Free Cinderella in the Surf by Carly Syms Page A

when we're on top of it, then in it, then out, and the car sails another twenty feet before lurching to a stop before the station.
    The sudden movement flings me forward, then back against the hard chair. I take a deep breath.
    "Are you okay?" Walker repeats his question, and slowly I turn and look at him through disheveled strands of hair hanging in front of my face.
    He takes one look at me and immediately presses his lips together into a thin line, the tops of his cheeks twitching ever so slightly.  
    "You think this is funny?" I ask. "Because there's nothing funny about hurtling a million miles per hour through the sky."  
    He only raises his eyebrows as I attempt to brush the hair out of my face and pat it back into place.  
    "Come on. That wasn't so bad."  
    I think about the last ninety seconds of my life, and how, okay, maybe it wasn't as horrific as I thought it was going to be.  
    As I remember it being.
    But I'm not still sure I really want to do it again, either.  
    "It was okay," I admit at last.  
    The ride moves again, the car bringing us into the station where the bar frees us and we climb out and walk down a set of steps, and back onto firm, solid, wonderful ground.
    "So, really," he says, walking us over to a bench and plopping onto it. "What's the deal? You surf waves but don't like roller coasters? I'm pretty sure one's way more dangerous than the other."  
    I don't sit down, and instead jam my hands into the pockets of my white shorts and shrug. "One's on land, and the other's in the water."  
    He shakes his head. "I don't get it."  
    "You don't have to. Come on, the ferris wheel isn't that far from here."  
    "Rachel."
    There's an insistence in his eyes that I haven't seen before, and it's unsettling, a reminder that I don't know him at all, and he doesn't know me. He only has to know what I want him to.  
    Not like Alex, who knew everything about me, more than even me, I bet.  
    "I'll race you," I tell him, taking my hands out of my pockets and backing away from the bench. "Loser buys hot dogs!"
    And before he can say anything else or try to get me to spill my guts again, I'm gone, running through the amusement park toward the Ferris wheel and a place that feels safe.  

CHAPTER ELEVEN

    I'm standing outside later that night in a white tank top that's tucked into a gold glittery skirt, glaring down at the watch on my left wrist, and wondering how the heck I've managed to get suckered into waiting for Walker twice in one day.
    He'd ended up buying hot dogs with mustard for us an hour after my challenge. He didn't try to get me to talk about why I was so uncomfortable on the roller coaster anymore, and for that, I'm still grateful. It's almost like he somehow sensed it'd be a waste of his time, because I have zero plans to talk about it with him.
    Good.
    It's an embarrassing moment best left in the past.
    After we'd downed the hot dogs, we hit up a few more rides, ones I'd agreed to go on, plus taken the slow train ride that runs through the whole park, before deciding to call it quits for the day.
    But as we were walking out to the parking lot, he'd told me that some of his painting buddies would be at a beach bar later tonight, and I should meet up with him.
    They were going to the Sand Dune, he said, a place near the pizza joint they'd painted the other day, and a place I know well.  
    I know it because I used to go to hang out with my friend Luke, the bartender, when nothing else was happening on lazy summer Tuesday nights. And even though I was under eighteen, let alone twenty-one, Luke would sometimes slip me a shot or two of vodka if business was slow.
    So that's how I find myself waiting on the boardwalk with the ocean breeze rustling my hair just before 8:30 on a Thursday night.
    A breathless Walker appears in front of me as if he's materialized out of nowhere. "Sorry! Sorry. I know I'm terrible at being on time today," he says, holding up a hand as if that's going to stop me from