His cheeks reddened slightly. I'd never seen him blush before.

"You can write, can't you?"

He brought his thumb and index finger together on his right hand. A little bit. A little bit.

"Didn't they teach writing in your special school?"

He bit his lip, gazing out at the ocean. Sunlight glinted off the waves and the reflection sparkled in his dark eyes.

Then he sighed and nodded. They did. They did.

"So how come you can't write?"

All he could offer me was a shrug, but I read more into his embarra.s.sed look. Didn't think I needed it. Didn't pay attention. Didn't think I needed it. Didn't pay attention.

s.h.i.t. I could relate to that.

Except...

"But didn't you want to be able to talk to people? I mean, if there was ever a reason to pay attention in school..."

I cut myself off when I realized the answer to my own question. He didn't didn't want to communicate with people. He hadn't even tried. want to communicate with people. He hadn't even tried.

"Seb...why did you go on letting people think you were, uh, special like that?"

His hand crept from my thigh toward my crotch, and he left it there even as we spun past the ground again.

"Seb..."

The carousel rose and he was on me in a flash, tongue jutting straight into my mouth, teeth grazing my lips. Powerless against the attack, I surrendered within seconds. I edged him further into my lap, kissing him again and again with less grace and more urgency each time.

Although...I couldn't help wondering if Seb had just come up with a new and clever way to keep his secrets hidden.

The wheel spun even faster, air rushing past our skin and hair. Laughs and shouts from the people on the pier were swallowed up by the crashing waves, and everything in sight became a blur.

The zipper of my jeans dug into me painfully as Seb bounced in my lap. But I still kept pushing against him, not even caring that I was about to come in my one and only pair of pants.

The Ferris wheel slowed and came to a stop a quarter of the way from the ground. I was too far gone to do the same. We dropped a few feet lower, and I placed my hands on his hips to try and force just a little more pressure.

I didn't make it. Five carriages away from the loading dock, Seb finally removed himself. I had only a moment to adjust my protesting d.i.c.k before we were ushered off.

Holding my shirt over my crotch, I pushed Seb back into the line. "Wait here. We're going again. Just let me run and grab some more ride tickets...and I gotta stop by the bathroom, too."

With a knowing smirk that made my skin flame, Seb did as I asked.

A pink and orange sunset touched the sky when we finally left the park with a funnel cake in tow. The horizon looked a little like the finger painting we'd seen earlier, with the sun's last colors blurred into smudges on the ocean's canvas.

"You got some sugar on your lips," I told Seb as we settled into the sand. His tongue darted out of his mouth to lick it off.

A little ways away, another young couple admiring the view started kissing, and I suddenly regretted not licking it off myself...though I wasn't sure where Seb would stand on PDA.

Eventually I drummed up the courage to rest my arm around him, mimicking the way the clean-cut guy was cuddling up with his girl. Maybe I could just follow that kid's lead for the rest of the evening-he seemed to have more of a clue than I did.

It could've been the Scrambler ride we'd taken two trips on, but my stomach was starting to roll with uneasiness again. The action part of our "first date" was over, and now I was stuck in this romantic setting with zero experience to fall back on.

The muscles in my arm tightened, and a little spasm caused me to knock into the back of Seb's head.

He looked over and grinned, patting my knee. Relax. Relax.

"Easy for you to say," I grumbled under my breath. "You've known the real me all along, but..."

I trailed off as Seb gazed steadily into my eyes. Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. He'd known the real me all along. I'd always been some nutty, uncensored version of myself around him, and he'd still fallen for me. So while Seb had changed for me...maybe he didn't actually need me me to change at all. to change at all.

It seemed kind of unlikely that anyone would want me in my raw form...but not more unlikely than this entire crazy week.

"Right." My face melted into a grudging smile. "Gotcha."

Seb squeezed my leg approvingly.

Relaxing was easier said than done, though. My body was restless, so I started digging around in the sand to pa.s.s the time. Seb did the same, and for a while we were quiet as we constructed a lumpy sandcastle city together.

As I put the finishing pat on one of my mounds, the girl from the model couple whispered something in her boyfriend's ear. Whatever she said made him laugh.

I turned my attention back to Seb. "Is there anything you miss about not being able to talk? Although I guess you can't really miss something you never had."

He shrugged.

"Like...you can't just share a joke with someone...you can't whisper to your friend in the movie theater...you can't tell someone off when you're mad..."

Another shrug. Then he tipped his head and scrunched his brows thoughtfully. Well, maybe there's one thing. Well, maybe there's one thing.

"Yeah? What?"

In the sand, he traced a small circle, then drew a stick directly beside it. He added a few more sticks and circles, including some with curvy tails.

Musical notes.

"Music? You miss music?"

He touched his throat.

I started to chuckle, squeezing him into a side-hug. "Don't worry. Just because a person can talk doesn't mean they can sing. I sure as h.e.l.l can't." "Don't worry. Just because a person can talk doesn't mean they can sing. I sure as h.e.l.l can't."

He scowled and looked at me defiantly. Yes you can. Yes you can.

"No, I swear to G.o.d I can't. What, you want me to prove it?"

Yes.

I shook my head. "No, seriously, I can't."

Seb's fingers danced up and down my back, like he was playing the piano on my spine. He looked at me eagerly through his lashes. Please? Please?

My cheeks grew warm. "I...I haven't sung since I was in the sixth grade choir...and I sucked then, too. I don't even know any songs."

More fluttering lashes. Pretty please? Pretty please?

"Oh, G.o.d." I dropped my head into my hand. "You're gonna regret this."

I really couldn't think of any songs. The radio was my only source for music, and I hadn't had access to one of those in ages. Searching for inspiration in the horizon, I eventually caught sight of a plane twinkling in the distance as it left the LAX airport.

"At least now you'll know this isn't one of the things you should miss." I lowered my voice to a half-whisper so the people around me couldn't hear. "Twinkle, twinkle, little star...how I wonder what you are. Up above the...uh, world so high, like a diamond in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are."

To further my embarra.s.sment, Seb clapped when I was done.

"Shut up. I suck."

He shook his head. I liked it. I liked it.

"Whatever."

No, really. He laced our fingers together and smiled gently. With his other hand, he touched my throat. He laced our fingers together and smiled gently. With his other hand, he touched my throat. Sing another? Sing another?

"I don't know any others."

Come on.

d.a.m.n those dark lashes of his. He seemed to know just how to use them to make me putty in his hands.

"Fine. I do know one more. But this one requires audience partic.i.p.ation." I took his hand and drew out his pointer finger, placing it in the sand.

"A...B...C...D...E...F...G..."

I sang slowly so I could make Seb trace the letters as I went. He gave me a really sour look but let me keep going, all the way to the end.

"Now that's a useful song, right?"

With a roll of his eyes, he freed his hand so he could dab the pastry crumbs off our plate. Then he pulled the backpack under his head like a pillow and lay down, his lids drifting closed.

The couple stood a few seconds later and the girl shook out their towel. Sand wound up spraying directly toward us and I glared at her, using my body to protect Seb's face. She sputtered out an apology, but I ignored her so I could focus on Seb-it looked like he'd fallen asleep. I just hoped her yacking wouldn't disturb him.

Positioning my back to keep any more flying sand from bothering him, I gazed at his still form. Affection and worry fought for control of my thoughts, and since he wasn't awake to comfort me, worry seemed to be winning out.

Maybe I could keep being myself around him, but the stakes really were higher than they'd been before. If I screwed this up, I'd lose everything everything.

He opened his eyes. Bright, alert eyes.

"Okay, enough with the fake sleeping!" I smacked his leg. "Seriously. There's a lot more you can do with life than just pretend pretend to sleep through it." to sleep through it."

Such as? He raised a brow expectantly. He raised a brow expectantly.

"Such as..."

If I knew the answer to that one, I wouldn't have had this cold fear lurking beneath the surface of my happiness.

"Just gimme a sec. I'll think of something."

Chapter 23: No Llores.

I couldn't come up with anything for the long-term, but I did decide we had to do some shopping.

The glaring fluorescent bulbs at the 99-cent store didn't cast the best light on Seb's skin. They made him look yellow, even though I was sure he was starting to pick up a tan again. Wandering down the aisles, he ran his hand over the merchandise and stopped every once in a while to hold up something he wanted to buy.

"Sorry, but I don't think pink marshmallows have any nutritional value." I took the bag from him and stuck it back on the shelf. "We need to get stuff we can eat for a meal...like granola, or something."

He sighed but nodded, adding a box of Nutrigrain bars to our basket.

"I mean, we can still hit up a McDonald's every now and then, but we kinda blew through a chunk of our cash today. The dollar menu is great and all but when you put in the drink and the fries and the tax, it starts to add up."

Money just kept on going out, but obviously none was coming in. And here I was about to spend more of it. But we had had to eat, and this seemed like the cheapest option. Of course, there was one more way to go about it... to eat, and this seemed like the cheapest option. Of course, there was one more way to go about it...

I glanced at the store employee manning the front door, then did a 360 to catch all the security cameras dangling from the ceiling.

Seb shook his head. Don't. Don't.

The odds didn't seem to be in my favor. "Yeah. I guess you're right. I mean, I was pretty decent at getting away with stuff back home...but those were little Mom and Pop shops. This place looks more-"

He stepped on my foot.

"Ow! Watch it, that hurt!"

Arms folded across his chest, he jerked his head left-to where a security guard was eyeing us from a few feet away.

"Oh, s.h.i.t," I muttered. Teenagers with a backpack were probably always under suspicion. "I didn't see him. Hope he didn't hear us talking...not that we did anything wrong."

Seb tossed some pretzels at me.

"Sure. Yeah." I stuck them on top of our pile, even though I wasn't sure it was such a good idea to get something so salty-we'd just end up buying more drinks. "But, um, about that...security guard"-I dragged him further down the aisle-"how'd you notice him? How do you always notice things? Like when Ms. Loretta would be coming to yell lights out...or that time when Brandon showed up..."