A smile eases onto my face. I can’t help it.
That was my mother’s favorite ride at the park, and I just made the height requirement on that last visit. I’d had anice little growth spurt that summer. When Mama and I were standing in line, she told me all about the best places to sit on each coaster in the park. For Steel Tiger, you wanted to sit in the very last row on the last car. That way, every time you went down a hill, you had the force of the entire train pulling you down.
“I know exactly what I would say,” I tell Jim as I open my eyes. “Roll the footage.”
The people jump to life on the screen again. Another faceless staff member approaches and asks if we’ll be riding the coaster. Once again, Sim Quinn jumps in to answer before Aven can open his mouth. Am I really this much of an attention whore?
But I’m not paying attention to whatever Sim Quinn says on screen. My eyes remain on Sim Aven. He’s watching me again, but not in the way I imagine him watching me in real life. In my mind’s eye, he’s perpetually rolling his eyes and grumbling about anything I have to say, and that’s when he’s even listening. Sim Aven, on the other hand, listens to me speak as if I’m saying the most interesting thing he’s ever heard.
I’m starting to think this simulation is just creating another fantasy for me to lose myself in, but then it happens. The shift. The simulation captures the moment perfectly. As Sim Quinn turns to Sim Aven to ask if he wants to ride with her, the admiration fades as quickly as if someone dropped a curtain of indifference over his face. His gaze cuts to the side, and he shrugs.
“Whatever the lass wants is fine by me, pal,” he says to the worker, and Jesus fuck, they nailed the accent.
Sim Quinn huffs and trots her happy little ass toward the back car, last row. I will have them know I do not walk like that. My hip swing isnotthat dramatic.
The screen freezes again, right on an unflattering angle as Sim Quinn is climbing into the coaster car. She’s bent over withher ass facing the camera as Sim Aven stares a hole through her khaki shorts.
“Did it get it right again?” Jim asks, and I confirm.
“Now let it play!” I shout toward them. “I want to see what would have happened next!”
Initially, what happens next isn’t that exciting. We ride the coaster, and Aven keeps his eyes clenched shut the entire time. I’m all smiles as the cars whip us right, left, and upside down. By the end of it, the smile has turned upside down, and I’m crying, which is totally embarrassing. God, I am such an ugly crier.
It’s also probably totally accurate. Because I would have been thinking about my mother.
Sim Quinn and Aven exit the ride, and the former tries to cover her tears as the latter tries to figure out why she’s crying. The three people we met earlier—Bennett, Eve, and Cat—come over to find out what’s wrong, but as Aven tries to shoo them off, I slip out through the exit. The camera stays with Sim Quinn, but Sim Aven joins her moments later at the bottom of some stairs.
“Maybe it’s best we don’t do the event. Why don’t we head back to the resort and grab a bite?” Then Sim Aven steals my breath as he wraps his arm around my facsimile and actually tries to comfort her. “I don’t know what all this fuss is about, lass, and you don’t have to tell me. But if you want to talk, I’ve ears enough to listen.”
Tell him, I urge in my mind.Tell him how badly you’re hurting. Let him in.
But it’s a very accurate simulation, and I already know what my copy will do before she does it. Still, it’s a slap in the face when she pulls away and tells him he wouldn’t understand.
How can he when you won’t tell him anything?
Fuck therapy. This little egg chair is giving me more insight into my psyche than I bargained for.
Sim Aven grabs Sim Quinn’s arm to prevent her from running off again. She stumbles from the abrupt stop, then tumbles backward into his arms when he grabs her. As he rights her, they’re looking right into each other’s eyes. A fire burns there, glowing right between them, so hot I can nearly feel it myself.
Kiss him, you fool!
And by god, she does. She grabs that big hunk of man and just goes for it, leaping onto him and mauling his face like a mountain lion who hasn’t eaten in a month of Sundays.
The image freezes on the screen, and I sit forward with a shout. “No! It just got to the best part! Don’t stop it now!”
Then the chair spins around, and the lights come on. Frankie and Jim are tucked away in a little booth with the simulation characters displayed on large screens behind them. Thekissingsimulation characters that represent me and Aven.
And right behind Jim stands Aven.
Chapter Fifteen
Quinn
The golf cart bumps over a rock and almost sends me into Aven’s lap. I grip the long metal rod that runs into the roof so that I don’t go the other way and fall off the side. Not that I would have, anyway. Not with my guard dog back on duty. I shrug off his protective hold that feels more like a joke now.
“Was it really the best part?” he asks, rubbing salt into the festering wound.
I cover my reddening face with my hands. I scream.
