Read Online Beautiful Tragedy (A Standalone Romance Novel) by Alycia Taylor - Free Book Online Page B

me and my “not a date” tonight.
    “Yeah, but he has a study group until nine, so don’t
worry, we won’t interrupt your date.”
    “Megan, you are incorrigible!”
    “Is that a fancy word for pretty?” She said it with a
smile. I just shook my head at her. Sometimes no words will do.
    I was saved by a text message from Brock. I grabbed my
jacket and told Megan, “See you later!”
    As I was going out the door she said, “He really
should come to the door and pick you up.”
    I told her, “He would, if it was a date.” I think I
heard her pillow hit the door as I closed it behind me.
    Brock was sitting on the circular brick walk in front
of the dorm on Suzie. Suzie looked great, and so did he. He grinned and said,
“Hey, you look nice.” I think I blushed, or at least my face felt hot.
    “Thanks, so do you,” I said. He handed me my helmet. I
called it my helmet because lately I’d been using it a lot. But if the truth
was told, I was pretty sure it wasn’t my helmet. I mean I would be willing to
bet it was the one he had bought for all of the girls that he’s taken out to
wear. For tonight it was mine, so I slipped it on and climbed onto the back of
Suzie. He started her up and told me to hold on. I put my hands around his
waist as we took off and rested my face down low behind his back. Suzie had
really grown on me.
    The haunted train ride was at a tree farm about forty
miles from the school. I had never been there but I had looked it up online. It
said that besides selling Christmas trees and fresh fruits and corn grown on
the farm, they used it for Halloween with a haunted train and a haunted hay
ride through a corn field. The whole place was decorated with scary things and
there were people who jumped out at you as you wondered through. They had
pumpkin patches and pumpkins for sale, face painting booths and food booths. At
Christmas time, it said they have a pajama train ride with a live band and
Santa Claus and Christmas trees. It sounded like a lot of fun, and I was
looking forward to tonight a lot.
    It was a pretty ride out there too, with a lot of
curvy roads and pretty scenery. I liked that Brock wasn’t one of those guys
that thought he had to drive fast or like a complete idiot to be cool. He took
it slow and easy around the steep curves, and I wasn’t even scared.
    The sun had just gone down when we got there. We parked
in the lot and it was a little hike down a dirt hill to where the festivities
were. I slipped a little bit as we were going down the hill and Brock grabbed
my hand to help me down the rest of the way. When we hit level ground, he was
still holding onto it, and I wasn’t pulling it away. Hmm…now we’re holding
hands. Megan would analyze this to death. I decided to be cool; it comes
naturally to me…really.
    We walked down past one of the pumpkin patches and I
saw two of the biggest pumpkins I had ever seen in my life.
    “How’d you like to make a jack ‘o lantern out of that
guy?” Brock said, pulling me over towards the bigger of the two.
    “That would be so much fun!” I loved making jack o’ lanterns
on Halloween.
    “I don’t think we could carry him on Suzie,” Brock was
saying. “If Megan and Jake get here before we leave tonight though, I’ll buy us
two and ask them to take them home for us. I’ll probably go a little smaller
than this guy here.”
    I smiled; that was sweet of him. What other nineteen-year-old
guy wants to carve pumpkins? And, he was still holding my hand too.
    “That sounds like fun.”
    From there we went and walked through the corn maze.
It wasn’t really hard, although that could be because I held onto the back of
Brock’s shirt most of the way through. I know they’re fake, but those guys that
jump out at you scare the crap out of me. After we made it out of there alive,
Brock said, “Do you want to get something to eat?”
    I wasn’t really hungry, and as usual I was worried
that they might not have anything here I could