AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t care. I’ll brave a gnome uprising if I have to. I won’t let her get anywhere close to you again, I promise.”
Tessa’s posture softens, her arms slipping away from her chest. “Well, thanks. I appreciate that. I confess, I am glad I’m not spending the night alone for a while. I’m probably at least four inches taller and quite a bit heavier than Daria, but she could still take me. I lack the killer instinct.”
“One of the many things I like about you,” I say, pushing on before she can start comparing me to bad cheese again. “Would you mind pulling the directions up on your phone? I still can’t figure out how to pair my cell to the camper GPS. The name of the restaurant is Mama Maria’s. Should be about twenty miles up the road.”
“Oh, that’s close,” she says, quickly fetching her cell from the small black purse she pulled from her bag. Even with only ten minutes to pack, she did a much better job than I did. “I’m so glad. I’m starving.” She reaches for her coffee cup from the holder on the dashboard and takes a sip. “I probably shouldn’t drink this if we’re aiming for an early bedtime, but it smells so good.”
“We don’t have to have an early bedtime,” I say. “It’s going to be a clear night. If we want to hang out around the campfire and watch the stars for a while after dinner, that’s fine. Like you said, we can always sleep in late. We don’t have anywhere pressing to be tomorrow. Our campground reservation at the park doesn’t start until Monday night. They were full through the weekend.”
“Sounds nice,” she says. “It’s been way too long since I sat around and stared at the stars.”
Her words make me think about the night we spent in my tent, about opening the flap on top and gazing up at the dazzling sky with her in my arms.
It’s a beautiful memory, one of my best. It makes me want to make more memories with Tessa, but the moment we pull up to Mama Maria’s, I know tonight isn’t going to be an evening I look back on with fondness.
It’s going to be one I’ll be lucky to survive…
Chapter 14
TESSA
“Are we high?” I lean forward, peering through the windshield, but the view doesn’t change. “Maybe the kid at the coffee shop slipped some acid into our coffee or something?”
“Except that I didn’t drink any coffee,” Wes says, cocking his head sharply as one of the clowns outside the restaurant executes a sloppy front roll only to immediately bound into the air and scurry up a thick pole at the edge of the patio like a spider monkey.
“Wow.” My jaw drops as the clown climbs higher and higher, his hands a blur on the small metal handholds. In under a minute, he reaches the top of the pole and rings a bell, summoning a round of cheers from the other clowns milling about. A few raise their wineglasses in his honor as the sound of a whoopie cushion being violently emptied echoes through the air, so loud I can hear it from inside the still-closed camper.
“Maybe we don’t want to eat here,” Wes murmurs, scowling at the unusual crowd.
“I think that was a whoopie cushion,” I say, pointing to a group of silently giggling clowns reinflating a giant pink balloon near the outdoor bar.
Wes’s brow smooths. “Thank God. But still…clowns. I’m not a fan. They’re worse than gnomes.”
“I mean, clowns are creepy, yes, but they seem harmless.” I glance back at the clown practically flying down the pole, his ruffled costume billowing in the breeze. “At least to other people. I’m not sure it’s safe to be climbing poles after drinking wine. And it’s going to be dark soon.”
As if summoned by my words, the exterior lights flicker on, illuminating the patio and the front of the cozy-looking little restaurant. The golden bricks blend into the landscape and there isn’t another building in sight, making it very easy to imagine what it must have been like to pull up to the prison in the 1800s.
“And I really want to look inside,” I say, glancing back at Wes, who looks a little pale. But I chalk it up to hunger pains and nod toward the entrance. “Come on, let’s at least take a peek. Maybe things are less crazy in there. I’ll put Freya in her crate, and we can go.”
He nods and swallows hard. “All right.”
By the time Freya’s tucked in with a little treat and we’ve exited the camper, sweat is breaking out on his upper lip.
I hesitate near the door, frowning up at him. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“You’re sweating.” I point at his increasingly dewy face.
He swipes at his lip with the back of his hand. “Sorry. Guess I got a little hot in the sun through the windshield.” He reaches for the door, jerking it open before shooting a quick glance toward the patio. “Let’s head inside. It’s probably cooler in there.”
But it isn’t cooler in the restaurant. It’s actually a little warmer than the breezy spring evening, probably because it’s packed to the gills with more clowns.
All kinds of clowns. There are traditional white-faced clowns with their red noses resting beside their plates as they eat. There are edgy clowns with sad makeup and gritty steampunk-inspired outfits. There are cute little clown kids and sullen clown teenagers and terrifying horror clowns with razor-sharp prosthetic teeth I imagine make eating difficult, and everything in between. The small dining area has a surprising number of tables, and every one of them is filled with circus folk.
Well, except for an older couple in the far corner, who are slurping soup as fast as they can and watching their surroundings nervously.
I turn to Wes, intending to ask him what he thinks such a large gathering of clowns might be up to out in the middle of nowhere. But when I see his face, I start to wonder about more important things.
