My Sort-of, Kind-of Hero (15 page)

“Another winner!” the operator yells. “Three more, pretty lady, and you’ve got your unicorn.”

I shoot my eyes to Travis, but he’s still staring at the wall in disbelief.

I have no problem popping the other three balloons and I stand gleefully with my arms outstretched, waiting for my unicorn.

“You have three more darts,” the operator points out. “Did you want to try and win your boyfriend something?”

I clamp my lips together while Travis stands beside me, completely silent.

“We’re going to try something else,” I say, holding my unicorn in one hand and grabbing Travis’s hand with the other.

Travis walks away shaking his head. “I played football in university. I was on the provincial lacrosse team.”

“I know,” I say, wrapping my arm around his middle as we walk away. “You were so close.”

I try and hide the smile from my face. There is hardly anything I’m able to beat Travis at and now I know whenever I challenge him it should definitely include darts.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he asks wryly, putting his arm around my shoulder.

“Every second,” I reply, smiling sweetly at him. “What’s next?”

I look around at the few rides we haven’t tried yet.

“What about the Ferris Wheel?” he asks.

I turn to look at his face and frown. “We can’t go on that,” I say. “It goes really high.”

His eyes soften at my concerned tone.

“It’s okay, I have my knight in shining armour with me,” he says.

“Seriously, Travis,” I say, shaking my head. “We can go on other rides.”

“But you want to go on that one,” he says, taking my hand and pulling me over to the Ferris Wheel.

The lineup for this ride is the longest, mainly because they only let two people on at a time and have to give the people that are already on it time to go around. By the time we finally get to the front of the line I can tell Travis’s nerves are getting to him.

“Are you sure?” I say. “We could do the teacups.”

“It’s fine,” he says, offering me a reassuring smile when I feel I should be the one reassuring him. “You survived the bumper cars; I can survive this.”

The young guy that operates the ride calls us forward, lifting up the bar for our bucket seat.

I get in first and then Travis gets in, sitting closer to me than he needs to considering it is a large seat that could easily carry three people.

He wraps his arm around the back of the seat as the young guy lowers the bar.

“This is inspected regularly, right?” Travis asks in what I am sure he hopes sounds like a casual tone.

“Yep,” the operator nods and doesn’t expand.

“And have you switched to the bio-steel lateral support arms?” he asks.

I sometimes forget how smart Travis is.

“Uhh…” the young guy looks like he has no idea what a support arm is.

“I’m sure it’s all fine,” I say to Travis, putting my hand on his leg for comfort.

Travis narrows his eyes at the kid as he steps back and presses the button to make the Ferris Wheel spin.

Travis breathes in as the Ferris Wheel rises and I squeeze his thigh with my hand as we start to get a little higher. I can see his jaw become rigid and he isn’t looking anywhere but straight ahead.

“Did you fall off a tree when you were a kid?” I ask. “Get pushed off a bridge?”

“What?” he asks, momentarily distracted. “No, why?”

“I don’t know,” I shrug. “I just thought that might be why you’re afraid of heights.”

“Always the writer,” he softly laughs. “Nothing as dramatic as that. I just don’t like them, never have.”

“But there has to be a
reason
,” I say. “I mean, no one is really comfortable with heights, but to be
afraid
of them− something had to have happened.”

“Did you ever get attacked by a herd of spiders when you were a kid?” he asks, raising one of his eyebrows in my direction. “Because I seem to remember finding you on a chair not too long ago, calling me and screaming that I have to come over because a daddy long legs was ‘eyeing you for lunch’.”

“That’s different,” I say, sitting up a little straighter.

Travis smiles but doesn’t say anything else. I can see he’s relaxed a bit from the conversation, though. Some people say the only way to get over a fear is to talk about it, so I decide to press the conversation a little further.

“Well, when did you first find out you were afraid of heights?” I ask.

Travis looks down and a hard look comes over his face. “At a place like this. But it was one of those outdoor carnivals that they set up in parking lots for a week. My mom took me when I was five; I remember her taking me out three times in my whole life and that was one of them. I was terrified of rides, but she wouldn’t listen, she said I would have a great time,” he looks sideways and laughs bitterly. “She put me on the Ferris Wheel by myself because she was too busy talking with some guy she just met there. I remember being so terrified I started to cry, and the ride felt like it would never end. We just kept going up and down and up and down. When it was done she was still talking to the guy. Didn’t even notice me. I just left and walked home.”

“You walked home by yourself?
You were five!”
I say.

Travis just shrugs. “My mom got home a couple hours later and didn’t even say anything about it. Maybe she forgot she even took me with her in the first place.”

I look at Travis and all I want to do is wrap him in my arms. He tells the story so matter-of-fact, and that’s what really breaks my heart.

“We shouldn’t have come on here,” I say as we go to the top again and then stop as someone else gets on.

Travis looks at me from the corner of his eye, seeming so much more relaxed then when we first got on. Which is crazy, if something like that ever happened to me I would never go near a Ferris Wheel again.

“It’s okay,” he says, offering me a smile. “It’s nice to be on here and not feel alone.”

His answer humbles me. The fact that he trusts me, that he brought me here. He’s always doing things like this for me and now I wonder what I ever do for him.

And suddenly, there it is. That feeling that everyone said was there and I constantly denied. I like Travis.

I lean forward in my seat and move the hand that was on his thigh to the side of his face as I bring my lips to his.

His lips are soft, pressed against mine, and my face heats with the sensation. I close my eyes and focus on the kiss. I take in every detail: from his warm skin to the butterflies floating around my stomach.

The Ferris Wheel starts to move again and I pull back from Travis. He hasn’t moved in any way to touch me, though I feel like his presence is running all over me.

“You’re not alone Travis,” I say before settling back into the crook of his arm.

The ride is nearly at an end, the operator is helping the people below us off and then it’s our turn, and Travis breathes a huge sigh of relief.

“It wasn’t that bad was it?” I tease him.

He looks over my face before grinning. “It could have been worse.”

“Oh
really
?” I ask.

The Ferris Wheel starts again, but the operator must have pressed the wrong key because our seat suddenly drops a foot down before smoothly coming to a stop in front of him.

Travis is plastered all over me: his legs stretched across the floor, his left arm across my chest, and he has the most adorable, panicked look on his face.

And I can’t help it, I throw my head back and laugh. It was a foot. He dropped a foot when he was five feet off the ground to begin with, and he now looks like a cat when you try and throw it in the bath.

And he gave
me
a hard time about the spiders.

“Smile!” I hear someone yell and see a bright flash.

“I was worried about
you
,” Travis says, fighting the grin on his face.

“My hero,” I say, putting my hand on his chest before standing up and getting off of the ride.

Once he is safely on the ground I grab his hand.

“What’s next?” I say, looking around, but I realise we have done most of the rides that will accommodate adults.

“I veto any more rides,” Travis says, steering me towards the exit door.

“You don’t have any vetos left,” I say, following him.

“My veto was ignored for the obstacle course,” he points out.

I stop suddenly, “One second,” I say, raising my finger. “I forgot something. I’ll meet you at the car.”

A few minutes later I walk into the parking lot and find Travis opening the door for me.

As we drive home, I pair my phone with his car’s Bluetooth and play some of our favourite music from my phone’s playlist. I think our Meatloaf rendition is particularly good.

When we are outside of my place, I fidget with my hands, and then my purse strap, and then my hands again.

“I had a nice time,” I say, offering him a smile and wonder if that sounded as corny as it felt.

“Sorry it wasn’t a real carnival,” he offers. “They’re kind of hard to come by in this weather.”

“Travis, it was perfect. And I know how much you hate that stuff but−”

“It wasn’t so bad,” he smiles.

I sit in the car and wonder what the next move is. It’s our first date, but at the same time it doesn’t really feel like a normal first date.

“I could make you dinner,” I suggest. “Tomorrow night.”

“Dinner?” he repeats, and I can see the reluctance on his face.

And there it is. I knew it was there, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I just knew I shouldn’t date Travis. He’s good looking, I’d have to be blind not to see that. He also happens to have the sweetest personality I know. He’s kind, considerate− what’s
not
to like? But, now things are different. I invited him to something, he doesn’t want to do it, and usually he would just tell me ‘no’. But now he can’t because things have changed between the two of us.

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” I say, reaching for the door handle. “You probably already have plans−”

“No, I don’t,” Travis says, reaching for my arm. “Dinner would be nice.”

He flashes me that smile that I find increasingly hard to resist.

“Are you sure?” I ask. “Because you looked a little reluctant before.”

“Well, honestly?” Travis asks. “You’re a terrible cook.”

I narrow my eyes at him, turning my body back towards his. “For that you just earned yourself an appetizer as well!”

He smiles, reaching his hand up to pull my face towards his. “I can’t wait.”

Chapter Thirteen

“And then we kissed goodnight,” I say, shrugging even though I know Jill can’t see me through the phone.

She’s been awfully quiet while I’ve been talking.

“Jill?” I prompt.

“OH MY GOD!” She finally squeals and I can tell she is jumping up and down.

“Seriously, it’s not a big deal,” I say, though I can’t seem to keep the smile off my face. “It could mean nothing.”

“Etty, this means
everything
,” Jill says.

“Etty,” Mr. Sharp approaches me nervously. “There’s a customer here.”

The customer is following close on the heels of Mr. Sharp with two comics in his hand.

“He, umm… needs some help.”

“Jill, I have to go,” I say into the phone. “I’ll call you later.”

“You better!” I hear her yell before I press the END button.

“It’s okay, Mr. Sharp. I’ve got it,” I say, and his face sinks with relief. I have no idea what he would have done if I had called in sick. He’d probably close the shop. We are already closed on Sunday and Monday, my two days off a week. It’s just me and Mr. Sharp, which means it’s just me. When I go for my lunch, I always feel like I have to shove it down my throat and rush back; I just picture him sitting behind the desk, wringing his hands and praying a customer doesn’t come in while I am gone.

I have no idea how he coped before I came to work for him. Another mystery I have never asked an answer for, but I constantly wonder about. It’s usually how I get through the last hour of my shift on slow days.

Mr. Sharp shuffles off into the back room to do some paperwork. I won’t see him again until he hears the jingle from the front door to announce this man who asked him a question is firmly out of his store.

“I’m trying to pick out a comic for my girlfriend, but I’m not sure which one,” he holds up the two options. One is Wonder Woman and the other is a special edition of Storm from X-men.

“Does she read comics?” I ask, taking them both in my hand.

“No, but I like to collect them. She said she wanted to give them a try to see why I liked them so much, but I’m not sure what she would like to start with,” he frowns.

I look at both comics.

“To be honest, I wouldn’t pick either of these,” I say, shrugging. “If she is reading them because you are interested in them I would give her one of your favourite comics.”

“Really?” he asks, skeptically. “Because I think she would be more interested in it if it had a female hero.”

I shake my head. “No, she’s interested in whatever one you like. She might end up loving them, but chances are she just wants to read them because you are reading them. Give her your favourite.”

He looks at me for a minute before nodding and turning around to go to the Batman section.

The door jingles again and I yell over my shoulder, “I’ll get the next customer, Mr. Sharp.”

The poor man might have a heart attack if he comes out from the back room and there are two customers in the store.

I walk to the front, but it’s my mother, not a customer, standing at the front desk.

“Hi, Etty,” she says as I walk over to kiss her cheek.

“Hey Mom,” I say, looking over my shoulder to check the customer is still okay by himself. “Are you by yourself?”

She nods. “I went to the used bookstore and left your father at home. He always says he wants to come but then ends up waiting outside for me and I feel rushed.”

I smile and nod my head and I try and clear some space on the front desk.

“So… what did you do last night?”

My head shoots up and my mother looks a little too casual.