Five decades seem to pass in the thirty minutes that follow. My crochet loops don't make sense anymore, because all I can concentrate on are the two men on the porch who are talking about things I can't hear. Grandma doesn't appear concerned, but she doesn't know what I know.
What if he found that I deleted his ex-girlfriend's iPad message? What if he's ratting me out for using his phone and internet? As much as I like Jace, I don't exactly know him that well. He may not be on my side at all.
The door opens and Grandpa comes inside, alone. I try catching a glimpse through the open door but I don't see Jace. “What was that about?” I ask, trying to sound casual. Grandpa isn't fuming mad—or at least he doesn’t look like it.
He takes a seat in his recliner across from where Grandma sits on the couch. “That boy next door sure had a lot to say,” he tells her, glancing at me for a split second before returning his gaze to Grandma.
“Did he?” she asks, sounding unconcerned as she continues her crochet. The anticipation nearly kills me, but I can't exactly beg for him to talk faster. I stare at my yarn ball until the fibers get blurry.
“He came over to apologize for being a reckless heathen who disregarded Richard's property.”
I lift an eyebrow and peek at him. He watches me as he continues, “Well, those weren't exactly his words, but that's the gist of it.”
Grandma smiles. “That's wonderful news, honey. Maybe he won't make your blood pressure go up so much now.”
Grandpa snorts and takes a sip of his coffee. “He said he never knew his grandfather and he invited me to come over and take any of Richard's belongings that might have some importance to me. I told him that was awfully kind of him, and that Richard had some fishing poles that were sentimental to me. I'm going over there this afternoon.”
I can't help but smile. When I first told Jace that my grandpa didn't like him, I expected Jace to be angry about it. Instead, he came over to apologize. I can't picture Ian doing the same thing, were he in Jace's position.
“What ya smiling for, girl?” Grandpa peers at me over his cup of coffee.
I shrug. “No reason. That was just nice of Jace to do that. He never meant to piss you off in the first place.”
“Ladies don't use words like that,” Grandma chides me.
“Sorry,” I say, trying not to laugh. She'd die if she heard the words I used that are way worse than piss. Grandpa must know what I'm thinking because he winks at me.
“That boy is fond of you,” Grandpa says. I almost choke on my own spit.
“What do you mean by that?” I stammer.
He shrugs. “He asked permission to take you to the county fair tonight. Seems he probably likes you a lot if he had the guts to ask me.” He leans back in his chair while I turn a deep shade of red. “But what do I know? I'm just an old man.”
Jace climbs out of his soccer mom rental car and holds the door open for me. I roll my eyes and slip into the passenger seat. “What's with all the formality?” I ask, poking him in the arm when he gets in the car next to me. “You don't strike me as a gentleman.”
“Hey now, jerk,” Jace laughs. “I may not be a gentleman, but I know better than to show my true colors when a girl's grandfather is watching me through the window.”
“What!” I look toward the house, and sure enough, two fingers pull down the blinds in the front window, watching our every move. “I'm sorry about that,” I say.
Jace smiles and backs out of the driveway. “If I had a daughter, I wouldn't let her go at all.”
“Are you saying you're a bad influence?” I ask him playfully.
“Yep.” He reaches over and squeezes my knee. Unlike Ian, Jace doesn't let his hand rise up any further than that. “I am the worst kind of influence. Especially when it comes to all the junk food we're gonna eat tonight.”
The county fair is exactly what I expected, despite having never been here before. The fairgrounds share land with the county rodeo, so the air reeks of horse poop and hay bales mixed with the scent of kettle corn and sausages on a stick.
Jace buys two tickets and we get our hands stamped by an elderly woman in a wheelchair. The stamp is shaped like the state of Texas, with a blue dot over where Salt Gap would be. We walk through a barn that's been converted into several vender booths, selling things from handmade cowhide purses to paintings of Indian chiefs to body jewelry. For once, I don't care that I don't have any money. There's nothing worth buying here.
Jace and I walk shoulder to shoulder through the crowds of people who all seem to have their own agenda: the children ride the rides, the men drink beer and stare at the women, the women flirt and laugh and find ways to eat cotton candy seductively. I think I'm the only girl here who isn't wearing cut off jean shorts and some kind of plaid pearl snap shirt.
I glance at Jace in his dark wash jeans and black T-shirt with a fox head logo on it. “I'm surprised they let us in,” I say. “We're not exactly the type of people who come here.”
Jace takes my hand and pulls me around a blue plastic trashcan that's overflowing with paper food wrappers and beer cans. “Speak for yourself. I'm wearing my genuine leather chaps under these jeans.”
I look at his legs. “Really?”
He laughs and leads me toward the carnival game booths. “Better watch out, your gullible is showing.”
Jace buys us several rounds of carnival games, despite me telling him they're totally rigged. He throws a dozen baseballs at a triangle of stacked bottles and doesn't hit them once. I lose count of how many rings I throw at a painted red tube, but none of them go over it.
The carnie at the balloon booth calls us over. “Stop lettin' Kevin rip ya off,” he shouts over the carnival music. “I'll give ya five darts for a dollar. That way you can win somethin' for yer sweetie.”
“I ain't ripping nobody off!” says the carnie at the ball booth as he pockets another twenty dollar bill from Jace. Jace looks at me and gives me devilish smile. “What do you say…sweetie? Want me to win you something?”
“Only if you let me win you something,” I retort, snatching a dollar from his hand.
The balloon booth is a lot easier because it's basically just a wall with balloons attached to it, and you throw darts at it. If you pop a balloon, you get a prize in the category of that color balloon. Jace wins a stuffed doll that looks a lot like SpongeBob Squarepants, but for copyright reasons, this one is called Fungi Fred.
The carnie hands the doll to Jace and then Jace presents the gift to me with an overdramatic flourish of his hand. “For you, princess,” he says as he bows to me. I take the doll, knowing that it's just a stupid toy, but I can't help thinking that Ian never gave me anything. And I came close to giving him my everything.
I throw my final dart toward the balloons, and hit a yellow one. Yellow is the most abundant color, so my prize choices are from the crappy section. “What's the most embarrassing thing I can get?” I ask the carnie.
His eyes light up. “I know just the thing,” he says as ducks under the booth to dig through a box. He returns with an oversized chain necklace with a pendant the size of my face, made of silver plastic. It's huge, like the kind Mr. T would wear. He turns the pendant over in his hand, flips on a battery switch and shows it to us. The word bootylicious blinks in several LED colors as Jace lets out a soft, “Oh my god, no.”
I take the necklace and place it over his head. “You look beautiful,” I say with a wicked smile. The carnie gives me a high five.
Jace leaves the tacky necklace on despite the looks we get from kids and adults alike. I don't know if he would have this much confidence if he were in his own hometown. There's something about being surrounded by strangers you'll never see again that can change your perspective of what's embarrassing.
We head to the scariest-looking carnival ride and take a spot in the long line of people ahead of us. Jace's blinking necklace lights up his face in several different colors. “This is fun. I never expected my self-inflected summer punishment would turn out this great.”
“Same here. I thought I would have died of boredom by now.” My hand reaches to my back pocket, then to the other one.
“What are you looking for?” Jace asks. I stare at my hand as if it were a foreign body part I only just now discovered.
“I don't know,” I say, tapping my pocket again. Realization dawns on me. “Shit, I was looking for my cell phone,” I laugh. “Ugh, it's such a habit, you know? I can't believe I'm not over it yet.”
Jace pretends to look offended by placing a hand on his chest. “Am I so boring that you need to find someone else to talk to while you're around me? Ouch, Bayleigh. I'm heartbroken.”
We move a few places forward in line. “Maybe I'm having such a great time I felt the need to post it to Facebook or something.”
He smiles. “That's better.”
When it's our turn to ride the PukeMax 5000, Jace hops in the metal carriage and places his arm around the back of the seat. My stomach leaps into my throat at the realization that these carriages are way smaller up close than they looked like from the ground. I squeeze in next to him and we close the lap bar over our legs. His hand wraps around my shoulders.
“Let's aim all puke toward that direction,” he says, pointing over my side of the carriage.
I've never been someone who throws up on rides, but with the way his cologne teases my senses has butterflies doing all kinds of acrobats in my stomach. I swallow as the ride cranks to life. I really, really hope the PukeMax 5000 doesn't live up to its name.
Hours fly by when I'm with Jace, and before I know it we've ridden every ride twice and I've eaten more fair food in one night than I have in my whole life. Jace checks the time on his watch. “I promised Ed I'd have you home by eleven,” he says. “That gives us time for one more ride. What will it be?”
I look down at the empty tray of what used to be nachos in my hand. “How about something slow?”
Jace leads the way to the Ferris wheel. A sadness falls over me as we climb into the carriage. This was one of the best nights of my life, but the fair only lasts one week.
“What are you thinking about?” Jace asks, once again sliding his arm around my shoulders. Tingles flitter from the top of my head down to my toes. I wonder if he knows what his touch does to me.
“Nothing,” I say out of habit as the Ferris wheel lurches forward, abruptly stopping a few seconds later to let the next set of people onboard.
“Doesn't look like nothing,” he prods, nudging me with his shoulder.
I shrug. “I guess I'm just realizing that we had an awesome time tonight, but that only makes the rest of the summer sucky because after tonight, there won't be anything fun to do. At the end of the day, I'm still grounded, I'm still stuck here and I still don't have a phone or computer.”
“You can't think that way,” he says. His hand plays with a strand of my hair behind my back. “Now that Ed doesn't consider me a soulless bastard, I'm sure he'll let you come over. We'll find something fun to do.”
Our eyes meet, and I hope we're thinking the same thing. The Ferris wheel stops at the very top. I glance over the side of the carriage and my eyes go wide. Jace leans closer to me and whispers in my ear, “You're braver than I am.”
I turn toward him, fully planning on making fun of him for being afraid of heights. But the moment my head turns, his lips catch mine in a soft, slow kiss. The carriage lurches forward and Jace slides his hands behind my head, holding me steady as we swoop downward through the air. I lean into his kiss. His lips are warm compared to the cool breeze dancing across my face as the Ferris wheel makes another loop.
Chills prickle down my arms as his hand slides down my neck and wraps around me. His tongue parts my lips as he deepens the kiss, his mouth tasting like the best kind of cotton candy. A tiny sigh escapes me and I feel him smile under our kiss.
He pulls away when the ride decelerates a few minutes later, leaving my whole body flushed. I know I'm smiling like a dork but I can't help it. Our carriage comes to a stop and Jace taps my nose with his index finger. “You're cute when you're flustered.”