Chapter 13 #4
We walked like that through the carnival, slower than everyone else because Dylan’s body still had limits and I had finally decided not to resent them.
We passed kids on a carousel, teenagers pretending not to flirt, a grandmother eating cotton candy with the serious concentration of someone who had waited all year for it.
The fair lights made everything look softer than it was.
Maybe that was what dates were supposed to do.
Not erase the hard things.
Just put enough glow around them that you could breathe.
At the Ferris wheel, Dylan stopped.
I looked up.
The wheel turned slowly, seats swinging slightly in the evening air.
“No,” he said.
I blinked. “No?”
“No.”
“You survived a gunfight.”
“Yes.”
“You got shot.”
“Correct.”
“You yelled at a trauma surgeon.”
“He was flirting with you.”
“We are not revisiting that.”
“He was.”
“And you’re afraid of the Ferris wheel?”
Dylan’s jaw tightened. “I’m not afraid.”
“Of course not.”
“I dislike unnecessary heights controlled by teenagers with facial piercings and questionable training.”
I looked at the operator, who was leaning against the controls while eating nachos.
“Fair.”
“Thank you.”
“We’re still riding it.”
He looked at me.
I smiled.
He sighed like a man walking toward execution. “One normal date, she said.”
“This is normal.”
“This is a lawsuit suspended by bolts.”
“Very normal.”
The operator took our tickets without interest and pointed us toward a swinging blue seat.
Dylan climbed in with obvious distrust. I sat beside him, coyote on my lap. The bar came down with a clang that made his whole body tense.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Perfect.”
“Liar.”
“Obviously.”
The wheel jerked forward.
Dylan’s hand found mine.
Fast.
I looked down at our joined hands, then up at him.
He stared straight ahead.
“Don’t,” he said.
“I said nothing.”
“You’re thinking loudly.”
“I’m thinking you’re adorable.”
His eyes cut to mine. “Take it back.”
“No.”
“Destiny.”
“Adorable.”
“I’ve killed men.”
“And yet.”
His mouth twitched despite himself.
The wheel carried us upward, slow and creaking, until the carnival spread beneath us in bright little pieces.
Lights strung over dirt paths. Food stands glowing gold.
People moving like they belonged to a world painted warmer than the real one.
Beyond the fair, Albuquerque stretched into evening, and beyond that the mountains held the last purple bruises of sunset.
At the top, the wheel stopped.
Dylan muttered something under his breath.
I leaned slightly to look at him. “Was that a prayer?”
“A threat.”
“To the Ferris wheel?”
“To gravity.”
I laughed, but the sound faded quickly.
Because we were high above everything now.
Above the noise.
Above the lights.
Above the years that had nearly swallowed us.
The wind moved softly around us, lifting a loose strand of my hair across my cheek. Dylan’s gaze followed it, and the memory passed between us: hospital lights, his fingers itching, my hair against his jaw, all the wanting we had no right to touch then.
Now, he lifted his free hand.
Slowly.
“Can I?” he asked.
My throat tightened.
I nodded.
His fingers brushed the strand back from my face and tucked it behind my ear with a tenderness that made my eyes sting.
Not because it was careful.
Because he had asked.
His hand lingered near my cheek, not touching now, just close enough for warmth.
“I don’t want to be your fire anymore,” he said.
The words were quiet.
No performance.
No tortured poetry, despite his promise.
I let him have it.
“Good,” I whispered.
“I don’t want to save you.”
“Good.”
“I don’t want to decide what’s best for you.”
“Finally.”
His mouth curved, but his eyes stayed serious.
“I don’t want to love you from a distance because it lets me feel noble without having to be brave.”
That one went deep.
The fair moved beneath us.
Laughter rose and disappeared into the wind.
Dylan looked out over the lights, then back at me.
“I just want to stay.”
My heart hurt.
Not the old way.
Not like breaking.
Like something scarred learning how to stretch.
“Then stay,” I said.
His eyes closed for half a second.
When he opened them, there was so much relief there I almost looked away.
Almost.
He leaned closer.
Slowly.
Giving me every chance to stop him.
I didn’t.
Our first kiss had tasted like grief.
The second like goodbye.
The hospital kiss like guilt and desperation and all the wrong doors opening at once.
This one was different.
Dylan’s mouth touched mine softly, warm and careful, and for a second neither of us moved.
We just breathed there, lips barely joined, as if both of us needed proof that a kiss could exist without a grave beneath it, without blood around it, without another woman’s ring shining in the corner of the room.
Then I kissed him back.
Not because I was falling apart.
Because I was choosing.
His hand slid to my jaw, thumb brushing beneath my cheekbone.
Mine curled gently in the front of his jacket, careful of his side, careful of the body that had fought its way back to me.
The kiss deepened slowly, not hungry at first, but aching.
Full of all the years we had missed and all the years we were no longer willing to lose.
The Ferris wheel moved again.
We broke apart with a small jolt.
Dylan winced.
I immediately pulled back. “Pain?”
“Worth it.”
“Dylan.”
“Four.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Five,” he admitted.
“Idiot.”
“Your idiot?”
The words came out before he could stop them.
He went still.
So did I.
Below us, the carnival lights spun and shimmered.
I looked at this man who had hurt me, loved me, run from me, come back bleeding, and finally learned how to stand in front of me without pretending the choice was anyone else’s to make.
“My idiot,” I said softly. “For now.”
His laugh was breathless.
Happy.
Almost disbelieving.
“For now is generous.”
“It’s one date.”
“Best date of my life.”
“You almost died on the Ferris wheel.”
“Emotionally, yes.”
I smiled, and he kissed me again.
Quick this time.
Soft.
Like punctuation.
When the ride ended, Dylan climbed out with exaggerated dignity and then had to pause because his body disagreed with the performance. I did not fuss. I only stood beside him, hand out.
He took it.
No pride.
No protest.
Just trust.
We walked back through the carnival with the stuffed coyote tucked under my arm and his hand in mine.
We shared cinnamon sugar fry bread from a paper plate and got powdered sugar on his jacket.
He tried to wipe it off. I made it worse.
He accused me of sabotage. I told him fashion was about vulnerability.
By the time he drove me home, the night had turned cold.
Neither of us wanted the truck to stop.
But it did.
Outside my apartment building, the porch light flickered weakly. Cupcake sat in the window, judging us through the glass.
Dylan parked and shut off the engine.
For a minute, we just sat there.
Normal date over.
Abnormal life waiting.
“I don’t want to come in tonight,” he said.
I looked at him.
He turned toward me, face serious in the dim cab. “Not because I don’t want to.”
“I know.”
“I want to do this right.”
The old ache warmed into something gentler.
“And if you come inside, you won’t?”
His mouth curved faintly. “Beautiful, if I come inside, I’m going to kiss you until both of us forget every sensible boundary we built.”
Heat moved through me.
Slow.
Certain.
I looked out the windshield.
“Good point.”
He laughed under his breath.
“But not tonight,” I said.
“No,” he agreed. “Not tonight.”
I looked back at him.
“Ask me for a second date.”
His face changed again.
That look.
Like joy still surprised him.
“Destiny Rourke,” he said, voice low and rough, “will you go on a second date with me?”
I pretended to consider.
He waited.
Patiently, which was either growth or pain medication.
“Yes.”
His smile broke open.
This time, I leaned over first.
The kiss was soft, lingering, full of promise but not urgency. We had spent years being urgent. Years letting fear shove us into moments too heavy for their own survival.
Now we had time.
We had earned time.
When I pulled back, Dylan stayed still, eyes closed, like he was holding the kiss somewhere safe.
“Goodnight, Dylan.”
His eyes opened.
“Goodnight, Beautiful.”
I got out of the truck before I could change my mind.
At my door, I looked back once.
He was still there, waiting to make sure I got inside.
Normal.
Protective.
Infuriating.
Mine.
Inside the apartment, Cupcake yelled at me with the outrage of a cat who had been emotionally abandoned for several hours. I fed her, kicked off my shoes, and walked into my bedroom with cinnamon sugar still on my fingers and Dylan’s kiss still on my mouth.
The drawer waited beside the bed.
I stood there for a long moment.
Then I opened it.
The mother-of-pearl cuff lay wrapped in soft cloth where I had left it.
I picked it up, the silver cool against my palm.
Not a question this time.
Not a wound.
Not an almost-promise from a boy who had been too scared to stay.
A piece of us.
Old, yes.
But not dead.
I slid it onto my wrist.
It fit the same way it always had.
Only I didn’t.
I was not the girl from the fire anymore.
I was not the ghost in Georgia’s chair.
I was not Mandy’s sins or Regan’s regret or Dylan’s almost.
I was Destiny Rourke.
And tonight, for the first time, the story ahead of me did not feel like survival.
It felt like joy.