Page 32 of Redline Baby

Soren huffs something that isn't quite a laugh, warm and surprised.

"That's completely illogical."

"It's very logical. I'm choosing to remember tonight as the night you won me two things."

I tuck Milkshake securely under one arm, pleased with myself, entirely unbothered by how pleased I clearly look, how young my own voice sounds to my own ears right now.

Usually, there'd be a flinch here. Some scramble to cover it. A joke to yank the moment back toward something safer.

Tonight, there isn't one.

I just feel warm and small and glad, and I let it sit there in the open instead of chasing it back down.

"Milkshake it is," Soren says, like it's the most reasonable name in the world, like nothing about the last thirty seconds needs managing or explaining.

He falls into step beside me, unhurried, letting me carry my new favorite thing exactly the way I want to carry him.

We eat corn dogs walking the midway, and I get mustard on my sleeve within the first bite, barely even noticing it happen.

Soren does, though.

Immediately.

The way he notices everything about me now.

"Hold still," he says, and before I can ask why, he's got a napkin out and is wiping the smear off my sleeve himself, unhurried and matter-of-fact.

"I could've done that," I say, though I don't actually mind.

Not even a little.

"I know." He takes another bite of his own corn dog, unbothered. "Didn't mean I had to let you."

"Thank you," I say.

I really want to say Daddy, but I don't.

"Ferris wheel," I say instead, mouth still half full, pointing at it with the last bite of corn dog. "Non-negotiable. I refuse to leave a carnival without going on the Ferris wheel. It's basically a legal requirement."

"Lead the way."

The line's short. The night's gone properly dark by the time we climb into the swinging little car, and the operator locks the bar across our laps.

We lurch upward in stages, the whole fairground shrinking and brightening beneath us in stripes of colored light, the calliope music going tinny and distant.

The haunted house is a cheap plywood maze with a fog machine working overtime and a teenager in a rubber mask jumping out at exactly the same spot every single time.

It's somehow perfect specifically because it's so bad.

"This is genuinely terrible," I whisper, gripping Soren's hand tighter as we shuffle through the dark, strobe lights flashing intermittently overhead. "The special effects budget was clearly nine dollars."

"I think that's the appeal."

Something drops from the ceiling—fake cobweb, definitely—but I still yelp and grab his arm with my free hand.

He laughs, low and genuine, and doesn't let go of my hand the entire rest of the way through, keeping his hand firm and steady around mine even as I flinch at every cheap jump-scare and fog-machine hiss, grounding me through it without making a single comment about how tightly I'm holding on.

We come out the other end into the cool night air, and I'm laughing, breathless, still clutching his hand like I forgot to let go.