Today, I'm doing another dedication! This chapter is dedicated to one of my first readers on this story @FrancesDaaeBlue21 😘💕 I know we're just at the beginning of this story and there aren't lots of you so far, but your support and comments on every chapter are making me smile each time! So thank you, sweetie 💕🌞

'And if you like midnight driving with the windows down

And if you like going places we can't even pronounce

If you like to do whatever you've been dreaming about

Then baby, you're perfect.'

All I saw was blue, and my mind was slowly taking the same shade.

With my head tilted backward, there was no limitation in the cerulean sky above, and indeed, the wind in my hair was freeing, although I was eating half of it.

As I was starting to get used to the steady vibrations of the engine, I even risked slipping out one of my arms, tightening my grip around Blade's strong waist with the other. My hand lifted and my fingers dancing in the air, it must have been what freedom tasted, at least, the closer I'd ever got.

I didn't know how long I stayed like this, lost in blue, in an almost reachable freedom. I didn't know where we were going, and I didn't care.

My only point of reference was the pressure of the air against my fingerpads, more or less with the speed, and it was almost always more and more.

Yet I didn't drop my arm, only wrapping the other one tighter, and each time, the wind was growing stronger against my fingers. So I glanced down, finding blue again through the rearview mirror before going back to the sky and the same cycle.

I could have continued for miles and miles, and it was too soon that the humming ceased along with the wind.

My body still felt the continuous motion though, especially my spinning head as I blinked around, and the first thing my gaze settled on was a gigantic white circus tent in the middle of trees and greenery, almost like this fine big top had got lost and landed out of nowhere in this wide park. But it didn't seem to be there by accident, as we could hear the faraway sounds of people having fun even from where we were.

Where we were, my eyes finally went back to where we were: an empty parking lot with barely five cars scattered in each corner to seek the smallest part of shade. Oh, and there was also a diner, the only building around, where Blade was nodding towards.

"Let's go."

I realized my left arm was still wrapped tightly around his waist like a koala to a trunk, preventing him from moving, as his large hand engulfed mine and pulled it away. It lasted one second, or maybe two, yet once more, the contact of his warm, rugged skin on mine had the same effect as rubbing two flints, sending a burning spark that turned my face into fire.

"Um, where are we?" I tried to fill the awkward silence with something else than the sound of his raspy chuckle as I almost crashed face-first on the tarmac, climbing off the motorcycle.

"I don't know." He threw a glance around, not the least affected by my wide stare. "The tent caught my eye, and I thought it was a cool place."

"You didn't plan anything?!"

Well, maybe it was a good thing because it meant he didn't plan my murder either.

"No, I don't plan and all that stuff. I don't do dat–"

"It's not a date. It's a wish," I immediately interrupted him, and if his tone was even and unaffected, mine was tense, the cracks not far away.

There were some words that couldn't be pronounced without taking my heart back to the same person, and my whole body actually, as every part ached with piled-up memories.

"Good, I see we're on the same page, pr–"

"I just thought you would take me somewhere to make me forget. It's what you promised," I muttered as we started walking towards the small building.

"I don't make promises, and sorry to disappoint, but I won't take you to some secret romantic landscape, where I go to 'think'." He rolled his eyes, and I focused on the playful dimple I could glimpse on his cheek to dissipate the flashbacks of romantic landscapes. "My secret place is an old storage room that stinks pots and weed."

There was no shame in his words, nor in the grin he threw me before reaching for the door.

He didn't care about what I was thinking. He didn't care about what anyone was thinking; it was obvious, and he probably didn't expect my reply.

"I'd love to see it."

His blue eyes found my big green ones in a sideways glance, checking if I looked as serious as I sounded, and although his smirk seemed to never leave his lips—never ever, from what I'd seen so far—the corner of his mouth twitched in a crooked smile that was different and more enigmatic.

It only tickled my curiosity and sparked all the questions inside, even if I would surely never see any of his inner sanctums.

"You go first." He gestured with his hand as I was still immobile, my mind wandering too far, and even though he was holding the door for me, it held no gallantry with his eyes raking my body for the hundredth time.

It made me hyper-aware of every inch of my exposed skin, way more than the warm spring air, as I instantly stopped in my tracks.

I hadn't expected him to take me somewhere public.

Maybe he was right, and I'd imagined a lonely landscape; otherwise, maybe I would have thought a little more before tearing my already stained dress and exposing my mid-thighs. It was one thing for it to be displayed to one stranger, who didn't look bothered by it, on the contrary, but to everyone's eyes?

"Dorothy." Blade's raspy voice, along with his breath above my ear, and the goosebumps that followed, made me jump out of my appearance's preoccupations and forward, leading me to land in a not-so-graceful and attention-catching pose in the middle of the entrance.

There weren't many people in the large room, yet I felt all their wide eyes on me, and I would have certainly run away if a strong chest hadn't been pressing against my back.

"I think we're getting to know each other enough, don't you?" Blade continued, not even throwing a glance at anyone around as he pushed me forward with one hand on my lower back. Well, it wasn't pushing, as it was merely a brush; however, the warmth exploding from it made me leap forward.

"Maybe I can even start to think of a nickname for you."

No sooner had we reached a table in a far corner than I didn't remember people's gazes on me, and I was really starting to think he was a genie for this.

"As long as it's not 'princess'." I hadn't forgotten about that yet.

Still, I tried my best to offer him a tiny smile as I sat on one of the red booths, and he took a seat across from me, his gaze not leaving me for a second, unwavering and impenetrable.

Did I want to know what was going on behind those piercing blue eyes, though?

"Lucky Luke?"

I let out a quiet laugh that could have resembled a gasp with how surprised I was. I'd expected something less appropriate, and he probably hadn't thought I would know this hero coming straight out of boys' comics and who shot faster than his shadow.

"Not bad, but I'm sure you can do better."

He narrowed his eyes, as if accepting the challenge, resting his chin on his palm and leaning closer across the table.

This way, his gaze became even more penetrating than the piercing intensity it already held, and it was crazy how its color was almost transparent, while he was the one who seemed to read through me as I squirmed in my seat.

Those booths were really uncomfortable, and I'd been on a motorbike for long minutes, as a comparison. Though during that ride, I hadn't had these clear eyes fixed on me for so long either.

He wasn't blinking away, and at this point, it was like he was counting the faint freckles all over my face. There was a lot, even if I often forgot them as they were so clear and discreet, except when my skin was flushed by heat, tears, embarrassment, and other emotions, which meant he must have seen them really clearly.

They would soon twinkle like a starry sky if he didn't stop, and since he didn't look like he would any time soon, I searched for something to divert the attention, my fingers grabbing the first thing on their way.

"Why a diner?" I asked from behind my menu.

"To get a birthday drink." His index finger peeped at the top of the card, putting down my hiding place, and I was left to toy with the shredding corner of the paper.

"Okay, but why go this far for just a diner?" And a grungy one on top of that.

From what I glimpsed of the yellowish walls, and as-faded furniture, it was by no means comparable to the fine diner of the Subrose's center, and I didn't even mention the hard booth, or the layer of dust on the frames I could see even from there. Whoever this 'Mel', or as the sign above the counter indicated, 'Wel', was, he or she wasn't meticulous.

"Look around," Blade told me when my gaze came back to his, and I lifted an eyebrow before resigning to throw one more glance in search of a detail that made this place special, apart from the fact that the window beside us gave a nice view on the beautiful park outside.

"Do you know the people around?"

His question stopped me for a second, my eyes widening before they took in the few people that I hadn't dared to peer at since we'd entered.

There were two old men, who were lost in a game of cards and maybe also in the smoke from their pipes, a group of teens, younger than us but that could have made me feel uneasy if I hadn't been with someone who embodied danger like Blade, and a couple in the opposite corner, that I had trouble seeing from there, yet from what I was glimpsing of the woman's headscarf and wide eyes carefully glancing everywhere, they clearly weren't doing something innocent, maybe not even legal.

Nevertheless, in all of these people, none of them was familiar, and none of them was giving a second wide-eyed glance at my ridiculous appearance.

"Um, no?" I went back to the only pair of eyes attached to me, closer and closer as he leaned across the table, and maybe it was the hypnotizing blue shades or the secrets that were on his mischievous smirk, but anyway, I inched forward too.

"That's the thing. They don't know who you are. You can be anything you want."

At this moment, as his gaze twinkled more and more—and I was close enough to watch each spark light up like reflections of the sun in transparent water—I knew I had made the right decision to follow him.

It was reckless, impulsive, and instinctive. But he could make my wish come true, and if he wasn't a genie, he definitely had some magical power because I was spellbound by his whispered words.

"You can forget Dorothy Duncan. Here, you can be anyone." He leaned away, while I didn't, hanging on his Cheshire cat's smile. "See, I'm not Blade Sayer, I'm..."

His eyes roamed around, probably the first time they weren't on me since we'd sat here, and I found myself following precisely their trail from the window to the wall behind me, and finally, to the counter on the opposite side before he came back to me.

"Ford Wels!" he announced, the grin going with these words holding something as innocent as a toddler's, and I wondered if it was part of his new identity.

"Nice to meet you, Ford Wels."

"And you?"

I bit my lips as a million names crossed my mind, an infinity of possibilities appearing in front of me. Just like the blue sky, there was no limitation, and my head was spinning with this new sensation of freedom.

Still, when I met his clear gaze, I had no hesitation. "Lucy Lucas."

His dimple reappeared instantly, deepening quickly until a laugh escaped his lips, and the deep and carefree sound spurred me.

"Best astronaut of NASA, better than all the men of this field." I lifted my chin, flashing him a smile that wasn't Dorothy Duncan's, and his laugh echoed louder.

"Let me guess, you're making them obey with your gun, or your lash?"

Ford Wels was clearly as devilish as Blade. But Lucy was more confident as she retorted, disturbing the quiet of the diner,

"No, with my brain, and their paychecks."

It was hard to compete with Blade's loud laughter, though.

"Nice one!"

"And I also have two fishes named Joe and Averell, and..." At this point, I was just letting the thoughts fly out of my lips with no limitations. So naturally, when my gaze found his wide smile, I added, "A cat named Cheshire."

Was I really laughing and raving with a dangerous stranger I'd just met in a place I had no idea about?

Yes, and maybe that was what made it better. We were two strangers, and the Dorothy Duncan everyone knew appeared so far away, like all the rules she had ever been told to follow.

"And you?" I focused on the handsome man in front of me before any memory could come back.

"Um, let me think... I have one of those 9 to 5 jobs, where you do the same thing every day—I know!" As if to build the tension, he paused for a second, his gaze flickering to my hands, which were resting flat on the center of the table, before his eyebrows flashed up along with the corner of his lips. "I'm the personal assistant of a famous astronaut named Lucy Lucas."

It was my turn to let out a light laugh until he continued,

"I live in one of those suburbs, where all houses look the same, with a white fence, of course."

Faster than it had arisen, my smile fell down with these words and the impression of déjà-vu, bitter in my throat.

"Isn't it a little boring? You could be anything you want, and you choose ordinary?" I twiddled my thumbs again as my brain twisted with more questions.

"Ordinary can be good." He shrugged, making me blink at him as if it could make me see his point of view, while the look in his clear eyes was only growing more faraway. "It's normal... you know what to expect, and it's... safe, I guess."

I held my breath as something switched, not in the air, but in Blade.

There was no hint of playfulness on his features, and even less the sly glint I'd only seen so far. It was like I really had a brand new person in front of me, yet I knew from the transparency in his eyes that it was the real Blade Sayer.

A sight so fragile and furtive that I didn't even get to miss the oxygen in my lungs before he put back his confident smirk, and the mischievousness returned, shining from his eyes to his words.

"Besides, you need someone to take care of your kitty."

If I hadn't been breathless by the previous glimpse I'd had of him, I would have surely choked on my breath, but he was definitely good at making me forget, the questions vanishing from the tip of my tongue as he added,

"And your fishes too, while you're in space."

"True." I shook my head as a man with a notebook in hand appeared at our table, interrupting this surprising and certainly not ordinary moment, and I had to avert my gaze away from the mysterious, and not ordinary either, boy across from me.

"So what do you want?"

I swallowed back my polite 'hi' with the bored look in the waiter's eyes. They were blue like Blade's, though if Blade's gaze was like an expanse of transparent water in which your parents would have warned you to not dive because you didn't know what it held, not even how deep it was to swim, the man's eyes were a small puddle, not even deep enough to splash anyone but your new shoes.

Between the two bodies of water, the choice wasn't hard, just like between the few options on the menu, and Lucy Lucas or Dorothy Duncan, I quickly announced,

"The blueberry pancakes, and a milkshake, um..." 

I recognized the chuckle 'not so surprised by my choice' as I stared at the only two flavors available: chocolate or...

"Vanilla." Strangely, it wasn't because of the chocolate taste that was still too fresh on my lips or my dress; I just had a sudden craving for the smooth spice of vanilla.

"Sorry, miss, but we don't serve pancakes in the afternoon. It's written down there."

My proud smile didn't even get to form fully, nor did my excitement, as the waiter pointed vaguely at the menu, and once more, I was refused something.

"Please, don't you have some batter left? It's my birthday." I lifted my hopeful, and of course, puppy eyes to the waiter, who was too focused on staring at the watch at his wrist.

Though when he looked at me, I regretted having his attention.

"Aren't you supposed to have a cake for your birthday?" His belittling gaze landed on my chest like a splash that brought back everything to my memory. "Normal people eat pancakes for breakfast."

And happy birthday to me! Once more... He wasn't wrong though.

"Oh, okay, I–"

"Maybe, but it isn't a normal day for this lady right here. Didn't you hear what she said? It's her birthday."

Something switched again in Blade, and in all the air around, this time.

The words were perfectly inoffensive, even polite, yet the voice pronouncing them was as tight and sharp as a... blade, and when I glanced at him, I found a new side of him, anything but ordinary.

So... What do you think of Lucy Lucas and Ford Wels? 😉 Did you expect this kind of birthday celebration? Blade is full of surprises, and it's just starting 😏😈

What do you think is this new side of him? Comment and vote ⭐ if you're eager to find out!

Also, don't forget to add this story to your library/reading list and follow me to be the first ones to know when I update! Trust me, you don't wanna miss the next chapters coming 😉🤭🤫🔫

Until then, I love you all, my little rays of sunshine!! 😘🌞💕