Love’s Chances

Chapter 2

The line for the Ferris wheel ride was growing around the hot dog and helium balloon stands as we waited to get on.

“What are you afraid of, T.J.?” Devon asked, noticing my hand trembling when he reached for it with his.

“Heights,” I said.

“Are you sure you want to ride a Ferris wheel?” he said, biting off a chunk of his blue snow cone.

I held my half-eaten cotton candy in one hand as I handed my ticket to the Ferris wheel operator.

“Let me lift the bar for you,” Devon said, gesturing me toward the gargantuan wheel of my nightmares. As I passed him, I smiled at his chivalry. Rare these days, I thought. He was soft spoken and had a trace of an accent. Italian? I stared into his sapphire blues, and when I asked him if he wore contact lenses to heighten the color he said, “No, they’re the real thing.” His red hair was neatly combed to the side, his meticulous, well-tended beard, full not bushy, reminded me of an older Ron Weasley. I could snuggle up next to him, I mused.

Devon exfoliated daily, I noticed, because I couldn’t see a single pore on his chiseled face. He was a thirty-five-year old man who prided himself on his good hygiene: His online profile to a tee. His damp skin smelled of rosemary oil as he slid into the seat of the Ferris wheel beside me, the back-and-forth rocking motion clutching my gut, making me queasy.

The humid night air blasted in our faces, carrying with it the mouthwatering scents of hot dogs and candy apples.

Devon wedged his thick, strong body close to me, legs splayed, his free arm reaching behind me as if he was going to hug me. The attendant, a tall dark-skinned twenty-something body builder, inked with tattoos up and down his arms, locked us in place, as a whiff of his bitter body odor wafted in my face.

“Thanks, Pete,” Devon said to the ride operator.

I watched Pete look from me to Devon, and wink. I turned to Devon, who grasped me in his big arms. I blushed at his boyish grin.

Trying to cover my shyness, I tore a hunk of pink cotton candy from the cone and stuffed my mouth with the spun sugar.

The cab started to move. My stomach heaved. I gripped the bar, my palms clammy and shaky.

“Nervous?” Devon asked, a hint of mirth in his low husky voice.

“Are you making fun of me?” I asked, my mouth twisting into a grimace.

Devon grinned reassuringly, his lips parting, revealing a one-inch gap in the middle of his off-white teeth. “Do you still want to ride?” Devon asked, his warm hand falling across my bare leg.

I loosened up at his touch. Sensitive. Safe. Pleasing. I shifted in my cargo shorts and felt my heart hammer.

“We still have time to get off,” Devon said, “and ride the children’s crazy teacups.”

“No, I’m facing my fears tonight.”

His hand tightened on my thigh, this time it felt playful. “Is that why you’re here?”

The cab swayed back and forth. The cogs in the Ferris wheel groaned to life.

“Among other things,” I said, my eyes clamped shut, my stomach rolling. My throat constricted. I squeezed the cotton candy cone too tightly, my fingers coiling around its edges, hard.

“Relax,” Devon whispered, grabbing my hand. “Everything is cool.”

The Ferris wheel lurched forward into the air, higher than my fears and nightmares would take me.

“You all right?” he asked, pumping my hand in his.

I swallowed. Shook my head. Sucked in a breath.

The heat from Devon’s hand felt comforting.

High. Higher. We were flying now.

I opened one eye. Then the other one, gradually, until I could see the tops of the amusement park rides in their kaleidoscopic colors, blinking brightly, hypnotic.

In the midst of the dense crowds, and the mysterious man controlling our ride, it was only Devon and me, alone. That is how I saw things playing out that night.

I clenched my cotton candy cone as the Ferris wheel jerked, slowly, and as we fell gradually, a grumbling in the pit of my stomach, more like a punch, seized me.

It was one of those moments that reminded you that you were alive. Face your fear. Feel the beat of your heart.

Devon’s hand was back on my leg. I didn’t know if he was looking at me because I had closed my eyes again. My nausea was replaced with a violent stab of anxiety.

I heard Devon’s voice over the whoosh of air blowing across my face and in my ears, as the wheel pulled us backward. Then up, up, up.

Deep-throated. Masculine. “How do you feel?” Devon asked.

My mouth was dry. I licked my lips.

“You can open your eyes,” he said. “We’re not going to fall.”

I blinked back the jet of air in my face as we reached the top, overlooking the crowded amusement park.

The briny smell of August, burnt popcorn, and greasy pepperoni pizza lingered in the sweltering air.

Devon handed me his snow cone. “Have a lick. Wet your tongue.”

I hated snow cones. But the look of the moist dessert was welcoming. Devon raised the blue ice to my mouth. I leaned into him, our shoulders already brushing each other in the close compartment. He looked sexy in his white, skintight tee. From the looks of his powerful arms and cords of blue veins snaking beneath the tanned skin, he worked out religiously.

The warmth of my mouth against the snow cone was refreshing. I ate tufts of cotton candy to overwrite the artificial raspberry taste in the back of my throat.

“Feel better?” he asked, biting down into the same place where my lips grazed his dessert.

“Much. Thanks.”

He leaned back, his right arm slung over the rear of the cab, the tips of his sweaty fingers skimming the nape of my neck. I closed my eyes at his touch. An electrical pulse coasted along my limbs, to my feet. I felt myself getting hard. I moved in my seat.

I wiped beads of sweat from my forehead with my knuckles. The hairs on my arms prickled in the hot night air.

No longer anxious, I let myself relax with the robotic, steady movement of the Ferris wheel and the consoling contact of Devon’s large hands wandering up and down my neck and back.

“How long is the ride?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Why? You feeling sick?”

“No. No. Just wondering.”

“Ten. Maybe fifteen minutes.”

We sat quietly, eating our desserts.

“How do you know Phil?” I asked.

A long inhale and a flint of a smile. “You mean Pete?” Devon said, staring down at Ferris wheel attendant.

I nodded. “I sensed camaraderie between the two of you when we got on the ride.”

“I’ve been coming to Great Escape every summer for the last five years. Pete and I met here, riding the Comet, actually.”

Eyebrows raised, I tossed him an “I see” look.

“He’s a long story,” Devon said.

I stared out onto the grand sweeping views of the park. “I’m impressed.”

“A big turn out this year.” He paused and looked at me. “I’m glad you agreed to meet,” he said.

I turned to him. “I have to be honest with you.”

He licked his snow cone, and nodded.

“I was nervous setting up this date tonight. I didn’t think online dating was in the cards for me.”

“I was worried too.”

I leaned back and laughed, oblivious to the unstable movements and creaks of the Ferris wheel.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, smiling.

I shook my head. “I just thought about how far I’ve come and how I should get out of the house more often.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“I sound like an oldster,” I said.

“An oldster, huh?” Devon echoed my thoughts, pulling me closer to him.

“If you consider thirty-two old.”

“To my thirty-five? Please,” he said, drawing the word out.

The music of our laughter calmed me.

“Your online pic was spot on,” I said, staring at his cute face and wondered what it would feel like to comb my fingers through his beard. His blue eyes and kissable lips were as charming as his personality seemed to be the first time I had met him online.

* * * *

Earlier that evening I had received a message from him.

Wanna meet? he had typed.

Where? My nervous fingers flew across the keyboard.

Great Escape?

Large crowds and roller coasters? I thought but didn’t convey to him in words.

Never been to an amusement park? he said. Come on. It’ll be fun. We’ve got to meet some time, right?

Right.