Paige’s mom had taken her to New York to visit her aunt. I had just made the decision to break the rules and go by myself when Ace rode up the driveway on his bike.

Two years of good meals and stable living had changed him since I’d first laid eyes on him. He’d filled out everywhere and he’d grown taller than Matt by several inches. Dad said Ace was going to be even taller than him.

“What are you doing here?” I tried to act casual, like I wasn’t about to bus it across town and wander alone through crowds of strangers.

“Taking you to the fair.” He parked his bike against the side of the garage and nodded at the bag I’d hidden behind my back. “Looks like I got here just in time.”

My cheeks heated and I slipped the bag over my shoulder. “Did Dad send you?”

“No.”

“Mom? Matt?”

Ace shook his head. “I just knew there was no way you’d stay home alone when there was a fair in town. Music, people, chaos, noise, unwinnable games, dangerous rides, candy… It’s your kind of thing.”

I couldn’t help the smile spreading across my face. Ace wasright. There was nothing I loved more than the excitement of a fair. “They’ve got three new rides this year, and I’ve been practicing for the ring toss and fishing for ducks. This year I’m going to win a jumbo panda bear.”

“We’d better get going then,” Ace said. “We don’t want to miss out on those prizes.”

I didn’t know many fifteen-year-old boys who would give up a Saturday afternoon to take the tweeniest of tweens to the fair, but Ace didn’t care what people thought about him. He took me and Paige to the movies when no one else in the family wanted to watch cartoons. He talked to us in public, something Matt would never do. He mowed our lawn without his shirt on, even though most of the girls in the neighborhood would come out and stare. He sometimes even waited for me and Paige after school and carried our backpacks home.

Ace had never been to a fair and he was more than willing to go on every single ride, walk through the fun houses, and play all the prize games. We ate corn dogs and cotton candy, pink popcorn and mini donuts. It was only when I caught him smiling at himself in one of the twisty mirrors that I realized he was having as much fun as me.

“We only have a few tickets left,” he said, when we’d started to flag despite the endless sugar supply. “What about the haunted house?”

I’d never been through the haunted house without my dad. Usually, he sat beside me and I held his hand or buried my face in his shoulder when creepy things popped up from dark corners or the ghosts and witches screamed. I opened my mouth to suggest we ride on the Spider instead when it occurred to me that Ace probably had never been in a haunted house before, and really, was there anything more fun than being scared out of your mind?

Ten minutes later we were sitting in our own little car, painted with spiderwebs and skulls and decorated with sticky fingerprints and wads of gum. I held tight to the bar, taking one lastlonging look at the sunshine before we plunged into the darkness. The first skeleton came out of nowhere and I screamed.

“I got you.” Ace put a comforting arm around me and gave me a quick squeeze. He was warm and solid, and he smelled of popcorn and candy. He’d never touched me before and the feel of that brief hug did strange things to my stomach. But nothing compared to watching Ace in his first haunted house. His walls came down after that first scare and then he was shouting and laughing and jumping along with me. Once I think he even screamed. When our car burst through the final doorway his face smoothed back to an expressionless mask but now, I knew what was underneath—Ace loved a thrill as much as me.

I didn’t want to go back into the haunted house. My throat was hoarse from screaming and my heart was still pounding, but as soon as the ride stopped, I looked over at Ace and said, “Let’s do it again.”

We went through the haunted house three more times before finishing the day trying to win prizes in the rigged games set up at the edge of the fair. For all my practice and the research I’d done to understand the tricks behind the games, I came away with only a palm-size dolphin and a set of plastic bracelets. I couldn’t hide my disappointment.

“We need to get back before my parents get home,” I said, looking back at the giant panda bear that I’d been coveting for as long as I could remember.

“I still have some money left.” Ace waved me over to the shooting game where bull’s-eye targets moved slowly across the back of the tent. He handed over his cash and took the gun, checking the different parts like he’d been handling weapons all his life. His first shot went high, but the next two hit the target and the owner gave him the option of a keychain or playing again to trade up. Ace played again. Won again. Traded up and up and up until a crowd had gathered in front of the tent and the only thing left for him to win was the panda.

“How did you learn to shoot like that?” I asked as the carniepulled down the second-largest prize, a three-foot-high brown bear with sleepy eyes.

“It was the only thing my dad taught me,” he said. “And it was because he and my mom had a habit of stiffing their dealers and they needed me to defend them if they were high.”

Ace had never been so blunt about his past. I didn’t really understand what it meant to stiff a dealer and I had no idea what happened to people when they were high so that they would need a kid to use a gun. But I knew from the tone of his voice and his sudden blank expression that it wasn’t something that good parents asked their child to do.

“You want to give this up?” The carnie held out the bear to Ace. “Your girlfriend seems to like it.”

“I’m not his girlfriend,” I blurted out. I’d never thought of Ace that way. He was Matt’s best friend and a part of our family. He made me feel safe and happy and I liked spending time with him because he listened, and he cared. He was curious about the same things as me, and he was always up for an adventure. I looked over at Ace, who was waiting for my answer, and suddenly saw him as if I hadn’t seen him before. He had a handsome face and a nice smile. Paige had had two boyfriends already, but there were no boys in our class who were as cool as Ace. Twelve-year-old boys were gangly and smelly and acted like jerks. Ace was… different.

“What do you think?” Ace asked.

I shook my head and saw Ace again as I knew him. “Go big or go home.”

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