“Just like us,” I answered with a small smile. “Death is not a reason to stop living.”

I let him into the foyer and went to the kitchen to find a vase.

When I rounded the corner to come back to the hallway, I stopped dead in my tracks at the sound of my father and Sam speaking.

“… treat her well. She is still my daughter. Nothing will change that, Brennan, even if I have to go down in flames. She comes first,” I heard Athair say.

Merde.

Sam was bound to say something provocative and crass just to piss Da off. That was the way he operated.

To my surprise, Sam replied, “I’ll treat her well, Gerry. Better than you and your wife have for the past twenty-seven years. But I’m letting you know right now, I’m moving her in with me in the next few weeks. I can’t stand how she is here to cater to your wife’s every whim like she’s a newborn baby.”

“That’s up to her,” Da said. “And I don’t think it’s as bad now. Not since the hospitalization. Cillian and Hunter have been taking a more proactive approach with their mother.”

Da wasn’t wrong. I did have a bit more free time, but Mother still had a long way to go.

“Give me a couple weeks and she’ll be more attached to me.” Sam put a lid on the conversation, firm but not crass.

I cleared my throat, stepping from the kitchen and making myself known. Both men froze. Sam’s eyes landed on me.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

I nodded, my heart missing a beat again to the sight of him in a tux.

“Make it fast, though, Brennan. I want an early evening. I have work tomorrow.”

“You’re kidding me.” I sat in his car, speechless and dumbfounded.

Sam threw the Porsche into park and got out. Fifty minutes after he picked me up, we were at Canobie Lake Park, the closest serious amusement park to Boston. Sam rounded the car and opened the door for me. I stepped out, wrapping my coat around me.

“It’s freezing outside,” I complained.

“I’ll keep you nice and cozy.” He tugged at my hand, leading me to the entrance.

“Bulletproof plan to cop a feel,” I grumbled.

“You wound me,” he said flatly.

“No, I don’t.”

He walked right into the open gate, not bothering with purchasing tickets at the cashier.

“The place is empty.” I blinked.

Sam scanned the park around us absentmindedly, not bothering to look remotely surprised.

“It appears that way. Did I fail to mention I rented the entire thing? I thought it would be nice to have some privacy for a fucking change. There always seems to be too many people around us.”

“And the rides?” I turned to look at him, my heart twisting in my chest.

He chucked my chin with a smile. “All manned up and ready to roll.”

“That must’ve cost a pretty penny.” I cleared my throat.

“Well, the woman I am dating is kind of used to the best.”

That wasn’t true. Even though I came from money, I never enjoyed it quite as much as people thought I did, and that made me even more emotional.

“Oh, Sam.” I looked away, so he couldn’t see how deeply I blushed.

Ten years ago, I came to a fair all by myself, lonely, lost, and sad.

Now, I was at a theme park with the man I fell in love with by my side.

He wanted me to have a do-over.

A different spin on the monster ride.

“You got me good with the tux. I thought we were going somewhere expensive.” I grinned, taking a step back from him, because yet again it was hard not to jump his bones when he was being sweet—or at least not a full-blown asshole.

“It is fucking expensive, Nix. Ever rented a theme park on New Year’s Eve? Now where do you want to start?”

We stared at each other, smirking.

My reply was immediate. “Whatever’s scariest. Something with monsters in it.”

“The Mine of Lost Souls,” he said.

“Mine’s not so lost anymore,” I murmured, taking his outstretched hand.

He led the way.

We boarded a train resembling a mine cart. I knew the ride was themed around a fictional mine that was about to collapse.

The teenager who manned the ride approached us to check we were secure in our seats, grinning at Sam and offering him a fist bump that remained unanswered in the air. I rolled my eyes.

“He was being nice.”

“He was ogling you and imagining what I’ll do to you when the ride is done.”

The ride started and Sam’s hand, which I didn’t even notice was resting on my knee, slid up my thigh, making my dress hike up to my waist. His face was still turned to the other side. To the miners and monsters around us. The story of the collapsing mine unfolded.

“When?” Sam asked, his fingers biting into my thighs, skimming my underwear.

“When what?” I swallowed.

“When did you figure out who you were? In the timeline between seventeen and now. It couldn’t have been the night we met. That was the beginning of things. You’re a fully-formed person now.”

I gave it some thought, even though his fingers pushing my underwear sideways, dipping into my wet core, made me shudder and lose my train of thought. I started breathing hard, feeling my nipples puckering under my bra.

“Honestly?” I heard myself say. “Every single time I met you, you chipped at something in me. I don’t know how to explain it, but there is something about you, something formidable and scary and impossible, that makes a person realize who they are when they deal with you. It’s like looking death in the eye.”

I turned quiet for a second then said, “I know she is dead and it might not mean much, but do you think you’ll ever forgive Cat?”

My underlying question had nothing to do with Catalina. What I wanted to know was—would he ever be able to love a woman?

Sam’s finger curled inside me, pushing in deeper and harder and faster. I began to pant. He turned his head toward me, his mouth finding mine in the dark, slanting over my lips possessively.

“I don’t need to forgive Cat. Somewhere along the road of screwing everything up with you, I found out that I don’t hate women all that much. I love Sparrow, and Sailor, and I’m pretty sure I will fucking kill anyone who gets anywhere close to Rooney until she hits thirty.”

I moaned into his kiss, half-laughing, half-groaning, clutching him close as the ride drew to an end, spinning and sliding from here to there.

The only people in the world were me and him.

My orgasm was within reach. I could feel my body humming to the rhythm of his fingers inside me.

“I still want revenge,” I croaked into his mouth. “Don’t think you’ve won me over just yet. You haven’t.”

“I know,” he grunted, letting me ride his whole hand now beneath my dress. My hips bucked toward his arm, and I thrust and moaned shamelessly, the climax taking over my body like a tsunami.

“Monster, Monster, Monster,” I chanted, breathing his nickname in, thinking how he was right all those years ago, when I asked him what his name was.

It was always Monster.

And I was his Nix.