“Yeah. You can see the whole valley from up there.”
“Good,” I said. “The last Ferris wheel I rode at some sketchy carnival in Illinois did three terrifying spins in five minutes. I thought the thing was gonna fall apart.”
He chuckled. “I think these bolts will hold. Come on.”
He rested a hand on the small of my back and guided me through the crowd. A few minutes later, the operator opened the glass door of a white gondola. We stepped inside, and the door clicked shut.
The padded bench curved around the inside, and Brock sat right beside me. The gondola lurched gently, and we started to rise.
The ground fell away, the carnival lights shrinking under us. Then a heavy drop of rain hit the glass, followed by another.
Suddenly, the sky opened up.
Rain hammered the roof. The temperature dropped fast, and the windows fogged over, blurring the neon lights into streaks of pink and gold.
"You gonna tell me what happened down there?" Brock asked.
I turned toward him. His arm was stretched along the back of the bench, watching me quietly.
"What do you mean?"
“You looked sad.” His voice was low and easy over the sound of the rain. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
I hesitated, my thumb rubbing the edge of the photo strip in my pocket. “It’s just… it’s been a really nice night.”
He shifted closer. “That’s a good thing, right?”
I looked down at my hands and gave a shaky laugh. “Yeah. But when Colt handed me those pictures and said they were for my fridge in Chicago…”
I trailed off. The rain filled the silence. He didn’t push, just reached over and covered my hands with his.
“I realized I don’t want to go back,” I finished.
"Then don't."
"It's not that simple."
"It could be."
I opened my mouth, ready to list all the reasons why it wasn’t, but he slid his fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck and kissed me.
It wasn’t rushed like it usually was with us lately. This one was slow and gentle. I closed my eyes and leaned into him, my hands resting against his chest.
When he finally pulled back, he didn’t go far. His thumb brushed slowly along my neck. The rain drummed steadily on the roof of the gondola, which swayed gently.
His other hand slid under the hem of my shirt, palm warm against my bare lower back, fingers spreading across my skin.
“Brock,” I murmured, glancing toward the fogged glass. “Anyone in the cars next to us…”
“They can’t see a damn thing through this fog. And I don’t care if they can.”
Before I could answer, the gondola shuddered violently. A loud metallic groan came from outside, and the car jerked to a stop, swaying in place.
“Please tell me it’s supposed to do that,” I said.
I leaned forward and wiped a circle in the condensation on the glass. A faint siren drifted up from the ground far below.
“Did the power go out?”
