The wheel continues its rotation, carrying us down and then up again. Each time we reach the top, Ryan points out something new—a planet, a constellation, a satellite blinking its way across the darkness. His voice loses its careful restraint, becoming animated.
I don’t watch the sky. I watch him.
Every time we reach the top, Ryan’s face tilts subtly, jawline sharp in the blue-white glow of the moon and the gold points of carnival light. His eyes, so quiet and serious below, are alive up here. His lips move as he names more constellations, but I barely hear the words. All I see is how he traces invisible lines in the air, how some shy muscle in his cheek jumps whenever he spots something special.
The night sky is gorgeous, but I’d rather stare at him.
He’s so close I could count his eyelashes. I could kiss the spot right below his ear, where the skin goes soft and pale before the collar of his shirt. My brain is running a full diagnostic on this moment and coming up short: I have never wanted anything this much, not in all the years of wanting.
He keeps talking, softer now. The words aren’t for me anymore—they’re for the sky, for his mom.
I want nothing more than to close the distance, but I stayperfectly still, breathing him in, memorizing the way he exists in this sliver of time.
The third time we reach the apex, the wheel stops. We sway gently in the gondola, suspended in the darkness.
“She would have loved this,” Ryan says. “Being up here with someone who actually wanted to listen.”
“I always want to listen to you.”
His head pivots slowly, and suddenly, those eyes that were lost in the cosmos are focused entirely on me. “Oliver…”
“Yeah?”
He shifts closer, and I feel his breath against my cheek. “I’ve never done this before.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Neither do I.”
That’s a lie. I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m falling, have been falling, and will continue to fall until I hit whatever ground waits at the bottom of this feeling.
But Ryan doesn’t need to know that. All he needs to know is that he’s not alone in the uncertainty.
Without thinking, because thinking leads to second-guessing, I close my eyes and press my lips to his.
27
RYAN
This is my first kiss.
The thought floats through my consciousness, detached and wondering, as if it belongs to someone else. Twenty years old, and I’ve never done this before. Never wanted to, not really, not with anyone who wasn’t Oliver. And now Oliver is here, lips moving against mine with careful deference, and I’m floating somewhere above the fairground with the stars as my witness.
His hand comes up to cup my jaw, same as in my fantasy, thumb brushing against my cheekbone, and I forget how to breathe.
My fingers find the front of Oliver’s shirt. I pull him closer, and he makes a sound against my mouth. A soft, surprised exhale that vibrates through me and settles precisely in my chest.
The kiss deepens.
I’m not sure which of us initiates it, but his tongue suddenly traces the seam of my lips, and I open for him. The sensation of his tongue inside my mouth is so overwhelming that I whimper.
It should embarrass me. But all it does is encourage Oliver. He angles his head and kisses me deeper, more thoroughly.
The sound of a plane flying overhead breaks themagical moment. Oliver pulls back first. Not far, but enough to rest his forehead against mine. His breath comes in uneven bursts that match my own.
“Ryan.” My name on his lips carries a gravity it never had before.
