Chapter 12
Ash
My scalp still tingled where his fingers had touched.
Don’t make it into something it’s not.
Too late. Way too fucking late. I’d been making it into something since the first night we’d fought on stage, and it had only gotten worse since he’d pinned me and I’d moaned loud enough for him to hear.
Every touch, every rough encounter, every moment where his guard slipped just enough for me to see the person underneath the performance; it was all adding up to something I couldn’t ignore anymore.
I followed him back toward the staff entrance, keeping a few steps behind.
The drizzle had picked up slightly, and I watched water darken the shoulders of his tactical vest. He moved with the same fluid confidence he had on stage, like he owned every space he walked through, but I’d seen the cracks now.
The way he’d bolted from that conversation.
The tightness in his jaw when he talked about his family.
He’s just as fucked up as I am.
Maybe more, considering he hid it better.
The broken home, the sister who’d abandoned him, the mother who’d given up on stability in favor of chasing money through relationships.
No wonder he kept everyone at arm’s length.
No wonder he treated what we had like it was disposable, as if acknowledging it would somehow make it real and therefore dangerous.
I got it now. Really got it.
And Christ, I was still falling for him, anyway.
Before we could reach the door, Parker emerged from the side office, his clipboard in hand and that particular expression that meant he needed something from us. Great timing, as always.
“Hold up, you two.”
Jude stopped, and I nearly walked into his back. He shot me a look over his shoulder, something between annoyance and resignation, before turning to face Parker with a neutral expression that probably took effort to maintain.
“What’s up?”
“Got a few minutes?” Parker gestured toward his office. “Want to show you something.”
“We’re supposed to be back out in five,” Jude said.
“I’ll radio Kelvin to cover your entrance. This won’t take long.”
We followed him into his cramped office.
Parker had photographs pinned to a corkboard behind his desk, candid shots of performers both from his season and the past. I spotted Jude in a few of them, arm in arm with Taylor and looking younger.
He was still stunning, but now that I knew where to look, I could see how he’d grown sharper and more reserved.
I had no timeframe for context, but I guessed that Dylan was a relatively new heartache.
Parker sat and pulled up something on his computer, turning the monitor so we could see. “Park’s been getting feedback about you two. A lot of it.”
I exchanged a glance with Jude, who’d crossed his arms and adopted that defensive posture he got whenever he felt cornered. “Good feedback or bad feedback?”
“See for yourself.”
Parker clicked play on a video file, and suddenly we were watching ourselves on screen. The footage was from tonight, shot from somewhere in the crowd on someone’s phone. The quality was shaky but clear enough to make out every detail of our fight sequence.
I watched myself deviate from the choreography, saw Jude’s split-second decision to leap from the scaffold. The tackle looked brutal even on video, and the crowd’s reaction was audible—a collective gasp that turned into excited screaming as we rolled through the fog.
Jude shifted beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him despite the tactical gear between us. Neither of us spoke.
The fight played out on screen to a chorus of gasps at every grab, every pin, every moment where the choreography blurred into something more real.
The camera caught the instant before we’d separated, that breathless pause where we’d stared at each other like the rest of the world had stopped existing.
The chemistry was undeniable. Even I could see it.
“Your transition there is sloppy,” I said, mostly to break the silence. “You telegraph the reversal about three seconds before you commit to it.”
Jude’s head turned slightly. “You’re one to talk. You nearly ate shit on that spin.”
“I adjusted.”
“Barely.”
Parker let the video play, probably waiting to see if we’d keep sniping at each other, but something shifted. I watched myself recover from that near-slip, saw the way Jude had compensated without missing a beat, like we’d rehearsed it a hundred times instead of making it up on the fly.
“The crowd went insane for that part,” I observed.
“Because they thought you were about to break your neck.” But Jude’s tone lacked its usual edge. He leaned forward slightly, studying the screen. “The fog machine puddle. We both almost went down.”
“Yeah, I felt you slip too.” I had. God, I had.
I’d been unsteady on my feet, but I’d seen his body jerk, his shoes skid, and my heart had leaped into my throat.
I’d never reached for him so fast in my life.
On screen, the way I grabbed his shoulder holster and spun him around looked intentional.
The audience couldn’t have known it was us saving each other from wiping out in front of three hundred people.
“Made it work, though,” I said.
“We usually do.”
I caught the ghost of a smile on his face, there and gone so fast I might have imagined it.
The next clip showed the moment we’d stalked each other through Riley’s setup, that tense circular movement that had the crowd completely silent, waiting to see who’d strike first. I remembered the weight of Jude’s attention on me, the way my pulse had hammered in my throat.
A guest in the foreground of the video had their hand pressed to their mouth, eyes wide. Someone else was filming on their phone, trying to capture the same moment.
“They’re eating this up,” Parker said.
“Yeah, I can see that.” Jude’s voice was flat, giving nothing away, but I noticed his fingers tapping against his arm. Nervous energy, maybe. Or just restlessness.
Parker showed us several more clips, a lot that we’d both seen anyway.
And the comments section that often made me blush and wonder what was wrong with people.
But they weren’t all thirst traps, and some had people debating whether our fights were choreographed or real.
There was speculation about our “backstory,” like we were characters in a movie instead of seasonal employees at a theme park.
Someone had made a compilation video set to aggressive music that had racked up an absurd number of views, likes and reposts.
“Park management wants more of this,” Parker said. “Whatever you two are doing, it’s working.”
If only he knew.
I glanced at Jude, who was still staring at the screen with that blank expression of his. His jaw worked slightly, the only tell that he was processing this at all.
On the monitor, we watched ourselves fight again.
This time I noticed other things. The way I tracked his movements even when I wasn’t supposed to be looking at him.
The way he’d positioned himself between me and a group of drunk guests who’d gotten too close, subtle enough that it looked like coincidence but deliberate enough that I could see it now.
“Your footwork is better here,” Jude said, nodding at the screen.
“You gave me more room to work with.”
“Had to. You were about to clip that support beam.”
“I saw it.”
“Last second doesn’t count as seeing it.”
I bit back a smile. This felt nice. Comfortable, even.
Talking shop, analyzing our performances like colleagues instead of whatever messy thing we’d been doing for the past week.
No fighting, no sexual tension crackling between us, just two people who were apparently very good at their jobs watching footage and noting what worked and what didn’t.
Parker clicked to one more video, and this one made my chest tighten.
It was the final fight sequence from tonight, the one where Jude had tackled me and pinned me and confessed he wanted everything.
The audio was muffled, the crowd too loud to pick up what we’d actually said to each other, but the intensity was obvious.
The camera had caught Jude’s expression in the strobe lights, something raw and desperate before the sequence timer had ended and I’d disappeared into the fog.
He looks wrecked.
I looked wrecked too, in the brief glimpse before I’d bolted. Like I’d been hit by something I hadn’t seen coming and didn’t know how to handle.
Parker paused the video. “Keep doing what you’re doing. The park is seeing numbers it hasn’t seen in years. Upper management is happy, which means I’m happy, which means you two get to keep making my life easier and I conveniently forget all about your little fight in the staffroom.”
“We aim to please,” Jude said, dry as dust.
“Good. Now get back out there before Kelvin thinks he’s your permanent replacement.”
We filed out of the office in silence. The hallway felt too narrow, and I was hyperaware of every inch of space between us. Or lack of space. Our shoulders brushed as we walked, and neither of us moved away.
Outside, the drizzle had stopped. The air smelled like wet pavement and that particular metallic tang that came with the fog machines. Somewhere in the distance, a scream cut through the night, followed by laughter. Business as usual.
Jude stopped at the entrance to the scare zone. He didn’t look at me, just stared out at the path that wound through the fabricated darkness and flickering lights.
“That was weird,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Watching ourselves, I mean.”
“I know what you meant.”
The silence stretched between us again, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Just heavy with things neither of us knew how to say.
I had no clue what was going through his head, but mine was a mess with one reckless thought fighting for attention.
I wanted to ask him out. Properly. Not to a diner after a bet or back to someone’s car for another round of rough sex that left us both bruised and wanting more.
I wanted to take him somewhere we could talk without worrying about being overheard by coworkers.
Where I could learn more about him than what he’d given me in fragments.
Not the right time.
But when would the right time come? When would he ever let me close enough to ask?
“Better get back to it,” Jude said.
“Yeah.”
He walked into the zone without another word, melting into the shadows like he’d been born to them. I watched him disappear, my heart doing something complicated in my chest that felt too much like hope and not enough like self-preservation.
I’m so fucked.