Page 24 of The Dangers of Daydreaming (Love Connections #2)

Rollercoaster of Emotions

Finn

The trees nearly swallowed us as the group began down the path into the Haunted Wood.

Lucy had her phone out and a document app open, but her eyes were anywhere but on it.

A group was coming toward us from the other direction, and Lucy had positioned herself smack dab in the middle of the trail, chin lifted as she gazed at the tops of the trees.

I waited, but she didn’t move, so I walked up beside her, placing my hand on the small of her back and guiding her to the side.

She didn’t jump or glare at me. Instead, she turned that beautiful smile on me. “It’s perfect.”

I didn’t move my hand. I was happily pushing my luck here, but I’d warned her I planned to convince her to go out with me. My hand was warm, and I itched to tiptoe my fingers around her waist and pull her to me.

And why not? Again, I’d promised enticement.

So, I let my hand skim across her thin cotton shirt until my palm was against her side and I could tug her just a little closer. Not as close as I wanted. But closer.

She shivered, and her cheeks turned pink.

I felt an almost primal level of pride at that. I’d better watch out—my attempts to convince her were just digging my hole deeper and deeper, and if she turned me down, I’d be stuck at the bottom with no ladder.

My brain didn’t particularly want to listen to logic right now, though.

It took longer than I’d expected, but she disentangled herself from me, sending me a halfhearted glare. It was the halfhearted part that gave me hope.

“Gemma,” she said, skipping forward away from me. “I don’t think I’ve asked where your family is from. Are you guys in the Salt Lake area?”

The sweet woman shook her head, her hand clasped in her husband’s. “We are in Arizona, but we had a layover in Salt Lake.”

They struck up a conversation about that, and I was content to just trail behind them, listening and enjoying the scenery.

It had been a while since I’d gone on this tour.

The last time had been the previous fall, but I hadn’t joined the group, opting to stay in the car until the tour was finished.

We weren’t particularly busy in the winter and spring, but there had been a Green Gables Christmas event last year, and I’d just dropped our guests at that and then picked them up after.

Really, most of the time, I was just an overpaid chauffeur.

Seriously overpaid, considering my qualifications, which equaled living on the island and happening to be the grandchild of a couple that ran a popular B&B.

Lucy glanced back briefly, catching my eye, but then focused again on her conversation. I smiled to myself. She wasn’t as unaffected as she liked to pretend.

My text tone went off, so I pulled my phone out.

Until Pops had ended up in the hospital, I hadn’t bothered to check my phone hardly at all, but despite knowing Gram was still sleeping at the B&B and Pops was slowly getting his energy back, another update could come anytime.

And being so far from them today made me want to stay on top of things even more.

Dadbeat: Hey Finn, I talked to Gram today and heard your Pops hasn’t been doing well. I’ll be headed up for a few days—would love to get together and get something to eat or catch a movie while I’m there. Let me know your availability.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

It had been two and a half years since I’d seen my dad. He texted on my birthdays and major holidays, but that was it. And now he was just going to drop in and wanted… to get a bite to eat or catch a movie? Like we’d seen each other last month?

Man, he could at least pretend to butter me up a bit first.

A dozen responses filtered through my mind, none of them nice and most of them straight up mean, so I pocketed my phone. I’d deal with it later.

We finished the walk through the Haunted Wood, and I probably had several missed opportunities to make jokes or insinuations about Lucy and me on Lovers’ Lane, but like usual, even just the thought of my dad was ruining my day.

What would it have been like to have a real dad? Not a perfect one, but maybe one that didn’t end up in jail. One that didn’t decide after he’d served his time that a kid seemed like too much work. One that…

“You okay?” Lucy asked quietly from next to me.

I looked up. We were at the van and everyone was standing around waiting for me to unlock it.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” I said, unlocking and opening her door.

She shot me looks all through the drive, but I wasn’t about to say anything.

My phone with that text burned a hole in my pocket the whole way.

I almost waited in the car while the group visited Lucy Maud Montgomery’s grave, but at the last second, I pocketed the keys, chucked my phone down by the van pedals, and jogged after them all.

Lucy saw me coming and broke off from the group. Her eyes took me in, and I half expected another interrogation like after the hospital.

“Don’t want to talk about it?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Okay.” She fell into step beside me.

I shook my head at her.

“What?” she asked.

“That’s all it takes for you to drop this, but I can’t convince you to go out with me?”

Her hair was coming out of its braid, and it reminded me of the unkempt style she’d had last night… and how it had looked that morning. The bun had been lopsided, and more than a few hairs had escaped. Freaking adorable.

“I’ve told you my reasons about the date,” she said, but her eyes were smiling.

“I know. So trivial. Something about an ocean between us.”

“Yeah, trivial.”

We grinned at each other for a minute before she seemed to realize what she was doing.

Another point for me.

We caught up with the group who were around the gravesite and spent a few minutes there.

Lucy sighed. “Do you think she knows that she created a world better than reality?” she asked as we turned to walk back to the car. It seemed rhetorical.

I was answering anyway.

“She created an incredible world. But she based it off the real one.”

She waved me off. “And made it better.”

“I don’t know about that. There was plenty of heartache in her stories. You can’t tell me you didn’t cry when Matthew died.”

“Absolu tely sobbed. My mom came up to my room to see if I’d broken a bone or something.”

“So, what makes them better than reality?” The group was again back at the van, but Lucy and I weren’t quite there. I clicked the unlock button and stopped at the side of the parking lot, waiting for Lucy’s answer.

She paused at that. “The happily ever after.”

“There are a lot of happily ever afters in life. It just depends on when you end the story.”

She sighed, scrunching up her nose. “You just can’t convince me that real life holds a candle to fiction. That’s why it’s fiction.”

“I think you’ve got it backwards. Fiction doesn’t hold a candle to real life.”

She opened her mouth to respond, then snapped it shut. “Agree to disagree.”

I wanted to continue disagreeing actually.

Maybe it was because my dad’s text had me feeling antagonistic.

Maybe it was partly because I really liked this girl and was actively trying to get her to reciprocate—or realize that she reciprocated—those feelings.

But it felt like I was personally offended by her outlook on life.

As if she was standing there telling me I could never measure up to Gilbert Blythe.

Sure, I probably couldn’t, but having it said to you stung. And it was ridiculous to measure reality against fiction. They were dinner and dessert. Both great in their own right, but we lived in reality—we needed dinner.

And frankly, why couldn’t reality be dessert too? I—

I needed to stop having a metaphorical discussion in my mind. Lucy had her head tilted and was watching me strangely.

“Sure,” I grumbled. “Agree to disagree.”

“Hey, ” I said, as we pulled back in front of the hotel and everyone started to get out. Lucy turned to me in the passenger seat, eyebrows lifted.

Gemma called a goodbye, and I waved over Lucy’s head. The van door shut, leaving just Lucy and me.

“I want to show you something.”

“Okay.”

“We’ve got to go somewhere first.” I hadn’t turned the car off yet and was hoping she’d buckle back up and we could go.

“Where?”

“Do you trust me?”

She pressed her lips together. “Depends, are you trying to trick me into a date?”

“Lucy, when I take you on a date, you’ll be very much aware.”

Her cheeks went rosy. “Okay fine, I trust you.”

“Perfect. Buckle up.” I put the van into gear and pulled out of the lot. It was only a few minutes to our location.

“An amusement park?” Lucy asked, looking up at Sandspit with surprise in her voice.

“A small one, but the best this island has to offer.” I parked, unbuckling. “I have a proposition for you.”

“That sounds scary.”

I ignored that. “They’ve got these great carnival games here, I used to come with friends all the time in high school. I thought it would be more fun to play these than have you pretend to go to sleep at like seven p.m. tonight.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, but her voice was threaded with laughter.

“Sure, sure. I’d just hate to have to steal your pillows in order to get you to wake up. But I’ve also got lots of inaccurate Anne of Green Gables facts up my sleeve that I intend to share if you won’t stay and hang out with me tonight. Your choice.”

“So, this is coercion?” Her eyes were sparkling with amusement.

“One hundred percent. You in?” I asked.

“Okay, sounds fun.”

I was honestly shocked she said yes. Maybe instead of asking her on a date, I should have just driven her to a restaurant and asked if she was in for a free meal.

Except I wanted a date in every sense of the word. And I wanted her to know it.

We entered the park, buying two passes for carnival games. I loved this place, but it had been years since I’d come. The flashing lights, crowds, and smell of carnival food immediately filled my senses in the best way.