I looked down at our joined hands, then up at him.
He stared straight ahead.
“Don’t,” he said.
“I said nothing.”
“You’re thinking loudly.”
“I’m thinking you’re adorable.”
His eyes cut to mine. “Take it back.”
“No.”
“Destiny.”
“Adorable.”
“I’ve killed men.”
“And yet.”
His mouth twitched despite himself.
The wheel carried us upward, slow and creaking, until the carnival spread beneath us in bright little pieces. Lights strung over dirt paths. Food stands glowing gold. People moving like they belonged to a world painted warmer than the real one. Beyond the fair, Albuquerque stretched into evening, and beyond that the mountains held the last purple bruises of sunset.
At the top, the wheel stopped.
Dylan muttered something under his breath.
I leaned slightly to look at him. “Was that a prayer?”
“A threat.”
“To the Ferris wheel?”
“To gravity.”
I laughed, but the sound faded quickly.
Because we were high above everything now.
Above the noise.
Above the lights.
Above the years that had nearly swallowed us.
The wind moved softly around us, lifting a loose strand of my hair across my cheek. Dylan’s gaze followed it, and the memory passed between us: hospital lights, his fingers itching, my hair against his jaw, all the wanting we had no right to touch then.
Now, he lifted his free hand.
Slowly.
“Can I?” he asked.
My throat tightened.
