I didn’t understand why Violet was so upset about this, but Ididn’t care. This was my life, not hers, and she needed to mind her own business.
Without another word, I shoved past my sister and returned to the kitchen.
Chapter 10
“I swear to God, Oliver!” Stella exclaimed, her gaze snapping from the camera screen to her boyfriend. “If you ruin the picture one more time…”
He threw a taunting smirk in her direction. “Yeah? What are you going to do about it? Punish me? I’d be okay with that.”
Flushing, Stella turned to me for support, and I hid a smile behind my hand.
“Come on, Stella. We’ve been at this forhours,” JJ complained. “I wanna have some fun.”
“Don’t be a baby,” she told him. “It’s only been thirty minutes.”
“Yeah, thirty minutes oftorture,” he grumbled dramatically.
I had to admit, I felt JJ’s pain. As soon as we’d pulled into the parking lot at Soul Harvest, Stella marched the boys over to a festival sign surrounded by straw bales and overgrown pumpkins for a photo shoot. Which was our plan all along, but I hadn’t expected Stella to be so…thorough. She treated her role as photographer as if I’d hired her for a job, taking shots of the band as a group and each member individually. Then, after our tickets were scanned and we went through security, she made them repeat the process inside the front entrance as a stream of happy concertgoers populated the background.
“Hey, Stella. I bet you have plenty of great material,” I said. “Why don’t we take a break, enjoy the festival, and if need be, we can take more pictures before we leave?”
Her face fell. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” I replied, and Xander mouthed me athank you.
She lowered her camera. “Well, I suppose.” The words were barely out of her mouth before Oliver whooped with joy and the boys broke rank.
“So where to?” JJ asked, rubbing his hands together as he looked around.
“Hold that thought.” Felicity strode off in the direction of an information booth. Two minutes later, she returned with a map, and as she unfolded it, everyone crowded around to get a good look. According to the map scale, there were eight stages spread across fifty acres, some big, some small. In between the stages were icons representing beer tents, food vendors, merchandise stalls, and bathrooms.
“Look,” Xander said, jamming his finger at the page. “There’s a giant slide! Why don’t we check that out?”
“Don’t need to ask me twice,” Oliver replied, and everyone nodded in agreement.
The slide was on the opposite side of the grounds, so we set off in that direction. While we walked, Xander and I entertained each other by pointing out our favorite costumes in the crowd. There were your boring Halloween standards, like witches, nurses, vampires, and superheroes, but we focused on the more creative outfits like a blood-covered Patrick Bateman, an Edward Scissorhandsworthy of winning a cosplay contest, and a couple dressed as Ash Ketchum and Misty. We were halfway across the park when JJ stopped so suddenly I nearly crashed into him.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Yo, Ariel!”
Following his gaze, I spotted a group of girls dressed like Disney princesses. There was Belle, Tiana, and Jasmine, but JJ waved at a redhead in a purple seashell bra and a sparkling green mermaid skirt.
“I think we need a picture together,” he said, smirking and crooking a finger at her.
Ariel spared him a brief glance before turning back to her friends, but then Tiana whispered something in her ear, and she turned back to JJ. A small smile inched onto her face as she looked him up and down. Sure, JJ’s face currently resembled Ursula, but even I understood why someone might appreciate the rest of him; he was wearing a pair of fitted jeans and a sleeveless Nirvana shirt that left his broad shoulders, muscular arms, and tattoo on full display. Minus the makeup, he looked like the kind of guy that protective fathers everywhere had to chase off with a shotgun.
“Hi, I’m Alice,” Ariel said, stepping forward.
JJ grinned. “JJ Morris.”
My mouth dropped open at his declaration—how could he tell her his name with no thought for the hours I’d spent trying to conceal the boys’ identities?—but Alice laughed and rolled her eyes. “No, really. What’s your name?”
“Well, I thought it was obvious,” JJ said, smoothing a hand over the bangs of his white wig. “I’m Ursula, misunderstood antiheroand cunning businesswoman. Not to mention badass sea witch. Not sure what’s wrong with your memory, but you’re Ariel. Youngest daughter of King Triton? Traded your voice to me for a pair of legs? And can I just say they’re looking stunning in that skirt today?”
“Honestly,” Stella grumbled under her breath. “We can’t take him anywhere. He’s such a perv.” But her annoyance didn’t last long. Alice seemed flattered by JJ’s comment, so she agreed to a picture, and the prospect of another photo shoot cheered Stella up. Soon she was beckoning Alice’s friends over, declaring that everyone in a Disney costume needed to be in the shot, then barking orders to position everyone. She didn’t even care that Belle latched onto her boyfriend as if she planned on stealing him away.
Twenty minutes later, after parting ways with the princess squad, stopping foranotherphoto shoot with a group of frat guys in kigurumi, and crossing the rest of the grounds, our destination came into view. The first thing I noticed about the slide was that it looked like a giant wavy rainbow. Riders could pick from six tracks—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple—that plunged into four steep drops on the way to the ground. The second thing I noticed was that despite droves of attendees, there didn’t appear to be anyone waiting in line. Which was probably due to the daunting number of steps one would have to climb. Or maybe it was the price? Ten dollars for a single ride seemed pricey to me.
This didn’t bother Oliver though. He pulled out his wallet, slapped two one-hundred-dollar bills on the counter of the ticket booth, and told the lady inside to give him his money’s worth. Sheraised a brow but counted out twenty tickets and slid them under the glass. We made our way through a turnstile and toward the base of the steps, where a second person was accepting tickets in exchange for felt mats.
