Chapter 17 #2
It’s the end of the night and the fair is winding down.
The crowds are thinning, and the game booths are closing.
Dylan and Izzy have gone back to the ranch, a tired Mad in Dylan’s arms. Mama and Flic are buying fudge, and Harper and Jake are somewhere in the line behind us.
There’s just one more thing to do. Ride the Ferris wheel.
Serena’s smile widens as she looks up at the ride.
The glow of white bulbs is bright against the dark night, casting a halo over her hair.
“Next,” the ride operator calls as we make it to the front of the line, both of us grinning with childlike excitement.
I motion for Serena to go first, keeping my hand on the small of her back, unable to stop my thumb moving in slow deliberate circles. And fuck if I don’t start to think of all the places I want to put my hands on her body.
“One day they’re going to say we’re too big to sit together. You know that, right?” Serena says as we squash in, side by side in the two-seater carriage, and the bar is lowered over our laps.
The bench is tight. Too tight. Her thigh presses into mine; her shoulder finds my chest. I loop my arm around her like I’ve done a hundred times, but my heart beats like this is brand new. There’s a small jerk and then we’re rising, up and up, into the night and the darkness.
“Remember the year I got my braces off?” she asks, her eyes fixed on the high rises of the city as they move into view.
I laugh. “Yeah. And every dude in school suddenly wanted to take a ride on the wheel with you. We had to hide out on the ghost train like you were being hunted.”
“I felt like a celebrity. You acted like my bodyguard.” She glances at me, the smile tugging at her lips, too soft for this to just be another memory.
“Or what about the year you were dating Harley?” she adds.
I groan. “Don’t remind me.”
“She made you choose between us.”
“Like that was ever a choice,” I reply.
She rests her head on my shoulder, just for a moment. “Even if all of our relationships have failed, and we’re terrible when it comes to love, we’ve always had each other.”
There’s a lump forming in my throat. Suddenly I want to ask her: What if we’d dated, would we have worked? Would I have ruined us? But I don’t. I swallow the thought. Because I know the answer. I know I would’ve ruined it somehow, and with Serena, there’s no way we could’ve walked away unscathed.
The ride picks up speed, and we circle through the night.
At the top, we’re swallowed in velvety blackness with just the creak of the metal and the hush of the wind.
As we descend, the fair comes alive again in a wash of light and motion.
I spot Mama and Flic near the cotton candy stand and nudge Serena, and we both wave like a pair of kids who never grew up.
It was good to spend the evening with Flic.
I see her at The Hay Barn all the time, but there she’s the boss.
She’s still fun and chatty and teasing us with that dry sense of humor like the sister we never had, but it’s always with one eye on the bar and the clientele.
I should make more effort to see her outside the bar.
With Jake and Dylan, too. All those weekends we spent together as kids while Flic’s parents were running the bar are burned into my memory.
Those long afternoons chasing each other through the fields, late-night card games.
Serena with us, too, most weekends. Her and Flic taking my room, and me sleeping on the pull-out in Jake’s room and not caring one bit.
I heard Dad tell Mama once that he’d found Flic asleep in one of the bar booths at The Hay Barn, the glasses she was supposed to be collecting for her mom still clutched in her small hands.
Her dad was a big drinker and no help behind the bar from what I understood.
Her mom was running everything, but the bar on a Saturday night was no place for a little girl and so she came home on the bus with us after school on Fridays and stayed until Sunday.
At first, Flic kept trying to help Mama cook and tidy, and every time Mama shooed her away, she’d just sit and watch us, like she didn’t know what it was to be a kid and have fun.
It didn’t take her long to settle into life at the ranch, to see it as home.
After that, she brought energy and laughter with her every weekend.
Always happy to play one more game. Most nights we’d all be up late, daring each other to sneak snacks or racing through made-up games until we collapsed in a pile of limbs and giggles.
When Dad died, Flic kept on coming. Bringing with her love and support.
But nothing could fill the hole he left behind.
I was seven years old, and the world tilted on its axis that day.
One moment, I was safe in the steady rhythm of life on Oakwood Ranch.
The next, it was gone. I couldn’t make sense of it.
How forever could vanish in a single accident with a horse.
The memories come with a stab of sadness so sharp it steals my breath, and I shove them away before they can take hold, forcing myself to think of something else instead.
“Remember the time we played truth or dare with Dylan, Jake, and Flic, the summer we turned thirteen?” I ask as we pass the start and the ride begins another circle upward.
Serena laughs. “Was it the time Jake dared you to climb onto the barn roof?”
I shake my head, smiling at the memory of being stuck on the roof and Dylan having to get a ladder and help me down. “I was thinking of the time Dylan dared me to kiss you.”
“You took truth instead. You had to tell us who your crush was,” Serena replies.
“I lied and said it was Marie Kettleman.”
Serena mock-gasps. “You lied in truth or dare? You know that means you have to complete the dare now, right?”
I laugh. “Are you saying you’re not sick of kissing me yet?”
I sense Serena hesitate in the darkness.
We’re at the very top of the ride now and I can’t see her face.
Above our heads, a moonless sky is scattered with stars.
Before she can speak, there’s a jerking movement and the ride stops.
A second later, the ride lights go out, and the sound of the motor dies and silence and darkness wrap around us.
Serena whispers into the silence: “Are we stuck?”
“Looks that way,” I reply.
There’s a stillness to the night. Far below are people and crowds and beating music. But up here, we’re completely alone. No cameras. No crowds. A gust of wind whips by, lifting strands of her hair, and I catch the citrusy scent of her shampoo.
“Only we could end our final fake date with getting stuck on a fairground ride,” Serena says, amusement in her voice. She shivers, hugging her arms to her body.
I huff a laugh, before pulling her closer, telling myself it’s to keep us both warm, although I’ve barely noticed the cold. “It’s been fun,” I say quietly. “Thank you.”
I sense her turning her face toward me in the dark. “Hey, we were helping each other. It’s been fun for me, too.”
“But I got the Chasing Love pressure off my back. Our fake relationship has only made Ryan more determined.”
“It’s fine,” she says, even though we both know it isn’t.
“Yeah,” I say, eyes locked on the lights below, “it will be.”
She doesn’t miss a beat. “What does that mean?”
I forget how well she knows me. “Don’t worry about it,” I say, not wanting to tell her about the meeting I had this morning. Not yet. Not here, while we’re stuck in the dark and I can’t see her face.
“Now I’m worried,” she teases.
“Don’t be,” I reply. “Just promise me something.”
“What?”
I can feel her watching me in the dark. My eyes have adjusted, and I can make out her face and those wide, watching eyes.
“Promise me the next guy you date is the one who’s gonna give you that house full of kids and the white picket fence on your vision board.
Someone who treats you the way you deserve to be treated.
Someone who makes you laugh and listens to all your nerdy facts.
” The words I don’t speak seem to hang between us. Like I do.
She scoffs lightly. “I know I want that stuff, but right now I’d settle for a boyfriend treating me like I’m not just an accessory.”
“I mean it, Serena. You deserve someone who will spend every single day making sure you know how special you are.”
Her voice, when she speaks, is barely a whisper. “Do they even exist?”
I turn my face toward her, so we’re only inches apart. My pulse thrums like a drumbeat in my ears, and every instinct I’ve spent weeks trying to bury rises to the surface.
I shouldn’t. And yet I can’t stop myself.
My hand lifts before I can think better of it, like my body’s moving on instinct while my brain screams at me to hold back.
Slowly, I reach up, brushing my thumb along her cheekbone.
Her skin is warm, soft. My heart pounds with everything I want and everything I’m afraid of.
This isn’t fake. It’s me, teetering on the edge of something I have no business wanting.
“Yes,” I whisper.
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t pull away. My fingers slip into her hair. My face is so close to hers, I can feel her breath on my skin.
“There aren’t any cameras up here,” she says, like she knows what I’m thinking, what I’m doing.
“Rules are meant to be broken,” I say in a low whisper, knowing that the last few times I’ve kissed her have had nothing to do with PDA and everything to do with how much I want this woman.
I lean in, pulse hammering through me like I’ve just made a sixty-yard run and I’m standing in the end zone, breathless, heart racing.
My focus is locked on Serena and the way her lips part just slightly in the darkness, like she’s caught in the same gravity pulling me to her.
The air between us crackles with all the things we’ve been pretending aren’t real.
This isn’t about the rules, or the plan, or anyone else.
This is me about to kiss the one girl I’ve never allowed myself to think about as anything but a friend. Never let myself fall for. Until now.
My hand moves around the back of her neck, needing to close the final space between us.
Needing to feel her lips against mine, explore her mouth, whisper that she’s mine again.
Then just as suddenly as the ride shut down, it jerks to life again.
Lights and motors and movement and we’re dropping down, back to the start.
Back to reality. Back to a world where we’re just friends.
Serena laughs as she turns back to look over the fair. “You still owe me a truth or dare,” she says, like the last few minutes were still just pretend.
But I feel the truth deep in my body: I don’t want this to be fake anymore.
I want Serena. I want to be the man who listens to every weird fact she’s got to tell.
I want to feel what it’s like to have her body beneath mine.
To worship every inch of her with my mouth, to kiss and taste and tease until she’s breathless and begging.
I want to push her to the edge and pull her over it, again and again, until my name is the only word she remembers.
I want it all.
Even if I shouldn’t want it. Even if I can’t have it. Even with the voice shouting in my head: Don’t get too close.
I want her.
And fuck if I’m not in trouble…