A/N: I don't own this. We all know who does. What I do own is a half dozen Black Sex Link chicken hens that lay about 3 eggs a day. And that come running toward me whenever I go into my backyard. They LOVE bread. And they seem to think I always have some with me. Silly birds. :D

* O * O * O *

I froze. My eyes stared into his. Brown to green. Green to brown. It felt like forever, but I knew it wasn't. He was different, not the same as he'd been before, but I knew he was my Tony. For the first time ever I took a moment to really look at him, to appreciate what he looked like in the light of day. I hadn't seen him that way before, but I liked what I saw. Hot damn, regardless of how things turned out, someday I'd be telling my grandkids about the hottie that popped my cherry. Maybe not in those exact words, but you never know. I was gonna be the "cool grandma." I just had a feeling.

"The piercings," I said as I looked at the eyebrow ring, and the tragus and helix piercings. "You didn't have those before."

"No, I didn't," he quietly replied. "Your hair's blonde."

I nodded. "Yeah. I just did it not long ago."

"I like the pink."

That made me smile. "Mary Kay Perkisplosion Pink. I think it's meant for old ladies 'cause it comes in Berry Cobbler Blue and Live-it-up Lilac, too. And only old ladies want blue or purple hair, so..."

"I forgot how funny you are," he said with a laugh that lit up his whole face. I liked seeing him that way, but I was nervous.

"I try. I gotta have some kinda redeeming quality that makes up for being one of the only non-Mary's in town."

He watched me for a few more moments before finally stepping back and holding his hand out to me. "You gotta get off the horse."

"Oh, yeah. Nothin' like having a giant wooden horse between your legs. Like a Trojan horse, you know? Big and hard, right there between your thighs," I mindlessly babbled as I climbed down from the large white horse I'd been sitting on.

He coughed and sputtered, his eyes growing wide. "Uh, I wouldn't know about that."

Then I realized what I'd said. Oh fuck, as if my life couldn't get any worse. "Sorry. I tend to ramble when I get nervous."

"Why are you nervous?" he asked, keeping hold of my hand once both of my feet were on the floor of the carousel.

"You make me nervous."

He sucked in a deep breath and then slowly let it out. "Do you have time to talk?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay."

I followed him back to the little station where the ride's control panel was. He sat down on the stool and grabbed a walkie-talkie. "Hey Chels," he said.

"Whassup, Eddie boy?" a girls voice replied in a tone that made me instantly jealous and possessive. Then it made me wonder. Eddie boy? What the crap? I thought his name was Tony.

"I need someone to cover the merry-go-round for a little bit."

"Uh, we like just opened. I don't have anyone free yet," she told him.

"Oh, well somethin's still not runnin' right, so I'm gonna close it down for a little while. I gotta go get a different part for the motor," he told her while watching me.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" she almost yelled at him. "Fine, just get it fixed and open."

"Yeah, well, you know me. Safety first."

I heard her laughing through the walkie-talkie. "Oh yeah, I know that about you. That reminds me," she said, her voice getting softer and lower. "You busy tonight?"

"Yeah. Sorry." He turned off the little hand held device and looked at me a little sheepishly.

"She'd better be ugly," I mumbled under my breath. He smiled.

"Hang on," he said. I watched him hurry back to the center of the carousel where he'd been working earlier and open one of the doors, then pull something out before closing the door again. "At least this way they can't start her up 'til I get back."

He was so smart. And hot. Ugh, he was sexy as hell and I might have walked behind him a step or two, just so I could stare at the way his ass moved in his jeans. Perfect.

"My friend Alec runs the ferris wheel. He owes me," he said as we got closer to the enormous wheel that towered over the carnival.

"Funny, that's what Emmett told Rose, too," I said. Tony looked at me a little strangely, then pulled me behind him toward the boarding platform.

"Alec, I need a swing, and don't stop us, okay?"

The guy running the controls smiled, then ushered us onto the next open seat. Once we were buckled in and riding into the air, I turned to look at Tony.

"So first things, first. What's your name? You told me it was Tony but that girl called you Eddie. And the only carnie named Tony works over at one of the burger shacks, so what gives?" I folded my arms across my chest, then gave him my best stink eye. Clearly I meant business. Though I may have also been attempting to lull him into truth-telling by pushing my boobs together and distracting him with the cleavage that was peeking out of the low neckline of my shirt.

"Well, I never told you my name was Tony," he said, his eyes bouncing back and forth from my tits to my eyes. My spur-of-the-moment-plan was working. I was an evil genius. Or horny. Whatever.

"Bullshit. You did so."

"No, Emmett told you that. I never said anything about it. I just let you think that, but I was gonna tell you the truth the next day. I swear."

"So what was with the fake names? He said his was Mac. Why did you lie to us? To me?" I wanted to know. Had I just been a game to him? How could he have sex with me, knowing it was my first time, and let me think he was someone else? Who does that?

"Well, Emmett thought it might be a good idea if we used fake names. I mean, we were buyin' pot from some total stranger in a town neither of us had ever been to. He thought it would be better if we didn't give our real names. And then the guy we bought from was telling us about hanging out with his friends and how there were hot girls there, and it was our last night in town so we thought we'd go. Blow off a little steam, you know? I never imagined I'd meet someone like you. Someone perfect and sweet and amazing. And by that point our fake names were already out there. I couldn't very well tell you I was lying. I didn't want you to think I was just saying things so that you'd let me be with you."

Everything he said made sense. Damn him and his smooth voice. The sincerity in his eyes. The way his lush lips moved as he spoke. The scent of him that hit me with each little breeze. Damn, he was hot.

"You shoulda told me," I said, looking down at my folded arms and squished-together boobs. Huh, I really did have a nice rack. A rack that hopefully Tony-Eddie would be appreciating at some point in the very near future, 'cause man, she needed some decent attention.

"I wanted to. I was going to, I swear. I wanted to see you the next morning, but everyone started pulling out of town so early, and I didn't know where you lived. We were already half way to Seattle by 10 o'clock. There was no way I could have found you, and I had to go. I didn't have the money for a bus ticket if I'd stayed to see you."

"Why did you have to go? What do you mean?"

I wanted to know him. Know what made him tick, what made him be the person he was. I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted to confirm in my head that he was the right one, the one for me. My heart already knew it.

"I was eighteen that summer we met. Emmett got me the job with the carnival. He'd worked it the summer before and all his stories about seeing places and just living? I wanted it. All my life I'd done everything my parents told me to do. I'd studied, I'd practiced, I'd been a good kid. And that fall I was going to college on a scholarship. My parents don't have a lot of money, so I couldn't ask them for help. The carnie job would let me make enough to live on for the school year and I wouldn't have to work part-time. That way I could study and keep my scholarship."

I may have swooned a little bit. Hearing him speak so passionately about school and his life... Yeah, it got me. Got me right in my heart and mind and girlie bits. Ugh, I wanted him. For a moment I wondered just how much trouble we'd get into if I straddled his lap and we started going at it. I wondered if we'd plunge to our deaths, or if worse... they'd call my dad out to arrest us. I forced myself to stop thinking about it and listen to what my boy had to say.

"I needed that job, Bella. We get paid every two weeks here, but if we stay all summer then our bonus comes at the end. I needed the money. Plus, I needed a ride home. Chicago's a long way from Washington."

"You live in Chicago?" I asked.

"I'm from there, yeah. I went to college a little south of there, but that's my home."

"I've never been there," I said. "I've seen pictures."

"You'd like it, I think."

"So, if Tony's not your name, what is it?"

"Edward. My name's Edward Anthony Cullen. Tony's from my middle name. And Mac comes from Emmett's last name, McCarty."

"Oh, okay."

We sat quietly for a few minutes, each of us staring off at the land all around us. We had a pretty good view from the top of the ferris wheel.

"So, you got a boyfriend?" he asked. He didn't look at me.

"Um, yeah. You got a girlfriend?" I didn't really want to know. I mean, I really didn't want to know. Especially if she was a carnie, too. The thought of him doing with other girls even half of the things I'd done with Mike... No. I'd have to kill someone.

"No, not really. I date here and there, but no one serious. You and your boyfriend... You serious?"

"I don't know. I feel like we should be. We've been together a long time. But I don't love him. I don't wanna marry him or anything."

"Oh, I see." I could hear the disappointment in his voice.

"I think he's just a place holder," I confessed.

"A place holder for what?"

"Not what," I said, then turned to look at him. "Who."

"Me?" he asked and it looked like his eyes sparkled a bit more as he said it.

"I wanted to see you that day. The next day. I waited and waited, but you never came. I think my heart broke when I finally admitted to myself that you were gone. I didn't think I'd ever see you again, that you'd ever come back. I just held on to something else that could fill the void you left, but it never really worked."

"Bella, I'm so sorry. Please, you have to know how much I wanted to see you, to stay with you. You have to know how I've tried every summer to get back here, but they always put me on different routes. I've been through the South, through the central states, through the North-East. I've been all over this damn country and finally this year they let me choose where I wanted to go. I said here, this route, and then I started prayin' to anyone who might be listening that you'd still be here."

"Really?"

"I couldn't call you. I didn't know your last name. I had nothing to offer you. I was a poor college kid who studied his life away, all in an effort to make something of myself so that when I finally did get back here – and I was always planning to come back for you – I'd be able to offer you something. I'd be able to give you a life and a promise. I'd be able to take care of you and make you happy."

My eyes started to tear up as I watched him. He meant it, all of it. I could see it in the way his body twisted and angled toward mine. He felt the same way for me that I felt for him.

"And now I'm back for you. I've come for you, Bella, and I want you to be mine and go away with me. I wanna make you happy someplace far away from here. And I know it's a lot to ask, that you don't know me very well and you have no reason to trust me, but Bella, I fell in love with you that night and no matter what's happened since then and now, I'm still in love with you. I'm never gonna stop feeling that wa-"

I grabbed his face and pressed my lips against his hard and fierce and so, so powerfully. I held his face to mine for several seconds before I finally pulled away and looked into his eyes.

"I love you, too. And I don't care about anything else. If you want me to go with you, I will. Just say so, and I'll go."

He smiled. "So."

I laughed as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me back to him. The way he kissed me told me everything I needed to know. We were right and true and honest. And I'd never feel for anyone else the things I felt for him. My Tony, or Edward, or whatever his name was. I mean, it could have been worse than Edward. He could have been named Marion, or Maury, or Martin.

As the ferris wheel brought us back toward the ground and Edward signaled to Alec that we were ready to get off, I heard a loud smack and then a yelling voice that I knew far too well.

"You son of a bitch! I can't believe you lied to me! You sorry asshole!"

I turned to Edward and smiled. "I think Rose just figured out who Emmett is."

* O * O * O *