“Please.” I bring our connected hands to my mouth and brush my lips across her knuckles. Her audible gasp tells me everything. That our chemistry, our attraction for each other, isn’t just one-sided. She feels it, too. She always has. It’s been there, ever since the first moment we laid eyes on each other so long ago. “Ride the Sky Glider with me and you can follow me home.”
“I-I don’t know.” The panicked look on her face nearly does me in. I’ve scared her and I hate that I made her feel this way. Her eyes are full of such fear and I’m not sure why. “This is the ride that the man who abducted me asked me to take him to. I don’t know if I can ride it.”
God, I’m such an idiot. How could I forget? Her pain is bringing me pain, making my heart feel like it wants to crack in two. Taking a deep breath, I grimace, hating myself. “I’m an asshole.”
The smile that curves her lips is faint. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes,” I say, my voice firm. “I am. I didn’t even think about this ride, how you’re able to deal with the memories when you’re here in this park. It can’t be easy. And I’ve been a total jerk to you and I’m sorry. I’m going through my own shit. It has nothing to do with you but unfortunately it’s affected you, and I hate that.” A half-truth. It has everything to do with her, but I can’t tell her that. Not now. Not yet.
But soon.
“I need to be stronger. I know it, but it’s so hard. I just—I need time. I think you do, too. Maybe we aren’t meant to be. Maybe this won’t work. I’m too new at this, too . . .” She closes her eyes and shakes her head once before she looks at me once more. Her words are about to give me a fucking heart attack and I try my best not to react. “I’m not equipped for this, Ethan. Not yet, at least. So you need to tell me if you’re in or not. I need to know.”
I don’t even hesitate. Leaning forward, I press my mouth to hers, whisper against her lips, “I’m in.”
And I mean it.
We head up the stairs that lead to the Sky Glider together, Ethan by my side. It’s surreal, how we found each other, how he just kissed me and told me he’s in. We’re holding hands and he escorts me to where they seat us, waiting for an empty glider cart to appear so we can back our butts up into it and the attendant can lock the bar across the front of us.
I push past the fear, shove the memories far, far away. Even laugh a little as the bar comes down and the teenage kid working the ride gives our car a push so we swing on the wire. The Sky Glider used to secretly terrify me when I was a kid, stuck in that car with what felt like too much room between the bar and the seat. Usually sitting with my mom, who would clutch the back of my shirt as if she were truly afraid I would slip out and fall to my death.
The Sky Glider skims across most of the park, a great shortcut to use when you want to get to another ride—or the other side of the park—fast. That had been Aaron William Monroe’s excuse. That he needed to get across the park quickly to meet his family. A lie, like everything else he said.
I refuse to think of him now. I don’t want to taint this memory of Ethan and me together.
Ethan slips his arm around my shoulders and pulls me close to his side as we glide quietly above the park. We pass a tall concession stand that sells ice cream, its rooftop littered with the flip-flops, hair accessories, and plastic bracelets kids win at the arcade. I lean forward a little and glance down, feel our cart sway the slightest bit, and immediately press myself back against Ethan.
“Scared?” he whispers close to my ear, nuzzling the side of my face with his nose.
I shiver, but not from the wind. “No. Not when I have you to keep me safe.” I want him to always keep me safe. Help me feel secure.
I think Ethan could be the one to do that for me.
I feel him smile before he kisses my cheek, his mouth lingering, making me shiver again. I still can’t believe I’m here with him. I’d come to meet him at the coffee shop against my better judgment, hating the inner voice nagging at me, telling me to turn around and go home.
That voice sounded just like Brenna.
The moment I started walking toward the coffee shop, the inner voice got louder. More insistent. Like it was screaming at me to turn around and go. Just leave. So I did. And somehow ended up at the park, where I wandered around, looking for . . . something, anything to ease the dull ache inside of me, but unable to find it.
Until I spotted Ethan and the pain disappeared, replaced by a glimmer of hope.
I thought I was seeing things. I truly believed he was a figment of my imagination. But there’s no mistaking his dark hair, that beautiful masculine face, the glasses and the broad, capable shoulders. The way he moved through the waning crowd was so familiar to me, so dear, that I automatically shouted his name.
He didn’t hear me. I shouted again, and again, my voice louder with every call of his name until finally he turned around. The moment he spotted me, from the look in his dark eyes, the expression on his face, I knew.