The Law of Averages

Chapter 67

Dan felt like he was drifting through a dream. His mind floated on a river of rainbows, of bouncy clouds and soap bubbles. The world seemed brighter, the colors sharper, his body lighter. All around him, came the sounds of laughter. Children and adults drifted by in an aimless stream around him, oblivious to the state of pure nirvana he was currently experiencing.

Infatuation was a hell of a drug.

Abby followed behind him, hand locked around his, giggling like a schoolgirl. It hadn’t quite hit either of them, before today, that a date was in the works. It wasn’t until Dan had stood outside Abby’s door, bouquet of roses in hand, that he had actually processed the impending event. Abby had it worse, if anything. She had blanked out for several moments upon opening her door, before feebly accepting Dan’s gift. It made it real, somehow, those roses. It crystallized those months of desires and hopes and wishes. It was a bit of an emotional train wreck for the both of them.

The result was a pair of adults acting like love-struck morons, drunkenly stumbling from carnival stall to carnival stall, basking in the simple proximity of each other’s presence. It was the sort of intimacy one could only achieve when best friend suddenly became something more. A sort of all-suffusing feeling of ‘why did this take so long?’ and ‘we must have been idiots.’

In layman’s terms, Dan would describe it as a sort of full body tingling sensation mixed with a mild concussion.

Of course, all things come to an end, often in the most unexpected of ways. This particular end came with a question.

“So… should we be talking about stuff?”

Abby’s nervous query washed away the pleasant haze within Dan’s mind. He blinked at the sudden clarity, shaking his head like a dog, before turning to her. The young woman bit her lip uncertainly, the sight temporarily robbing Dan of his senses.

“Stuff?” he repeated dumbly.

“I don’t know!” Abby cried, suddenly anxious. Every self-conscious uncertainty she’d ever had rushed into her all at once. “Stuff! First date stuff!” She tugged at a lock of hair, running it through her fingers. The other hand never let go of Dan’s, clutching it like a lifeline. “You’re supposed to know this stuff, not me!”

Dan used her iron grip to slowly draw her into a hug. He ignored the looks that their PDA evoked from passerby, electing to rub gentle circles into Abby’s back. The emotional girl slowly sank into him, calming as quickly as she had flustered.

“Well,” Dan said, his voice perfectly calm, “if this were a blind date, or if we were just barely acquainted, we’d be trying to get to know each other.” He paused checking for a reaction. She remained in his embrace, perfectly content to let him speak. “That’s obviously not gonna work with us. We already know each other.”

“Okay, okay,” Abby nodded into his shoulder. She pulled away slightly, looking at him with concern in her eyes. “So what are we supposed to do? I don’t wanna mess this up.”

Dan smiled goofily at the confession. Everything was right with the world.

“I don’t think you can,” he admitted frankly, enjoying the red glow that crawled across her pale skin. “There aren’t any rules for this sort of thing.”

“I know that!” Abby exclaimed nervously, leaning into him a little harder. “I just— I don’t want you to think less of me if I don’t know all the, the protocols!”

Don’t laugh Dan. Laughter is not the appropriate response to this situation. It wasn’t all that difficult to fix his face into a gentle smile, not with a beautiful woman attached to him like a limpet. He put a finger under her chin, angling her eyes to meet his.

He opened his mouth, but paused, running his next words through his head. The phrase, “I couldn’t possibly think less of you,” probably wouldn’t sound quite as romantic out loud as it did in his head. Dan bit it back, settling for something more direct.

“I’m having a great time.” He blinked, his own uncertainty welling up slightly. “Aren’t you?”

Abby nodded immediately.

“Well, good.” Dan’s grin returned. He slipped his hand free of Abby’s, and wrapped it around her waist, tugging her close. “Let’s go have some fun!”

His reassurance, weak as it was, seemed to do the trick. It didn’t take Abby long to return to her normal, bubbly self. The carnival was an entirely new experience for her, and one that she was adapting to admirably.

“The dog, the dog!” Abby cried, bouncing in place. Her finger pointed wildly at the booth’s top prize, a massive, fluffy, stuffed Samoyed. A toy, not a taxidermy mount.

The game was darts, or a bastardized form thereof, in which Dan was forced to pop tiny balloons with a dull piece of thrown metal. Abby danced back and forth behind him, her tinkling laughter softening each failure. She seemed perfectly at ease with his inferior hand-eye coordination; Dan was fairly sure that she could’ve popped every bubble with ease if she put her mind to it. He had no basis for this suspicion, but he knew it nonetheless.

It only fueled his determination. The lady wanted a giant stuffed puppy, won by the hand of her suitor, and, by gum, she would get one, even if it took him all night!

Abby was no longer holding his hand. That kinda sucked, but the image of her happily cuddling a giant stuffed dog more than made up for the loss. She skipped along at his side, both arms wrapped around her prize, humming a cheerful tune.

“I used to have a dog, y’know? When I was a kid,” she remarked, bumping against Dan’s shoulder. He glanced over to her, and she gave him a warm smile.

“Oh?” Dan asked slowly. “What kind?” Abby rarely spoke about her younger years. There was always a melancholic edge to what little she had told him.

“Bandit was a border collie, the smartest I’ve ever known,” she replied, her voice nostalgic. She squeezed her plush tighter to herself as she spoke. “Mama Ana got him for me when I was… seven? To keep me company. He was my best friend.”

Dan wrapped an arm around her shoulders, tugging her closer. Abby acquiesced easily, leaning into him with most of her weight, and resting her head in the crook of his neck. They wandered slowly, aimlessly through the carnival, no real goal in mind.

“Tell me about him,” Dan suggested, giving Abby a comforting squeeze.

She nodded, a small smile brushing across her lips. “He was mostly white, with some brown running along his face and back. I used to think he was huge, too, but I’m pretty sure I was just a really short kid.”

Dan snorted at that tidbit. Abby was less than an inch shorter than him, and well above the average height for a woman. Her toddling around as a tiny young girl was nearly inconceivable.

“What?” Abby asked, shifting her head to mock glare at him. “I was!”

“I always pictured you as Athena,” Dan admitted with a chuckle. “Springing forth fully formed from your grandmother’s forehead, built like an Amazon and ready to kick ass right at birth.”

“Flattering, but no,” Abby corrected him, giving his ribs a brief tickle. “I was tiny once, and Bandit was enormous.” She paused, lost in reminiscence. “Mama Ana had him upgraded, I remember. It was one of the few pet upgrades on the market back then, and I’m pretty sure it was a prototype at that.”

Curious, but not unexpected. Grandma Summers didn’t seem to be the kind of person who would skimp on spoiling her granddaughter. Though, knowing what he did about her, he wouldn’t be surprised if the upgrade gave the dog laser eyes, or fire breath, or some other insane protective measure.

“A prototype of what?” he couldn’t help but sate his curiosity.

“I never asked,” Abby answered with a shrug. “I was seven. Mama Ana just told me that Bandit needed to see a special doctor, and he came back a little different.” She hummed consideringly to herself. “I’m, like, 90% sure she gave him an early iteration of the Jabberjaw, which our company released later that year.”

Noticing Dan’s raised eyebrow, she quickly elaborated. “It’s a communication upgrade. It makes your pet better able to understand body language and, uh, tone of voice.”

Dan gasped in astonishment. “That sounds incredibly cool.” His immediate impulse was to buy it for Merrill, but his mousey friend seemed to understand him well enough already.

“It’s pretty popular, even now,” Abby acknowledged. “There’s a lot of appeal in having your pet better understand you.” She grinned up at him. “For dog owners, at least.”

“Doesn’t work on cats, huh?” Dan remarked curiously.

Her grin widened. “No, it works just fine on them. They just don’t care.”

That startled a laugh out of Dan, with Abby’s giggles joining him.

Once they had calmed down, Abby continued her story. “I was home alone a lot”—Dan knew that ‘home alone,’ in this case, actually meant ‘home alone, except for security plus butlers’—”with just Bandit for company.” She snickered to herself. “I actually managed to teach him how to play hide and seek, but he could never really get the countdown right.” She pressed her face against the side of his neck, grumbling, “Cheating puppy.”

Dan smiled, rubbing her back, and leading her forward. He saw something in the distance that interested him; a new experience for Abby to enjoy.

The Ferris wheel was enormous. At over four-hundred and fifty feet, the towering structure before him left Dan breathless. He found that there was only one thing he could say.

“Hope you’re not afraid of heights.”

Abby shot him an unimpressed look, squeezing her plushy to her chest and flouncing over to the front of the line. Dan dutifully followed.

The ticketer was an acne-riddled teenager, who openly gaped at Abby as she climbed into the passenger pod. Dan passed the boy, slipping his ticket into the younger man’s front pocket, before snuggling up against his date. The muttered, “Lucky bastard!” that slipped free from the boy’s mouth as the pod closed made Dan’s day.

With a mechanical groan, the wheel turned. Higher and higher the pair went, revealing the broad Austin skyline. The sun was low in the sky, its embers burning a crimson streak through the clouds. The horizon glowed molten gold, like the hands of a god were circling the world. Abby’s head leaned against Dan’s with a contented sigh. Their hands threaded together, holding tight, as they relaxed into each other’s embrace.

There were no words, really, to describe what Dan was feeling. It was something past happiness; the word seemed so inadequate. But, it would have to suffice.

“I am,” Dan broke the silence, “happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

Abby’s eyes creased with pleasure, and she pressed closer against him. A comfortable hum was her reply, her body language speaking louder than words ever could.

“It’s not just this.” Dan gestured between the two of them. “Though, that obviously plays a major part of it.” Abby smiled languidly, like a sated cat, and he continued, “I’m different now. Better. I was so passive, before I came to this world. Before I met you. I don’t think you would’ve liked that version of me.”

Abby shifted so that her chin rested on his shoulder, with her face practically touching his. Eyes of deep amber stared into his soul, and he sat still, pinned beneath her gaze.

“I disagree,” she decided eventually. “You would’ve improved yourself eventually. That’s the kind of person you are.”

“Now, sure,” Dan argued half-heartedly. He wasn’t sure why this point was so important to him. “Then, not so much. I just let life pass me by, which— That’s fine for some people. But I hated it. I hated me. I just… deluded myself into thinking otherwise. I had to have it thrown in my face before I even realized it.”

Abby’s hand fell on his cheek. Her face inched closer, her forehead resting against his.

“When faced with your weaknesses,” she murmured softly, her breath tickling his lips, “you didn’t break. You chose to better yourself.” Lips inched closer. “You could’ve taken Marcus’s offer of an easy life and we never would have met.” Closer and closer. Her eyes met his, brimming with emotion. “I’m really glad we met, Danny.”

And then they were kissing and fireworks were exploding in Dan’s brain. Her lips were soft, she was soft, and his hands had wrapped around her at some point, pulling her closer and closer. Warm skin pressed against his, and he could feel the pounding drumbeat of her heart in tune with his. She smelled like vanilla and coffee, and tasted so sweet, and in all his life he’d never felt like this before.

The moment ended, and they slowly came apart. Abby stared at him, eyes wide and pupils dilated. Her gaze flicked down to his lips, while nibbling softly at her own.

“We, uh.” She took a momentary pause, her breath coming in short pants. “We’re gonna do more of that, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Dan agreed, just as breathless as she. “Way more of that.”

They left the carnival at dusk. The last dregs of sunlight lit their way, as they strolled, hand in hand, to the exit. A street artist had set up just outside; a short, plump man, with large sketchbook and an array of pens. A set of chairs were set up in front of him, and a large variety of frames were piled behind him. He smiled at the couple, giving them a jaunty wave.

“A sketch for the lovely couple?” he called in a cheerful tone. “The perfect memory for the perfect night?”

Dan eyed the man’s stock, an array of pictures set up behind him in as a portfolio. He had no eye for art, but the man seemed good.

“What do you think?” he asked Abby.

She grinned at him, nodding happily. “A perfect memory for the perfect night,” she echoed. Her attention fell on the artist. “Two drawings?”

“Of course, of course.” The man nodded, gesturing to the chairs. “Have a seat! Make yourself comfortable.”

Abby beamed, dragging a dutiful Dan down into a seat. She made a quick diversion to place her giant plushy out of sight, before joining him. Rather than taking the other chair, she simply plopped down sideways across his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and letting her legs dangle down. The artist seemed taken aback, so Dan shot the man a helpless shrug.

After a moment, the plump man chuckled. “Well then. I did say to get comfortable. Try to hold still, this won’t take but a moment.”

He was very efficient, though the man’s speed seemed to be born more out of experience than any sort of upgraded shenanigans. The sketch was made in heavy pen, with the black ink bleeding through multiple layers of paper. It depicted Abby and Dan, smiling at each other in blissful contentment. Abby’s arms were wrapped around Dan’s neck, with Dan’s hands resting around her waist and legs. The carnival hovered in the background, with the massive Ferris wheel taking a prominent location.

It was perfect, and the man removed it from his sketchbook with a flourish. The bleed-through had created another picture, a perfect copy of the original, which he removed as well, passing the pair to Dan. A final drawing remained in the sketchbook, “For my portfolio,” the man explained.

Frames were quickly picked out, a pair of simple, matching wood, and Dan slipped the artist a Benjamin for his troubles. Abby held tight to both pictures, staring at them giddily, with her white plush toy left for Dan to carry.

The artist watched the young lady’s happy dance with visible amusement.

“Quite a woman you’ve got there,” he observed, eyes flicking to Dan. “Better hold her tight.”

Dan couldn’t have stopped the wide smile that appeared on his face, as he turned to face his girlfriend.

“I intend to.”