“Daze?” I said as he let go of my hand. “How did you know exactly where the lights were?”
“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.” He wiggled his eyebrows, and my stomach sank before he burst into laughter. “I’m kidding! I used to work here.”
“Really? When?”
“Santa Fe is my hometown,” he explained with a solemn expression. “I was working in this very venue, when the KnottySideshow performed here three years ago. That was when I joined.”
“Oh, wow.” I tried to imagine what pre-circus Daze would have been like. Without the rainbow hair, without the crazy outfits… probably required to wear a shirt every day. Just a young guy working a regular job in his hometown, near all his friends and family.
It was a nice image, one I envied, until I considered the opposite.
What if he’d been eager to get away? What if he, like me, had wanted to escape and that was why he joined the sideshow?
“Are you happy to be back?” I asked, deciding to test that theory.
For the first time, his smile faltered, and I saw a flicker of pain behind his warm brown eyes.
“It’s… bittersweet,” he said, and left it at that.
Grabbing me by the hand again, he led the way across the arena floor.
The Santa Fe Convention Center was much smaller than the one in Dallas. There weren’t a ton of off-shooting hallways or smaller performance areas. There was only the main hall where we would perform.
The trapeze rig that the bars and silks hung from had already been set up, along with the giant safety net beneath them. Because this event space was much smaller, it looked like things were going to be rearranged from the performance in Dallas.
Will all of it even fit?
“I hope you’re not afraid of heights.” Daze smiled and gestured to the ladder on the trapeze rig.
“You want me to climb up there?” I swallowed hard, my eyes following the metal frame up toward the ceiling. I wasn’t the biggest fan of heights, but at least he hadn’t brought me to ride motorcycles. That was a plus.
“Unless you don’t want to.” He shrugged. “We can stay down here if you’d prefer.”
I met his eyes and pursed my lips. It wasn’t a challenge; he wasn’t forcing me up the ladder. But I wanted to prove myself to Daze the same way I’d wanted to prove myself to Zero.
I wasn’t afraid, not as much as I would have been without him.
Besides, I trusted Daze with my life much more than I did the demented clown.
“Am I going first or you?” I asked, perching my hands on my hips.
Daze thought for a second, then motioned toward the ladder. “Ladies first.”
CHAPTER FORTY
DAZE
Returning to Santa Fe hit me harder than I anticipated, and I spent most of the day hiding on the aerialist bus. Tucked into my temporary bunk, with the curtain drawn, I avoided everything. I nearly forgot to eat lunch and almost missed dinner, consumed by the war raging in my head.
The city brought up memories I’d rather forget and tugged at wounds I’d worked so long to heal.
It didn’t help that Night and I weren’t speaking again.
We spent the night together in Dallas, and I considered staying. I really did. But when the sun rose and I realized we were leaving for Santa Fe, I slipped out of his trailer without waking him and did the walk of shame back to the bus.
Truthfully, I didn’t trust him not to ignore me for the entirety of the road trip to New Mexico. Though he’d promised in his drunken stupor that he wouldn’t, and that we could work things out, I didn’t want to get my hopes crushed. Again.
It had happened far too many times over the last few years.
