Superfan (Brooklyn #3)(52)

I plop to the bottom of the slide with a jaw-jarring bounce, giving myself a world-class wedgie. But this is no time to worry about personal comfort. I spring forward, plowing between the inflatable obstacles, pushing blindly onward.

I can’t see Delilah, but I can hear her laughing up ahead of me. When I emerge from the forest, her arms are just disappearing through a low tube on the left. So I dive headfirst through the one on the right. It pitches downward at an angle I wasn’t expecting, and I hear myself yell as I accelerate toward the unknown.

We both land with a bounce and a gasp on the other side.

“Omigod!” she squeals from her back.

“That was kind of like being flushed down a bouncy toilet,” I gasp.

She rolls over. “We’re not done.” And off she goes.

By the time I’m on my feet, Delilah is making her way up another wall. This one has two thick ropes, one for each of us to grab as we haul ourselves upward. Instead of leaping for my rope, I reach up and catch Delilah by the hips, holding her in place, preventing her progress.

“Silas!” she shrieks.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Were you going somewhere?”

She lets go of the rope, destabilizing me.

Falling is sort of a secondary specialty that all hockey players cultivate. So I brace her in my arms and lie neatly back on the inflated surface until we both bounce to a stop.

Delilah rolls out of my arms. When she looks down at me, she’s flushed. Hair wild. Eyes bright. “If you weren’t so good in bed, I might actually be irritated right now.”

I laugh, and she kisses me once, quickly. Then she leaps up and scrambles over the wall.

And I chase after her.

We swing over a gap like Tarzan and Jane. I hold back a couple of seconds just so I can watch Delilah’s hair fly past the darkening sky and hear her whoop of joy. All that’s left after that is a quick scramble through a corkscrew thing that looks like it belongs in a Dr. Seuss book.

Panting, we roll up at nearly the same moment to another archway, where an employee waits with ice cream tickets. Delilah slides her toe over the line first. “Better luck next time, Mr. Professional Athlete.”

She gives me a glee-filled smile and takes her ice cream ticket.

“Do I get one for almost tying?” I ask the attendant.

“Sure.” He hands me one. “You know you don’t even need the ticket, right?”

I do know that. This place is a fantasy land constructed to give rich people pleasure. “Thank you,” I say. “Have a nice night.”

Nothing here is real. I’m all too aware of that as I slip my hand into Delilah’s, and we reclaim our shoes. In three days we’ll be headed back to our regular lives.

I dread it.

“What flavor are you getting?” Delilah squeezes my hand as we head for the ice cream stand, where a cute young woman with ebony skin is serving sundaes and cones.

“Do I have to pick just one kind?” I ask.

“They have German chocolate,” Delilah says, letting out a low moan. “I need that in my life.”

Forget ice cream. I need that sound she just made in my life. We’ve had our clothes on for maybe two hours. And it already feels like too long.

When it’s our turn, the young woman staffing the dessert stand turns to us. She lets out the kind of high-pitched shriek that shatters glass in cartoons. “Oh my God!” She clutches her face. “Delilah Spark! OH MY GOD.” She darts around the stand and grabs Delilah’s hand, like they’re long-lost friends. “This is amazing! Can we take a photo?”

“No!” barks a voice. Carl Bayer—security extraordinaire—is jogging toward us. “No photos of Delilah or anyone else.”

The woman’s hand flies to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I knew that. I’m sorry,” she stammers.

“Don’t worry,” Delilah says quickly. “If you have a pen I can sign something for you.”

“Oh!” The young woman’s face lights up. “That would be amazing!” She grabs a napkin off the stand.

“Wait, does anyone have a pen?” Delilah asks. “I don’t have pockets…”

Carl reaches into his pocket and produces one. He stands like a tank beside us, arms crossed, keeping order. That’s just Carl’s way.

Delilah is unbothered. She asks the girl’s name, and writes a message on the napkin, signing it in looping script with a heart over the “i” in Delilah.

The woman is overjoyed, babbling her thanks and then scooping generous portions of German chocolate ice cream into waffle cones for us.

“Thank you,” Delilah says. “It was lovely meeting you.”

Eventually we’re free of the smiling young woman, and Carl follows us toward the lawn furniture where people are gathered with their desserts. “Sorry about that, Miss Spark,” he says.

“Oh, please.” She waves her spoon, dismissing it. “Nobody has asked me for a photo all day. I’m going to forget I’m a diva.”

He smiles, because we’re all smitten with Delilah, who doesn’t come across as a diva at all.

“By the way,” she says to him, “thanks again for helping to settle down my bodyguard.”

“My pleasure,” Carl says. “I don’t think he settled down much, though. He looked like he was ready to dive into the harbor and swim after us. Either he’s extremely dedicated to you, or he works for assholes who will string ’im up for letting you out of his sight. I hope it’s the former.”