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“Amusement park,” flies out of my mouth.

In a flash, Leonid grins. “I mean, I’m offended your answer wasn’t hot, sweaty sex with me, but fine. You’re clearly going through it. Impaired judgement is to be expected.”

It happens so organically, I can’t even process it.

Somehow, in a span of a few sentences, this insane bratva man has me laughing, and pinching him; the drooping corners of my mouth turn into dimpled cheeks in seconds. “You only have one functioning arm,” I tease him. “How hot can the sex really get?”

“I’ll show you later,” he promises, a glint in his eye that makes my stomach knot in a whole new way. “Right now, you should use your shiny new phone to figure out where the fuck we’re going to find an amusement park close enough to us.”

***

I haven’t been to Harbor Pier since I was a little girl. God, I swear it’s like walking into a memory. We walk beneath the arched entrance sign in the same original neon, cursive script. The whole place glows like a postcard somebody’s grandmother nostalgically kept. Strings of round, yellow bulbs sag between lampposts, the white skeleton of an old wooden rollercoaster rises against the purpling sky, and the carousel turns in an endless loop of mirrors and gold. Beyond the railing, the harbor splices darkness with its ethereal glitter. The city is stacked across the water like it’s waiting for us.

“The last time I was here was with my dad,” my mouth decides to tell Leonid.

“How old were you?” he asks. His palm is warm in mine, but not warmer than the jacket he’s shrouded my shoulders in. He makes it so easy to dismiss the many, many soldiers of his I can now spot cleanly, seeing as they stick out like sore thumbs amidst the sea of families and the occasional tantrum-throwing toddler. Though, I can’t deny that it’s pretty hilarious to see them squirm about the situation Leonid has put them in—all for me.

“It was my thirteenth birthday,” I answer. “A couple of years after my mom remarried. Just the two of us. I think my mom made him, but it didn’t even matter. I think it was the best day.”

Leonid walks me along the waterfront. He looks down at the stuffed octopus he won me not ten minutes ago—three rings, three bottles, one-handed, while the booth attendant’s jaw hung open—and it almost hides the indecipherable swirl of emotions raging storms in his eyes. Only, I’m looking at him too closely. It isn’t even on purpose. I can’t seem to peel my eyes off of him tonight.

I’m not sold on the manufactured cheer in his tone when he quips, “Let me guess: funnel cake for birthday cake?”

Yes, actually, I could tell him. I could let it go. A week ago, I would have. Nothing had mattered to me more than stability; I didn’t want to rock the boat, and I definitely didn’t need any more drama in my fairly packed schedule. Tonight, I double down, “What? Where’d you just go in your head? If I can’t vanish, you don’t get to either.”

“You’re reading into nothing,” he says flatly.

That earns him a scowl. “Don’t do that,” I warn. “I’m not who I was last week, Leonid. And I’m done sticking my head in the sand.”

“It makes me fucking sad, okay?” he snaps, exasperation puffing his chest and turning his gaze flinty. “That your happiest day was when you were a little girl. You’re a grown woman now. What kind of father doesn’t make sure that you have trouble picking your best day?”

It stops me short. Ironically, right by the stand where the vendor is selling funnel cakes. One is nine dollars. Nostalgia aside, inflation remains ever-present, even here. Leonid reminds me what different worlds we’re from when he pays with a hundred-dollar bill—and then says, “Keep the change, thanks.”—before shrugging at me. “I don’t have a smaller bill. Felt fair. See, even morally bankrupt fiends can tip well.”

He had to drop my hand to pay. On one hand, I know he had no choice. Yet, on another, something feels amiss. To call attention to it would make me sound like a paranoid freak. But what would letting it go cost me?

“You don’t have to deflect,” I say, words clipped. “I’ve made my peace with my relationship with my father. I did the therapy thing in college. I’m well-acquainted with my daddy issues. It’s more useful to me to be a glass half-full person than half-empty. And I’m not going to apologize for that. And I really don’t need—Why are you grinning at me?”

“You’re beautiful. And decent. And really fucking solid.”

Solid. I don’t think anyone’s ever called me that. But it is, when I think about it, what I’ve been aspiring toward all my life. “I try to be, yeah.”

“I wasn’t judging you,” he says softly, raising the funnel cake to my lips in a peace offering.

“Okay. But you do seem to have a narrative in your head, where I’m some damsel in distress who needs you to—what?”

Leonid licks sugar off his thumb in an obscene manner I’m not entirely sure is purposeful. “I just want you to be happy, Meera.”

“And I want you to let me in instead of playing rom-com!”

Theatrically, his eyes roll. “Now you have a problem with romance?”

“Do you know where the expression ‘rose-colored glasses’ comes from? It’s from a French phrase: couleur de rose. Used in poetry, to relate to optimism. And I’m not an optimistic person. From however little I know you—”

“You know me biblically, woman,” he scoffs.

“—I know that you’re no optimist either. Which means you can cut it out with the pretension. I feel like a raw wound, and I have no patience for you acting like this is a Wes Anderson production. It isn’t. Happiness that’s based in playing pretend isn’t happiness; it’s denial. Why can’t you just be real and let me get to know you?”

For a long moment, Leonid says nothing. I’ve never dug into a person like this before, and my frustration isn’t the only emotion that keeps my cheeks heated despite the brisk weather.