Chapter 13 Now #2
A gust of wind hits, and my phone slips from my hand, bounces once on the metal seat, and then tumbles to its death somewhere below me.
I sit back slowly, staring out over the fairgrounds as they spin beneath me.
The lights blur, the music fades, and for the first time all day, I don’t have anything to say.
I came here chasing a scene I once made up.
Hoping that maybe if I put myself into a fictional story, I’d remember how to write something new.
But the thing about fiction is that it always has a payoff.
This, real life, it apparently just leaves you alone in the sky with no phone and too much time to think.
When the ride finally lurches to a stop, Lucas is there leaning against the railing with a shit-eating grin on his face. He reaches in his pocket and holds up my phone.
“Look what I rescued,” he says.
I’m immediately doused in relief. “How the hell did that survive?”
Lucas shrugs. “It landed in the bushes over there. Video on and everything. Caught the whole thing—including your tragic solo ride and maybe a special cameo.”
My cheeks heat up. “What did you do?”
He smirks and tosses me the phone. Later, when I scroll through the footage, I see it—my phone pointed at the sky, Ferris wheel creaking in the background, before Lucas’s face suddenly fills the frame.
In his best narrator voice, he says, “Here we have Ainsley Green, attempting to stage a rom-com moment. What you’re witnessing now is the exact second it all falls apart.
” He pans the camera toward me clinging to the safety bar, cheeks red, eyes wide.
“Notice the panic. The regret. Truly, a rare sighting: the elusive romance author in her natural habitat—proving she’s just as human as the rest of us. ”
I groan just remembering it. “You’re insufferable.”
“And yet you still love me,” he shoots back, smirk firmly in place.
I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling as I grab the phone from his hand. It’s too easy to banter with him, the kind of back-and-forth that feels natural in a way I try not to think too hard about.
* * *
By the time we get back to my apartment, it’s late, and we smell like fryer oil and fair food. I drop my keys into the bowl by the door, and Winston comes flying around the corner like he’s been pacing for hours.
“Hi, hi, I’m sorry,” I say, crouching to scratch behind his ears. “I know, it’s been a long night without your emotional support human.”
Lucas kneels down beside me, and Winston immediately abandons me for him, tail wagging like he’s just found the love of his life.
“Traitor,” I mutter.
Lucas smiles and lets Winston climb into his lap. “He missed me.”
I watch them for a second—Lucas in his hoodie, cross-legged on the floor, Winston curled up like a baby—and I can’t help but wonder if Winston misses having a man around. Someone else to take him out in the mornings. Someone who leaves shoes by the door. Someone who doesn’t cry in the shower.
I blink the thought away and plop onto the couch as Lucas heads to the kitchen.
“Should I be concerned that this wine has a screw top and no brand name?” Lucas examines the label. “It literally just says Red. That’s it.”
“Perfect. I love a mystery.”
While he pours, I pull my phone out of my bag and cue up the Ferris wheel footage.
It’s somehow worse than I remember. There I am bright-eyed, narrating with the kind of forced confidence I usually reserve for book events.
Then the missed connection. The awkward silence as I sit on the ride alone.
The slip. The fall. Thirty full seconds of sky, spinning metal, and the creaking sound of my soul leaving my body.
I groan and cover my face. “I can’t post this. It’s so embarrassing.”
Lucas hands me a glass and settles into the armchair across from me. “Isn’t that the point?”
“I mean yes, but no. I can’t look this desperate. What if Cole sees it?”
“He blocked you, remember? That’s what started this whole thing.”
“No, what started this whole thing was the idea of never letting him escape me.”
He raises his glass. “Cheers to that.”
I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling. My thumb hovers over the Post button.
“This is a bad idea,” I say.
“And yet…”
And yet I post it. Immediately, the view count is increasing by the minute. Notifications light up like fireworks.
“Oh my god,” I whisper, refreshing again. “Why is this already blowing up?”
“Because it’s funny,” Lucas says. “And sad. And kind of adorable in a spiraling-writer-on-a-journey way.”
“I hate how accurate that is.”
He reaches over and plucks the phone from my hand. “All right. You can have this back when I leave.”
“Hey!”
“No more doom-refreshing, keyboard warrior. Isn’t this supposed to be our Friendsgiving celebration? Doesn’t feel very friendly to ignore your only guest as you obsessively check your phone. Wasn’t that the reason you begged me to come in the first place?”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” I sink back into the cushions and take a long sip of wine. “Remember when Friendsgiving used to be with, like, ten of us?”
Lucas nods, slower this time. “Yeah.”
“I miss it,” I admit.
Lucas shrugs, rolling the stem of his glass between his fingers. “They weren’t always great to you.”
I squint at him. “What do you mean?”
He looks like he might backpedal, but I lean forward.
“No, seriously. What are you thinking?”
Lucas sighs. “I don’t know. Remember the year you overheard Grace and Sav talking shit about your relationship? Saying Cole wasn’t ‘book boyfriend material’ and you were trying too hard to make everything seem perfect?”
My stomach knots. “Yeah.”