Anyway, there had been a few moments over the past few days where I’d felt older than some of my traveling companions,
But I wasn’t.
I wasn’t! And, damn it, I should be allowed to act the part. Besides, what else was I going to do for the next three hours?
My fingers tightened on the edge of the brochure.
I looked up at Noah. He was watching me, his silver-blue eyes lit up with something almost challenging.
So, before I could talk myself out of it, I said, “Okay.”
His grin widened.
“But just to be clear, I’m not going on this one.” I jabbed my finger at the bright yellow torture device hanging off the cliff. “It’s?—”
“Amazing?” Noah supplied helpfully.
I shuddered, staring at it. “Try insane.”
Oddly enough, he didn’t argue. He just kept grinning at me, like really grinning, and I realized it was the first time I’d seen him looking totally happy.
For some reason, that did something weird to my breathing.
Friends. He was just a new friend. Someone who, after this trip was over, I’d never see again.
“Eh, we’ll see about that when we get there,” he said. He was already opening up the app on his phone, calling for our ride, and less than a minute after we stepped outside into the sunshine, an Uber pulled up.
I slid into the backseat, and Noah followed after. Though we’d technically been closer to each other on the bus, in the confines of the car, our proximity felt somehow more intimate.
And that woodsy, clean smell of his wafted over to me, just enough that I wanted a little more…
Chill, Luna.
It didn’t take long for us to reach our destination, and I quickly realized Noah hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said it was only a few minutes away. I barely had time to second-guess my decision before our driver came to a stop in the drop-off zone of a gondola station. I peered out the window, but didn’t see any indication that there was an amusement park in the near vicinity, just the thick metal cables stretching high into the sky until they disappeared over the mountain ridge far above us.
I turned to Noah, narrowing my eyes. “I thought you said we were going to the park.”
He leaned back against the seat. “And we are. You saw the brochure. That rollercoaster has to come down the mountains, so… ?”
“We have to go up it,” I said, biting my lip. I looked out the window again, watching the bright orange cable cars bobbing gently along with the slight breeze.
The amusement park was up there?
“That okay with you?”
The idea of being surprised by anything these days didn’t make me feel light and fizzy; it made me feel a little…sick. “It’s just not what I expected.”
Although, based on the pictures I’d seen, maybe I should have.
The driver cleared his throat from up in the front seat. Noah thanked him, having already paid through the app, but before getting out, he reached into his wallet and handed the driver a cash tip. The man nodded appreciatively, and I found myself momentarily distracted.
Not by the tip itself, but by Noah. By the way he did it without hesitation, without making a show of it, the same way he’d upgraded his mom’s spa treatments earlier. And, come to think of it, the same way he’d covered lunch back in Glenwood Springs, like it was no big deal.
When we climbed out of the car and stepped onto the paved walkway leading to the gondola station, I picked up the pace, just enough to slide ahead of Noah.
I spotted the ticket booth.
And bam. Two tickets. Paid.
