Page 29 of Love at Full Tilt

And I know she does. The walls that she closes around me aren’t meant to be a threat. But that doesn’t stop them from crushing me.

I feel Mason’s shadow before he appears in front of me. “Is she always like this?” he asks softly after I hang up.

I nod.

“That’s why you need the money.”

I nod again.

He doesn’t say anything else. Just takes my hand and leads me forward.

We make so many twists and turns I no longer know where I am. The whole time, I can’t think of much besides our palms pressed together. It’s like paying attention to your heartbeat or your breathing. As soon as you’re aware it’s there, it’s all you can focus on.

We come to a stop at the far-left corner of the building, outside the seahorse room. There’s no light here, just the wavering shadows from the room’s interior-lit glass enclosures, and I can barely see Mason in the dark.

Mason lifts my hand and folds down my fingers so I’m pointing only one. Then he stretches it toward the wall.

Something’s carved there: one line down, a swoop on eitherside.

An anchor.

I trace the symbol with my fingertip, as if I’m carving it myself. My heart clamors in my chest.

I try to pull the marking down or press it in— the sink of an anchor —but neither action works. It’s not a button or a lever. Just some grooves in a brick.

Mason moves my hand down four rows, then two bricks over, his touch gentle. Our eyes lock over my shoulder, and together we push on it.

There’s a click, and with a creak and a rusty rattle, the wall glides away, exposing a dark hole that barely clears my head. “Oh my God,” I mutter. “How the heck did anyone find this? How did you ?”

“For Carter’s eighth birthday, his uncle took us around the parks, showing us all their secrets.

He made us promise that we would never share what we saw with anyone else, or Ike the Sorcerer would come blast us from our beds with his fire spells.

” Mason shakes his head. It’s there again in his face, the way this place has taken something from him.

“I was so scared of Ike back then I believed him.”

I peer into the opening. “You better sleep in fire-resistant pajamas tonight.”

He laughs softly, then draws me behind him into a dimly lit corridor. A second later, the door slips shut.

The seashell sconces lining the walls produce the only light breaking up the darkness. The air is cool and smells of the ocean, as if we might wade right into it if we venture far enough. Beneath it, I catch hints of Mason’s icy forest scent, and his heat finds my skin again as he takes my hand.

“Is this another murder tunnel? I’m starting to recognize a pattern.”

His laugh echoes around us. “I can take your phone and scan the code if you want to go back.”

“We’re already in the murder tunnel. The damage is done.” I grin. “Let’s huzzah this.” For the first two months of senior year, that was Tess’s phrase.

My heart stumbles at the thought, and for the first time since our fight, I miss her.

And Issy. They should be here, even if they don’t care about Fableland.

They would love the quasi-haunted-house feel of this tunnel.

Tess would inevitably make ghost noises, and Issy would pretend to see something in the dark… .

The sound of our steps bounces against the walls. “There’s not really a mermaid down here, is there?”

“Not a live one.”

I jerk to a stop. “Do not show me a dead mermaid.”

He snorts. “Murder tunnels, dead fantastical creatures. Where do you think you are?”

“Listen, we just met. I don’t know what you’re into.” It’s meant to be a joke, but it falls flat. Too much of a reminder that it’s only been three days. And we only get three more. I clear my throat.

Not too far off, a soft glow spills from beneath a doorway. Mason pushes the door open, then waits for me to enter first.

It’s like stepping out of midnight into afternoon. I gasp, trying and failing to look everywhere at once.

The space is twice the size of my bedroom at home, and everything—the walls, the floor, the ceiling—is painted ocean blue.

The color has been deepened in places to create the illusion of shadow; in others, it’s been blended with whites and light yellows to look like pockets of sunshine breaking through the waves.

Coral in shades of pink and purple and orange threaded through with dancing stalks of muted green seaweed march across the bottoms of the walls.

All the fish are sketched in motion so they look like they’ve been caught while scurrying away.

And among it all, glowing in the spotlight of strategically placed lights, floats not one mermaid, but a whole coven (or whatever groups of mermaids are called) in a range of skin tones and every hair color you could imagine.

It’s not the mermaid in the tank everyone talks about online. But it might be better.

One of them is holding the QR code in her outstretched hand. I walk over and scan it. My heart settles for the first time all day when I hear the familiar trumpet sound that signals I’ve made it to the next day.

I’m number twenty-nine out of sixty on the leaderboard. Not the top spot I wanted, but after the day I’ve had, I’m glad to have gotten through at all.

Another notification pops up in the app, coupled with a siren sound. I open it.

Starting with Day4, all contestants who rank in the top ten will gain access to daily hints.

My eyes widen at Mason. “Did you see this?” I ask, flashing my phone at him.

“The new rule?” He nods.

“We need to get into that top ten tomorrow.” And every day after that. If I’d had hints today, I probably would be much closer to the head of the pack. Maybe even in the top three. We need anything that will give us an edge. “No more messing around.”

“Got it. No kissing tomorrow.”

I squawk. “What? No! We just have to keep looking for the clues while we do it.”

“I don’t know if I’m that coordinated.”

We both laugh, even as a flush overwhelms my face. I can’t believe that we kissed, and that now we’re standing here talking about it.

How is this happening?

Returning my phone to my pocket, I spin around four or five times, trying to take the room in. It’s impossible to catch every detail, no matter how slowly I turn.

“Casterman came down here every night for almost a decade to paint this.” Mason mirrors my movements, as if he can catch whatever details I leave behind. “So much for a real mermaid, right?”

I look at him, eyes wide, mouth gaping. “You don’t think this is pretty close?”

“It’s just paint.”

“Paint that looks almost alive. ” I hook my arm through his and pull him toward a blond mermaid directly in front of us. Her face has been crafted with such detail that I’d swear her eyes track us, and her twin blond braids dance out around her head as if caught in a current.

I point these details out to Mason. He doesn’t interrupt once.

When I go quiet, his eyes drop from my face, and he inches closer to the blond mermaid. His gaze is such a physical, tangible thing that it leaves a hollowness in its wake. “Why do you believe in all of this so much?” He runs a finger along the mermaid’s braids like he’s trying to hold them still.

Shrugging, I rest my back against her fin. “I guess I needed something, and Fable Industry was always there.”

“Like in eighth grade?”

“And every other time before and after that.” I rub my arms even though I’m not cold.

After all that Mason has shared about his family, I want to be as honest in return.

But talking about my mother makes my stomach clench and the air feel thicker, like my words might summon her and her worries here to suck the breath from my lungs.

“I told you my parents were overprotective?”

He nods.

“It’s honestly so much more than that. My mother has generalized anxiety disorder, and it makes her freak out all the time that something horrible is going to happen.

Plus my parents thought they’d never be able to have kids, and then I showed up, and I was really sick as a baby and Mom just…

she can’t handle not knowing I’m okay at every second. ”

He frowns. “That sounds like a lot.”

“She went on every field trip, chaperoned every away game for volleyball. Sophomore year in high school she pulled me out of school every time we did an active shooter drill.” I sigh.

“And then they just always assumed that I was going to work at the store and take it over and never even asked me what I wanted, and I sometimes feel like I’m going to live in that house, in that store, in that tiny little life, forever.

” I blow out a breath. I’ve never shared this much before.

I’m talking fast, and my voice is shaky. Mason reaches for my hand.

“But this place, there’s so much to it. All these secrets and stories and myths. It reminds me that my world doesn’t have to stay that small.”

His lips spread into a smile. “That makes sense.”

“It doesn’t sound childish?”

He weaves his fingers in mine, and his eyes cut back to the mermaid. Something in them has softened. “Not at all. Seeing parts of this place through you has helped me understand why people like it so much.”

“You can’t tell me this isn’t amazing.” I drag him to a school of angelfish on the opposite wall. “Imagine how long it took Casterman to do this.”

I run my hands along the tile. Its surface is cool beneath the paint, like the ocean at night, and the brushstrokes bump silkily against my palm.

“I love how there’s always something more to discover here.

Something new to each ride you take again, a surprise at every turn, even when you think you’ve found them all.

” I exhale up at the ceiling. “I knew I wasn’t going to find a mermaid here, but I didn’t expect to find this. ” I turn back to him.

To find you, I don’t say, though I want to.

My heart stops at the feel of my phone rumbling in my pocket. If it’s my mom going back on her promise to wait four hours to talk to me I might scream.

But it’s more texts from Tess, apologizing again and asking if I’m going to be back for dinner.

Shaking my head, I shove my phone away.

“Your mom again?” Mason asks softly.

“No. Tess.”

“You can talk to her if you need to.”

“I’m still too mad.” There’s no judgment in his face, but I feel the need to explain anyway.

“I have a lot of pent-up…I don’t know…anger?

Frustration? Since I can’t really get mad at my mom for how she acts.

So I tend to”—my shoulders stick by my ears when I try to shrug; I don’t know how to explain this without making myself sound like the Hulk, smashing everything I see—“lash out pretty fast when I get upset. Without giving myself time to think about my reaction. I don’t want to do that, so I try to walk away until I’ve processed.

Until I figure out some way to defuse my feelings.

Somewhere to put the stuff I can’t do anything about.

” Tess might deserve my anger, but that doesn’t mean I should make her my punching bag.

Mason eases away, then taps his stomach. “Use me.”

I make a face. “What?”

“Get out your anger here.” He pats his palm flat against his chest.

“I’m not going to hit you.”

He smiles, his watercolor eyes alight with amusement. “Chicken.”

My mouth falls open. “I’m not a chicken. I don’t want to hurtyou.”

“I can take it.” We’re clearly clowning around, but something in his voice goes beyond joking. Like he means it. That he can take whatever I give him.

“Mason.”

He gives me one of those “come at me” waves.

I’m laughing as I attempt to swing my fist and barely bump my knuckles against his (ridiculously solid) abs. That’s as good as it’s going to get, because I don’t want to hurt him. It seems like so many people have already done that. I don’t want to be next. Not even in a teasing way.

“That was pathetic,” he jokes, catching my loose fist in his hand. He moves like he’s going to demonstrate how to actually swing, but then he simply tugs me closer.

His gaze intensifies as I close the small distance between us.

For a second that seems like an eon, we lock eyes, lost in each other. Then we’re kissing again.

If our first one was a soft summer night, this one’s a hurricane. We slam into each other like we’ve found another place to put the feelings we can’t control.

His mouth is urgent, and our lips part at the same time. My hands claw at his shirt to draw him closer.

He guides me backward until my spine meets the wall, then props a hand flat above my head. The other arm curls around my waist, angling me against him. Sparks pop and sizzle everywhere our bodies connect.

We’re both breathless, but we keep kissing, keep grasping at each other, as if neither of us wants to be the first to let go.

If at that exact moment another contestant hadn’t pushed through the door, forcing us to jump apart, our faces the deepest shade of red, we might have remained there, tangled in each other, for eternity.