7 #2
I slipped my fingers through his, and Ryan immediately threaded them together. The ease of it made something inside my chest ache.
He never made touching me feel like an event. He simply did it, as though his hand had somewhere it preferred to be and mine happened to fit there.
He didn’t release me until we reached the truck, and even then, it was only long enough to open my door.
“I can do that.”
“I know.”
“You always say that.”
“Because you keep telling me.”
I put one foot on the running board but didn’t climb inside. “Then why do you keep opening it?”
Ryan rested one forearm along the top of the door and looked down at me. “Because I like taking care of you.”
My stomach flipped. “That sounds dangerously close to spoiling me.”
“Maybe I’m trying to.”
“Why?”
His brows lifted like the answer should’ve been obvious. “Because I want to.”
The words carried no conditions and no explanation involving what I had earned, accomplished, or done correctly.
Ryan touched two fingers beneath my chin and tipped my face toward his before kissing me once. “Get in the truck, princesa.”
I climbed inside before he could see how much four stupid words had affected me.
He closed the door carefully, rounded the hood, and slid behind the wheel. His phone connected to the stereo while the engine turned over, but instead of reaching for the shifter first, his hand came across the console.
I smiled as our fingers linked.
Ryan looked over. “What?”
“I like this.”
His thumb moved over my knuckles. “I know.”
“I mean that you always reach for me.”
His expression softened as he backed out. “My mother used to say if somebody matters, they shouldn’t have to guess.”
The answer settled into me slowly as I looked down at our hands.
Ryan didn’t know how often I guessed. He didn’t know how many compliments I questioned, how many touches I analyzed after they ended, or how quickly my mind could transform his restraint into rejection despite every piece of evidence he gave me.
He simply kept reaching.
The drive out of Kimball Falls took us past the edge of campus and into stretches of farmland turning gold beneath the sinking sun. Ryan had changed the playlist too. I recognized songs I had played in his truck mixed between his usual choices, enough that I eventually looked at the screen.
“Is this my playlist?”
“Some of it.”
“You hate this song.”
“I hate that guy’s voice.”
“You said he sounds like someone singing through a sinus infection.”
“He does.”
I laughed. “Then why is it on?”
Ryan glanced over. “You like it.”
That shouldn’t have felt romantic, but it did.
“You willingly put bad music in your truck for me?”
“Don’t tell anybody. I have a reputation.”
“I’m beginning to think your reputation is fraudulent.”
“You’ve seen me play hockey.”
“That doesn’t prove anything about your character.”
“It proves I’m willing to hit people professionally.”
“You’re a left wing. Half your violence is recreational.”
Ryan laughed and lifted our joined hands to his mouth. His lips touched my knuckles before he lowered them again without taking his eyes from the road.
The gesture was so casual that my chest squeezed harder than it would have if he had made a production out of it.
“You’re really leaving tomorrow.”
The question had been sitting between my teeth since we left.
Ryan squeezed my fingers. “Yeah.”
“I know it’s only six days.”
“I know saying only doesn’t make six feel shorter.”
I turned toward him.
He understood change in ways most people didn’t. His entire childhood had been one unwanted change after another, and he learned the difference between leaving and disappearing long before I ever needed him to explain it.
“I’m going to hate it.”
“So am I.”
“You like road trips.”
“I like hockey road trips.”
“That sounds like the same thing.”
“It used to be.” His eyes remained on the road. “This is the first time I’ve had something here I’m pissed about leaving.”
Warmth moved through me. “Something?”
Ryan looked over briefly. “You want the ego boost?”
“I think I deserve clarification.”
“You,” he answered without hesitation. “I’m pissed about leaving you.”
My smile betrayed me. “That’s better.”
“Brat.”
“You started spoiling me.”
“I’ve apparently created a monster.”
“You made me intellectually confident. This is your fault.”
“I’m going to tell Brown you’re abusing the curriculum.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I absolutely would.”
By the time the fairgrounds came into view, the last edge of sunlight had dropped behind the fields and strings of carnival lights glowed against the deepening blue sky.
Cars packed the grassy lots, families moved toward the entrance in loose groups, and music drifted across the open field beneath the mechanical hum of rides.
I sat straighter, and Ryan noticed immediately.
“You excited?”
“I love fairs.”
“I remember.”
“You remember me telling you once while drunk.”
“You talked about it for twenty minutes.”
“That sounds exaggerated.”
“You compared funnel cake to a religious experience.”
“Oh my goodness.”
“You also informed the entire Bennett kitchen that carnival lights improve everyone’s bone structure.”
I covered my face with my free hand. “I need you to start forgetting things.”
“That’s never happening.”
He parked near the far end of the lot and released my hand only long enough to shut off the truck. By the time I climbed down, he was already coming around the hood.
“I could’ve waited.”
“I know.”
Ryan caught my hand anyway.
People were everywhere, and that fact registered more tonight than usual.
Families and couples moved across the uneven lot while students I recognized from campus gathered near the entrance.
A group of girls in KFU shirts walked several yards ahead of us, and two of them looked back when Ryan came beside me.
His fingers tightened naturally around mine.
He didn’t look at them.
I did.
The taller girl said something to her friend, and both glanced toward us again before turning around.
My first instinct was immediate and humiliating. I needed to let go before they decided what our joined hands meant, before the sight traveled through campus, reached somebody connected to my parents, and turned this night into a conversation I wasn’t prepared to have.
My fingers loosened.
Ryan’s didn’t.
His head turned toward me. “You good?”
“Yeah.”
He looked at our hands before returning to my face. I smiled, but Ryan didn’t. Something tightened briefly in his expression before his thumb moved over mine. Instead of letting me slip away, he brought our joined hands against his chest and kept walking.
He didn’t ask why I had tried to let go. Somehow, that made the shame worse.
We reached the ticket booth, and I reached for my purse.
Ryan caught my wrist. “What are you doing?”
“Paying for myself.”
“No.”
“You don’t have to pay for everything.”
“I know.”
“You said that about the door too.”
“And I meant it both times.”
He handed his card through the opening before I could argue.
“Ryan.”
He looked down at me. “I asked you out.”
The simple certainty in his expression made my protest die halfway to my mouth.
“So?”
“Tonight’s mine.”
“That sounds financially ominous.”
His mouth curved. “I can afford carnival tickets, princesa.”
“I know.”
“Then let me take you out.”
Something embarrassingly feminine fluttered inside me.
I had been taken places before. My parents paid for restaurants, dresses, vacations, events, memberships, and experiences most people saved years to afford. None of it felt like this.
Ryan wasn’t spending money because expense proved anything. He paid because he wanted to be the guy taking me somewhere. He opened doors because he liked doing it, and he reached for my hand because he wanted me beside him.
He made care feel personal instead of transactional.
I slipped my purse closed. “Fine.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re smug.”
“I won.”
“You bought tickets.”
“I still won.”
He handed me the wristband and took my wrist before I could put it on myself. His fingers wrapped gently around me while he fastened it. Instead of releasing my hand afterward, he turned my palm upward and kissed the inside of my wrist.
Heat rushed into my face. “Was that necessary?”
“No.” His eyes lifted to mine. “That’s why I did it.”
The fair swallowed us almost immediately.
Ryan had apparently decided the evening required experiencing everything. We stopped for fresh lemonade before making it twenty yards. He bought one because I insisted I didn’t need my own, then drank exactly twice while I finished most of it.
At a ring-toss booth, he accused the bottles of being mathematically rigged after missing three times, then argued with the operator until the guy let him inspect the distance from the line.
“You’re embarrassing me,” I said while laughing too hard to sound convincing.
“I’m exposing corruption.”
“You’re losing a carnival game.”
“Exactly what corrupt institutions want you to think.”
“You play semi-professional hockey.”
“What does that have to do with ring toss?”
“I expected transferable athleticism.”
Ryan looked genuinely offended. “My sport happens on ice.”
“Your arms still work on land.”
“That remains under investigation.”
He moved behind me and handed me the next ring. The amusement disappeared from my head the second his chest touched my back.
Ryan leaned close enough that his mouth brushed the shell of my ear when he spoke. “Show me how it’s done.”
My fingers tightened around the plastic ring. “That feels like sabotage.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re touching me.”
His quiet laugh warmed my neck. One hand settled lightly at my waist while the other reached around to guide my wrist.
“That distracting?”
“You know you are.”
“Good.”
I turned my head, and Ryan kissed me.
He kissed me in the middle of everything, surrounded by people moving around us, children screaming on rides, and music blasting from somewhere beyond the food trailers. Public space changed nothing about what he wanted.