Page 206 of Fighting the Pull

STUFFED LION

Corey

Then…

“Daddy, Daddy! Look!”Hale shouted from his seat in the kiddie ride that was going around and around.

Corey stood there in abject terror, even if he’d strapped his son in himself. Even if he’d watched that ride go around for five turns before he gave into Hale begging to get on it. Even if it wasn’t going very fast. Even if he’d crouched for two of those full rides so he could inspect the mechanism that worked it to see that it seemed clean and well-oiled and functioning properly.

All the kids were holding on.

Hale had his hands in the air, and he was laughing and shouting.

He needed to teach his son to be more careful.

He needed to teach his son to hold on.

The ride stopped, and before Corey could get there, Hale unclipped himself and was hustling to Corey on his four-year-old feet, arms pumping with excitement.

Another kid was doing the same, but he swerved unexpectedly, and knocked Hale on his ass.

Corey vaulted over the fence that marked space so the kids could exit without being injected right into the crowd and squatted next to Hale, but he was looking at the kid who knocked him over.

“Watch it!” he shouted.

The kid’s face folded in on itself.

“Jesus, man, cool it. They’re just kids,” some asshole chimed in.

“Yes,” Corey agreed, picking up Hale and planting his boy on his hip. “And as a kid, he needs to learn coordination and spatial awareness.”

The man blinked at him.

Corey prowled away.

“Are we leebing?’ Hale asked.

“Yes,” Corey said brusquely.

This fair was a mistake.

There were dangers everywhere.

Including thoughtless little kids who couldn’t control their bodies.

“But I want co’den canny.”

When his son said that, Corey did an about face and found a vendor who sold cotton candy.

* * *

Hale was upstairs,in bed and sleeping, and Corey needed to call Genny.

Now that they were safe at home, he was seeing how he overreacted to everything at the fair (though he still felt he was correct about that child—he might just be a kid, but we couldn’t all go around bumping into each other and knocking people on their asses).

Genny would calm him down.

And in the end, he thought it went well.

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