Lost in a Reverie 18+ Only (Book 1 of Lastor Series) ['23/'24 EDIT]

Chapter 61

"No," I huffed and folded my arms across my chest, refusing to get out of the car.

Rick just laughed and took off my seatbelt, carrying me out of the car with ease and putting me down on the ground.

"It fucking smells like piss!"

He rolled his eyes and took my hand, twining our fingers together as he took long strides towards the entrance. I tried to pull my hand back, but he just squeezed it, looking back at me with a huge smile that I returned with a glare.

"Come on, I'll win you stuff," he said, tugging me beside him.

He paid for our fee and bought an fastpass ticket that included unlimited rides at the park, not that I would even dare step foot on any of those things. I've seen Final Destination. Shit was not fucking fun.

The place was packed tight by crowds of families and couples who held the idiotic belief that an amusement park was a romantic destination, like my dumbass date. I felt my anxiety reach erratic heights at being surrounded by so many people.

Rick pulled me to his front, wrapping a secure arm around me and using the other to push through the crowds while keeping anyone from touching a single inch of skin on my body.

"I'm here," he whispered in my ear. "Don't be scared."

"I'm not scared."

I was terrified. I've never been around so many people while sober. The stimuli was fast becoming overwhelming and the lack of alcohol or drugs in my system made it horribly unbearable. I couldn't focus and my senses were so out of whack that I was starting to feel nauseous. Why, in God's name, Rick thought this was a good idea was beyond me, but he looked so excited and I didn't want to ruin the day more than I already had.

Rick was talking to me and I forced my senses to focus solely on him, shutting out everything around me.

He cocked his head towards a booth filled with different colors of cotton candies. I hummed in affirmation. He grinned, handing a bill to the guy behind the booth who gave him two sticks of massive rolls of cotton candy twice the size of his head.

He handed one to me and I looked at it for a moment, before taking a large bite, the sweet confection melting almost immediately on my tongue. I snickered to myself as I thought about how Jude would both be appalled and jealous at my having this garbage. I was so going to brag about it later.

Rich pinched my cheek and I sent him a glare as I took another bite of the cotton. He kept grinning, basically dragging me along as we surveyed the booths before stopping at one.

There were colorful balloons lined up in rows on a board at the back of the booth. Stuffed toys of all sorts and sizes hung at the corners of the booth while candies and trinkets were upfront. A few teenagers were gathered around, cheering on their friend whose aim was far too out of practice. His darts won't even make it to the board.

"Jude told a story once," Rick was saying as we watched the kid play. "How, when you were little, you could only sleep at night after tucking all your dolls to bed and he had to be there to kiss them goodnight. Each one of them. Every night. It got to a point that he couldn't sleep either unless he did it."

I cringed. "What is wrong with him? Why would he tell people that shit?"

He snickered, taking a bite of his cotton candy. "It was during the time we were pledging to our fraternity. We had to share cherished memories from our childhood and the seniors voted on which one we had to act out. Jude's story won the vote."

"My God, does he have no regard for both our reputation?"

"I thought it was a very adorable story," he said, pulling me closer as a group of people passed us. "I was quite disappointed when I didn't see any dolls in your room. I thought I could tease big bad Angel Lastor about sleeping with dolls."