The Game Series (54 page)

“I didn’t know you could drive.”

I glance over at Blake, amused. “You sound shocked.”

“I am. A little.” He looks out the window. “And I still have no bloody idea where you’re taking me or why I agreed to come.”

“Just… It’ll be worth it. I promise.”

“Let me guess – it’s one of your favorite places.”

I grin, changing gear. “How did you know?”

I see him turn his head out of the corner of my eye, and I can just make out his raised eyebrows and smirking mouth.

“Abbi,” he says. “
Everywhere
you’ve shown me is your favorite place. The park, the promenade, Holly’s… Now wherever the hell we’re going is, too.”

“So I have a lot of favorite places. Shoot me.” I shrug a shoulder. “You’ll love it here. I promise.”

“You’ve been right about every other place so far, so I guess I should trust you. But did we really have to go after dance?”

“You work almost every night. This is a place you have to see at night. It adds to the magic.”

“Can you tell me where we’re going now?”

“You should like a child.” I laugh. “Okay, okay. We’re going to Coney Island.”

“Helpful, Abbi. Really helpful.” Blake groans. “Where and what is Coney Island?”

“Well, it’s an island of sorts.”

“You took your smart-arse pills today.”

I giggle. “Say that again.”

He frowns at me. “Say what?”

““Arse.””

I stop at some lights and look at him. He’s smiling, his striking green eyes alight with silent laughter.

“Why?”

“Just say it.”

“Arse.”

I giggle again.

“Why is that so funny?”

I shrug as I pull away and turn the corner that leads to the parking lot. “It’s just the way you say it. I think it’s your accent – it’s that proper British one. A Downton Abbey accent.”

A heart-stopping, breath-taking, giggle-inducing British accent
.

“I think I’m supposed to be flattered by that.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I’m undecided.” He laughs, and we both climb from the car. The sea breeze crawls across the beach to where we’re standing, and I zip my sweatshirt up even though it’s June and summer is finally taking over from spring.

Where in Brooklyn I’m constantly surrounded by the past, Coney Island is one of the few places untainted by any memories of Pearce. Here, I’m totally free from everything to do with him. I can just be me – the me I want to be.

Maybe that’s why I brought Blake here. Perhaps subconsciously, I wanted to take him to a place that has no association with Pearce to work out how I feel emotionally. Because I feel something physically.

I feel butterflies in my stomach when he looks at me, and shivers tickle their way across my skin when he touches me. Every time he laughs I have to fight the urge to laugh with him.

But my emotions are so confused. So frail. So volatile.

And I’m not sure if anyone can handle the rollercoaster that is my fight with depression.

“Where are you taking me?” Blake’s voice pulls me from my rapidly darkening thoughts, and I focus on crossing the street to the amusement parks. I look in the direction of the Wonder Wheel standing tall.

“Really? You’re telling me you can’t see the giant damn wheel over there?” I ask him in disbelief.

“Of course I can bloody see it. That wheel is huge.”

“Well then. We’re going there.”

“You brought me to a fair?”

“Of sorts. It’s more of an amusement park, really. Plus, the beach is great for a relaxing walk. Sometimes I need a break even from dancing.”

Blake nods slowly. “So you’re telling me you wanted to walk on the beach and dragged me along for the ride?”

“Something like that.” I grin up at him.

“How do you know I didn’t have other plans?”

“Because you agreed to come.” I pause as I put my hands in my sweater pockets. “And you don’t know anyone else in Brooklyn.”

We walk into Deno’s Park and he nudges me with his elbow. “Shut up. Are we going on that wheel or what?”

~

“You could have warned me the damn thing wasn’t stationary,” Blake grumbles, shuddering.

I laugh. “It’s a wheel. Why the hell would it be still?”

“I meant the carts, Abbi! Damn thing nearly threw me out!”

“Don’t be such a wimp,” I tease. “I’m a girl and I took it better than you did!”

“And I bet you’ve done it a thousand times. In England, those things have stationary carts. The way they
should
be.”

I turn and walk backwards, smiling at him in the waning light. He runs his fingers through his already messy hair, ruffling it even more, and smiles lopsidedly at me.

“What?”

“If you keep moaning, I think I’ll just run back to my car and leave you here.”

He raises his eyebrows. “You think if you ran from me I couldn’t catch you?”

I shrug carelessly, backing into the crowd. “Why don’t you try it?”

His eyes flare, and my heart thumps as I tear my gaze from his and push my way through the people around me. A small giggle bubbles inside my chest, and I clamp my hand over my mouth to stop it escaping. I look over my shoulder but I can’t see him anywhere, so I cheat, skipping out of the park and onto the boardwalk.

My feet hit the wood, my footsteps barely distinguishable from those around me. Children storm up and down the boardwalk, laughing and shouting as they chase each other, running circles around their parents. I sidestep to avoid two small boys screaming at each other as their father pretends to be a monster.

I’m momentarily distracted by the memory of Maddie’s father doing the same thing to her and I as our pigtails flew wildly behind us. We nearly always went onto the beach to try and outrun him but it failed every time, ending with us both rolling around in the sand. But that was the fun part – all of us knew how it would end, and although her dad pretended to be mad, he always laughed just as hard as we did. And he still chased us the next time we came.

My lips curve upwards, warmth spreading through my body. For once a happy memory – one that defined a huge part of my childhood. One that will stay with me forever.

“I told you I’d catch you.”

I jump and scream, pressing a hand to my chest. Blake’s hands are hot on my arms even through the material of my sweater, and he laughs loudly as I let all the air whoosh from my lungs.

“You ass!” I breathe out, shoving his chest. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“What? Scared you or caught you?” He grins, and his eyes hold a playful challenge.

“Both,” I reply, putting my hands on my hips and staring up at him.

His grin widens, a hint of a small, sassy boy sneaking through. “You shouldn’t try to run, Abbi.”

“And why’s that?”

He steps forward, his toes almost touching mine. I take in a deep breath, my eyes fixed to him as the contradictory sparks of serious and teasing flash through his green eyes and captivate me.

“You can’t run from someone who really wants to catch you. That’s why.”

I close my eyes for a split second, and in that time, it seems like the evening sky gives way to the night one. I could swear it wasn’t this dark five minutes ago, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’ve been standing here with my eyes on Blake’s for longer than I thought.

“Then the cotton candy inside the amusement park should be really, really scared right about now,” I whisper.

His lips twitch on one side. “Maybe it’s just not the cotton candy that should be worried.”

My chest tightens, a mixture of fear and apprehension restricting my ability to breathe. Anticipation sneaks its way in, winding itself around the stronger feelings of fear and beating it down. I feel it taking over, tingling through my whole body, even down to my toes. My lips part of their own accord, making my shallow breaths feel scratchy as my mouth and throat go dry.

Blake’s eyes flick to my lips, and I can see the indecision flitting across his features in the mar of his brow, the twitch of his mouth, the slight clench of his jaw.

Do it. Don’t. Do it. Don’t. Do it. Don’t.

My feelings battle inside me, clashing over and over until I’m uncertain whether I want to end it and either grab him or run from him or stay here. Just stay here, his body closer to mine than I thought I’d ever allow and his eyes searing into me every place they look.

Slowly, he reaches a hand up and tucks my wayward hair behind my ear. “Let’s go scare some cotton candy.”

He steps back and turns toward the amusement park, walking in the direction of it before I can respond. I stare after him for a few beats as my body relaxes, a tinge of disappointment nudging at the back of my mind.

I welcome that nudge. I welcome it because it tells me what I wanted to know. It tells me there’s something there for Blake that’s more than physical, more than pure attraction. It tells me he’s slowly chipping away at the walls I’ve so carefully constructed.

More than that, it reminds me of what it’s like to feel something other than pain, guilt, and self-loathing.

I quickly slip my fingers beneath the wrist of my sweater and hold onto my pulse point for a second. My strong, racing pulse.

For the first time in over a year, I don’t just feel alive.

I feel like I’m
living
.

I run after Blake, catching him as he’s leaving the park again. He’s holding cotton candy on a stick, and when he recognizes me, he holds it out to me.

“Where’s yours?” I take the stick. “Thank you.”

“I don’t like candy floss that much.”

“Candy floss.”

“No. We are not going there again. Absolutely not.” He shakes his head, and we walk straight across the boardwalk to the beach.

“Go on. Please. Just once.” I look up at him through my eyelashes and pick some cotton candy off the stick, putting it in my mouth and letting it fizz on my tongue.

“Bloody hell,” he mutters. “Fine. Candy floss. Happy?”

I smile sassily at him. “Very. I love the way you talk.”

“Love it, or find it funny?”

“A bit of both, actually.” I pick some more of the pink sugar off. “But in the best kind of way.”

“Then you won’t mind if I do this.” He reaches over and takes a chunk of my cotton candy, shoving it in his mouth with a grin.

“Hey! I thought you didn’t like it!”

“I said I didn’t like it much. Not that I didn’t like it at all.” He leans over again and takes some more. I swat at his arm with my free hand as he laughs, and he bats back at me. Our arms tangle, and my hand ends up hooked around his elbow.

My fingers flex against his tightened bicep, and instead of pulling my hand away, I curve it round his arm. He steps closer to me, our arms brushing together, and I wait for the tensing of my back, the flood of fear. Whatever I’m expecting doesn’t come. I feel nothing but comfort being so close to him.

I take the stick of my cotton candy in my other hand, the one wrapped around his arm, and glare up at Blake as he takes a third piece.

“For someone that doesn’t like this stuff much, you’re really pushing it.”

“I have to have the taste for it. Apparently I have that taste tonight.”

I roll my eyes but the smile on my lips gives me away. His own smile warms me, and when he takes yet another piece of it, I get ready to yell at him. Instead of taking it to his mouth, he puts it to mine. I stick out my tongue, and he puts the pink fluff on there. It melts straight away.

Blake turns his head out to sea as we walk slowly across the sand. The breeze flits through my hair, and I sigh silently. My arm tightens around his again, and he pulls our linked arms into his body more. I rest my head against his bicep, still picking at the cotton candy, and wonder what has really changed in the last three weeks.

I don’t need to ask though. Not really.

Something so simple has changed. Something so trivial, yet so important to me. Something I never thought I’d do again. Something, three weeks ago, I would have laughed at.

Something called trust.

Because, a voice in the back of my mind whispers, I trust Blake.

Heart and soul.

~

I stare blankly at my ceiling. The whiteness of it is so clean. So
clinical.
And it does nothing but remind me of the starkness of my room in St. Morris’s and the starkness I tried so hard to leave behind when I returned home.

My fingers twitch and my eyelids close and open rhythmically. They’re the only parts of my body that are moving. The rest of me is deathly still, and I can feel myself remembering why I hate white so much.

White is a blank canvas. Anything can be drawn onto it and anything can be projected, meaning anything can be seen. Anything at all – like a shadow puppet, or a crazy piece of art.