Being named after Aphrodite should have been a blessing. But knowing Dite's luck, it might have been a curse. Because with this name came the relentless need to associate herself in anything involving the trigger words "crush", "type", and "boys".
W...
My finger drifted to the home screen button on my phone, and I sighed at the unfortunate revelation that only a minute had passed since I'd last checked the time.
Seventh period always went by slow, considering it was the last class of the day, but now it was Friday and I had a school fair to get to. It's not like I ever really cared much about going to after school activities or games, but Seidon had worked hard on putting this together, so the least I could do was show my support.
Well, that was one reason I was eager to go.
No other reason.
My impatient eyes glanced back at my screen and seeing as we only had one minute left, I began prematurely tucking my stuff away. Our teacher gave me a slightly disapproving look, but before she could get any scolding done, a loud bell rang out and now I wasn't the only one rushing to stow away a pencil bag.
I swung the bag on my shoulder, checking to see if I'd gotten any texts, before a hand pulled my wrist as I walked out the classroom door.
"Dite!" Carter exclaimed, making my head shoot up in surprise.
"Carter?" I didn't know how he'd gotten here so fast, but I didn't question it.
Carter worked in mysterious ways.
"Yeah." He smiled, his dimple peeking out from his cheek. His hand slid from my wrist towards my fingers before he laced them naturally and nodded towards the fair. "Let's go!"
"Yes!" I seconded. It was embarrassing to admit, but the feeling of holding hands was kind of nice. It'd been a while, and even when I was dating Jace, he'd never do it unless I asked.
Before I tore my gaze away from our hands, I noticed something new on Carter's wrist. It was a thin bracelet with an anchor in the middle, though I didn't say anything due to the fact that his eyes were literally shining as we approached a stand.
There were a lot of people already. Some of them were alone, waiting awkwardly as they checked their phones and glanced around, while some groups had already taken over a couple of the game booths. Small lines were beginning to form in front of the food stands, which, admittedly, we contributed to.
"Whoa, you can make your own cotton candy! I've never seen a real machine before," Carter said, tugging me towards it. He looked back at me like an excited kid and I had to hold back my laughter. "Can we try it?"
I gave an enthusiastic nod.
"What colors do you guys want?" The boy who was running it asked.
"I'll do blue," Carter said. The guy dumped a huge scoop of blue sugar into the machine and after a few seconds, thin strings began to form. Carter lowered the wooden stick at an angle, seeming like a professional with the way he was guiding it, and the cotton candy shaped itself into perfection.
I picked pink, and unfortunately, my skills did not lie in guiding sugar lines. The cotton candy started to gather on the right side of the stick, slowly flopping over, before Carter covered my hand with his own and began leading it the other way. "Whoa," he breathed, his concentration fully on the task at hand. "Dite, you're not very good at this, huh?"
I shot him a frown and he must've felt my gaze because he glanced back at me with a grin. "I'm kidding! I'm sure it'll taste amazing, anyway."
Carter took a chunk of the straw candy and popped it in his mouth. "See? Perfection."
I couldn't help the smirk that broke out from my lips. "You're right."
"I always am." He winked. "What should we look at now? Want to play a game?"
"Sure," I agreed. I scanned the area, noticing some basketball games, a couple modified skid ball machines, and a few other things I couldn't quite recognize from this far. "Let's find something."
After playing hard for about an hour, we finally ran into Seidon at one of the raffle stands. Instead of a uniform, he wore a t-shirt, along with a baseball cap that said ROYALE, and a lanyard. "Seidon!" I smiled, happy to have run into him. "Is that the student council dress code?"
"Hey, guys," he said before glancing down at his outfit. "Yeah, I guess. I don't really know why we couldn't just wear our uniforms."
"It looks comfortable," Carter said. "What have you been doing?"
Seidon gestured towards the table. It had wheels of tickets and some prizes, like a Keurig coffee machine, a few basket bundles (like a movie night bundle, valentines, etc), and even a few plushies. "I've been here the whole time. I wanted to work on the royale game, but freakin' Stacy beat me." He made a sour face, but shook it off. "Did you guys try it?"
"Try what?" I asked. "The royale thing?"
"Yeah, it's a couples competition." He nodded towards a tent down the way, which held a large sign that read BATTLE ROYALE. My eyebrows drew together as I glanced back at my twin brother. "I thought battle royale meant every man for himself? Didn't you watch the movie?"
"Yeah, yeah," Seidon said. "Well, that's why we drew a heart on the sign. For couples."
Carter and I both squinted to see a tiny heart and the word "duos" written inside. "Well...I guess?" I finally concluded.
"What is it?" Carter asked.
This time, Seidon's smile seemed a little bit up-to-no-good. "Go find out."
So we did.
♥ ♥ ♥
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
♥ ♥ ♥
hi guys! sorry this chapter is so short, but i wanted to put SOMETHING out there even if it was just a little bit
i've been really busy editing/revising the locker exchange which is taking a LOT of time/effort
i finally have more time to focus on this story now so i will be adding part 2 pretty soon!
i really apologize for those of you asking for updates. thank you so much for being so invested in this story. i love you and appreciate you so so so much
