Blackpool Heat | NEON LIT

The Golden Mile stretched before me like a neon-lit promise, all flashing lights and the distant screams from the Pleasure Beach. I'd been fixing the coin pushers at Coral Island all day, my fingers still smelling of copper and machine oil.

"You there," a voice like honey and smoke called out. "The one with the wandering eyes."

I turned to find her standing in the doorway of a fortune-telling booth squeezed between the rock shop and a chippy. Madame Rosa, according to the hand-painted sign. She was a vision in purple velvet, curves straining against the fabric like they were staging a revolution. Dark hair tumbled over shoulders that could launch ships.

"Me?" I pointed at myself like an idiot.

"Unless you see another fit lad looking lost as a lamb." She crooked a finger decorated with silver rings. "First reading's free. Call it professional curiosity."

Inside, the booth smelled of incense and something else—something warmer. She'd crammed a whole universe into that tiny space: crystal balls, tarot cards, candles dripping wax onto velvet cloths. She settled into a chair that groaned appreciatively beneath her, and I took the seat across.

"Give us your palm then."

Her touch was electric. Soft fingers traced the lines on my hand while her eyes—brown with flecks of gold—held mine.

"Interesting," she murmured. "You fix things. Machines. But you're broken yourself, aren't you, love?"

"That obvious?"

"She left you. Three months ago. Ran off with someone who drove a nicer car." Rosa's thumb pressed into my palm. "But that's not why you're broken. You're broken because you didn't feel anything when she went."

The words hit harder than they should have. "How'd you—"

"I see things, pet. It's the job." She smiled, revealing a gap between her front teeth that made her impossibly more attractive. "But here's what else I see. Tonight changes everything for you. Right here in Blackpool."

"Bit vague, innit?"

"Is it?" She leaned forward, and the velvet dress did miraculous things with gravity. "I'm being very specific. Tonight. Changes. Everything."

She released my hand but didn't move back. We were close enough that I could count the tiny gems glued at the corners of her eyes, smell the cherry lipstick on her full mouth.

"I finish at eleven," she said quietly. "The pier. By the old fortune wheel. If you want to know more about your future."

I spent the next four hours fixing a Dance Dance Revolution machine without retaining a single memory of the process. At eleven, I was at that pier so fast I probably left scorch marks.

Rosa was already there, wrapped in a faux fur coat that made her look like a particularly glamorous bear. The wind off the Irish Sea whipped her hair into chaos.

"You came," she said.

"Course I did. You predicted it, didn't you?"

"Did I?" That smile again. "I predicted something would change. The details were up to you."

We walked along the pier, our shoulders bumping in a rhythm that felt rehearsed. She told me she'd been doing readings for fifteen years, ever since her mum taught her the cards in their flat in Moss Side.

"Do you actually believe in it?" I asked. "The fortune-telling?"

"I believe in patterns. I believe people reveal themselves in how they hold their hands, where their eyes go, what questions they're afraid to ask." She stopped walking and faced me. "I believe I knew you'd come tonight because of how you looked at me. Like you'd been waiting for something without knowing what."

"And what have I been waiting for?"

Rosa stepped closer. The fur coat fell open to reveal the dress beneath, tighter than I'd realized, clinging to a body that seemed designed to make men forget their own names.

"That's the funny thing about fortunes, love. I can see them. But I can't tell you. You have to live them."

"Show me, then."

She kissed me first. Or I kissed her. It didn't matter because once it started, nothing else existed. Her mouth tasted of candy floss and cigarettes and something like fate. Her body pressed against mine was all heat and softness, those curves fitting against me like I'd been built as their counterpart.

"My caravan," she gasped against my neck. "Back of the promenade."

The caravan was a palace of shadows and silk. She'd decorated it like the booth—candles, crystals, fabrics in jewel tones—but the centerpiece was a bed that took up half the space, piled with cushions like a sultan's fantasy.

"We don't have to—" I started.

"Pet, I've seen both our futures." She was already shrugging off the coat. "Trust me when I say we absolutely have to."

The dress peeled away like wrapping paper on Christmas morning. Beneath it, Rosa was all the things the clothes had promised and more. Wide hips, belly soft and inviting, breasts that required two hands each and still spilled over.

"Bloody hell," I breathed.

"Eloquent." She pulled me toward the bed. "Let's see if you're better with your hands than your words."

I was. And my mouth. And everything else I had to offer. Rosa was responsive like a live wire, gasping and moaning and whispering filthy encouragements in a mix of English and something that might have been Romani. Her body moved against mine like the sea outside, waves of heat and pressure and release.

After, we lay tangled in silk while candles guttered around us. Her head rested on my chest, her fingers tracing patterns on my skin.

"So," I said. "Did I live up to the prophecy?"

Rosa laughed, and the vibration traveled through us both. "The prophecy said tonight would change everything. I didn't specify which everything." She propped herself up to look at me. "But since you asked, yeah. You did alright."

"Alright?"

"More than alright." She kissed the corner of my mouth. "I see you coming back tomorrow. And the day after. All summer, actually."

"Is that a prediction or an invitation?"

"Both." Her hand slid down my stomach. "But for now, the spirits are telling me we've got another hour before you need to leave. And I don't waste the spirits' time."

She climbed on top of me, her weight a blessing I didn't know I needed. Blackpool glittered outside the window, all those lights and promises, but the only illumination that mattered was the candle flame reflecting in her eyes.

Some fortunes, I realized, write themselves. You just have to show up for the reading.