The car moves and we go up a bit, stopping as Emilio and Marta get in the one below us. Our family takes up most of the ride, because there are so many of us. Then we start to move. I clutch Benji tightly to me and I don’t even realize I’m crying until I feel his little shirt grow damp.
“You okay?” Tag asks.
I nod. The wind blows my hair back as we go around and around, and a sense of peace washes over me. “I think I get it now, Tag,” I say.
“What do you get?” He brushes wisps of my hair back from my face.
“This is what falling feels like,” I say.
He brushes the wetness from my cheeks. “I think I love you, Finny,” he says quietly.
“This is what falling feels like,” I say again. I lean back against the seat and I know that I would never let anything happen to Benji. I would never torment him or make him hurt, and I know that I could be a good mother to him. “I want to marry you,” I say. “Like, really soon.”
He grins and looks over the edge of the ride. I look over too. “Emilio,” he calls out. Emilio looks up. “Can I have your permission to ask Finny to marry me?”
Emilio looks at Marta and she just smiles at him and nods. He cups his hands around his mouth and calls back, “If you ask her and she doesn’t kick you in the nuts, you can take that as a yes!” He grins at me.
I sit back and look at Tag. His eyes are shiny with tears.
“So, are you going to kick me in the nuts if I ask you to marry me?” he says.
I grin at him. “Try me and see.”
“Will you marry me, Finny?” He looks down at Benji. “Well, us.” He smiles. “We’re kind of a package deal.”
“I wouldn’t have you any other way,” I say.
“So is that a yes?”
I feel like my heart is going to explode in my chest. I nod. “It’s a yes.”
“How are your nuts, boy?” Emilio calls from the bucket beneath us.
“She said yes!” Tag calls back.
Cheers erupt from all around us.
When we get off the ride, Emilio and Marta take the babies and go back to the hotel. We spend a few hours walking around the fairgrounds, with the security team following. There are a lot of curious people who follow us with cameras and I know it’s going to take some time for Tag to get used to this lifestyle. We’re under constant scrutiny, and even the smallest things are taken out of context.
I tug on Tag’s arm. “Can we ride the Ferris wheel again?”
He brushes hair back from my face. “I’ll give you just about anything you want,” he tells me.
I sigh. “I am pretty sure I’m in love with you.”
We kiss, and someone hoots and snaps a picture. “No privacy,” Tag grumbles. “Is it always like this?”
I nod and grimace. “Pretty much. You want to go back to the bus?” I silently groan at the thought of the cramped bus.
“Or we could get a hotel room,” Tag says. “You could let me hold you all night.”
“Would penises and vaginas be involved?”
He grins. “That’s totally up to you.”
I rest my forehead against his chest and breathe deeply. “I want a room,” I say, but I’ve never been quite so nervous before. I have had sex with a lot of men and never, not once, have I been this afraid.
***
My hands quiver as I unlock the hotel room door with the keycard. Tag follows me inside. Marta had taken Benji from us and wouldn’t take no for an answer when Tag protested. I’d slipped my hand into his and told him Benji would be fine for one more night. Tag took a deep breath and let him go.
His hand settles at the small of my back as I walk into the room, and he stops and looks around. “Nice room,” he says.
“Yes, it is,” I agree. I jerk my thumb toward the bathroom. “I’m going to go and take a shower. Will that be all right?”
He nods and grins. “You need some help?” His dark eyes dilate and grow even darker.
I hide my face by turning away from him. “I think I can manage.”
I start to close the bathroom door and he calls my name.
“Finny…”
I look back. “Yes?”
“Why did you take me to church today?” he asks softly.
I shrug. “I just though you needed it.”
“I did. I really did.” He scrubs his face with his hands and groans. “I haven’t had a family in a long time. I think I like yours.”
I nod. “They’re pretty awesome.”
“Can Benji and I be a part of it all?” he asks quietly. “We don’t really have anyone else.”
I step back out of the bathroom. “What about your uncle?”
“He died last year. Best day of my life.” Tag growls low in his throat. “He hated me with a passion.”
I sit down beside him. “Why do you say that?”
He shrugs. “I wasn’t his son. Since he was our uncle he was obligated to try, though, and he picked me. And through the years, all I could do was thank God that he picked me and not Jessica and Jenny.”
“Star and Wren,” I correct.
He smiles. “Whose idea was it to get new names?”
I think back. “It started with Peck. Emilio kept calling her the ‘fucking woodpecker’ because of all her tapping. And then she asked if she could legally change it when she changed her last name. Since she did, we all did. We all wanted brand new starts. Star is the Starling. Wren picked her name because it sounded so much like Jen. And Lark was the last one. Someone told her a lark was a joke and a bird, and she loved it. So it stuck.”