Page 37 of Freak Show

“She’s livin’ life.” She shrugged. “She’s out of the country right now, visiting Europe. Her next stop is Australia where she’ll hang her hat for a few years. Then, after that, who knows.”

“So she has the traveling bug,” I surmised. “She just doesn’t have the circus bug.”

“She had the circus bug until she realized that my father wasn’t going to allow her to be with him. And she’d have to witness his rather copious dalliances with other people.” She sighed. “But yeah, she loves traveling.”

Something in which I could tell she really didn’t like. Not even a little bit.

“Me and you definitely wouldn’t work.” I laughed. It sounded sort of bitter to my ears. “I travel half the freakin’ year.”

She looked over at me. Then shocked the holy hell out of me. “Then I guess we’ll have to make the best of the next month, won’t we?”

Was she saying what I thought she was saying?

Before I could ask her to confirm said thoughts, the pilot came on and told us we would be landing soon.

“One last thing!” Briley cried.

I looked at her, even though I had to peel my eyes off of the side of Ari’s bright red face.

“Yes?” I asked.

“If you had to guess what my least favorite thing in the world was, what would it be?” she asked.

“Um…” I hesitated, my brain still not thinking past what Ari had said thirty seconds prior. “If I had to guess? Me leaving you to play a game.”

She looked back at me with a disbelieving face and said, “That’s hilarious. But no, really, what do you think?”

Titus covered his mouth with his hand.

“Um…” I didn’t know what to say.

I was dumbfounded with how little she cared.

“I’m going to go with cilantro.” Briley started nodding, as if that made the most sense. “I think sometimes it tastes like soap.”

With that, the fasten seat belt sign came on, and I sighed.

Briley put everything away, shoving it into her laptop bag.

I turned forward with a groan and said, “That kid’s gonna kill me one day. I know it.”

I looked over to find Ari silently laughing, shoulders shaking, as she tried not to let the dam burst on her hilarity.

“You’ve got a good kid there, Slone.” She wheezed. “Don’t ever let the world tell you anything different.”

CHAPTER 8

Pretending to be polite is exhausting.

-Ari’s secret thoughts

ARI

Trance and Viddy, Banner’s parents, were everything that I’d wanted my family to be growing up.

Even them being a part of a motorcycle club was the greatest.

At first, I’d thought that the big bad biker was intimidating. Then I saw him start to interact with Annabelle and Briley, and I realized that he was just one big softy.