Chapter 47

This was the moment of truth. At the top of the Lover’s Ferris Wheel. Any couple that kissed at this moment in this spot was destined to be together forever.

Asher leaned in.

I held my breath.

At the last moment, he veered off course and placed a soft, chaste kiss to my cheek. He lingered. The heat of his body warmed mine from the cool night air.

Then he leaned back, returning to his original posture as if nothing had happened. He turned his head away from me, gazing over the opposite side of the ride car.

My thoughts fizzled as if I’d been struck by lightning. Then, quickly, my mind restarted, flooding with too many thoughts to process.

It wasn’t a traditional kiss, but it was still a kiss.

…Did that count?

And what did Asher mean by it?

A kiss on the cheek could be romantic, but it could also be friendly. Had Asher kissed me on the cheek as a way of saying we’d be together forever as friends?

I could ask him to clarify it, but… no. What if he confirmed it was just a friendly sort of kiss?

Wasn’t it better to let myself believe it could be the romantic kind I wanted without the heartbreak of the truth?

As I scrambled to get my thoughts in order, the ride twitched forward and we were gone from the highest point.

Yet we still had time before it was our turn to be let off.

Beneath us now, Joseph was on the phone with someone. Asher’s date was still chatting up the attendant. He was showing her the controls to the ride.

“Your date doesn’t seem like she has eyes just for you,” I said. If I had been Asher’s date, there’s no way I’d be separated from him, let alone flirting with someone else.

“I prefer that,” he said. “Anything else wouldn’t be fair.”

“Why not?”

He glanced at me, then away again too quickly for me to discern any emotion.

“Ask me something else,” he said.

I looked again at his date. She was tall and blonde with a narrow waist.

“Is she the type of girl you usually go out with?”

“Not really.”

That answer gave me more relief that it should have. “Then what is your type?”

He didn’t say anything right away. The ride moved forward again but it still wasn’t our turn to exit yet.

“I like brunettes with brown eyes. Athletes, though I don’t mind if she has some added weight. I care more about her personality.”

I had brown eyes and hair, but so did lots of girls. Plus, the campus was littered with athletes, I was far from the only one.

“I like girls that challenge me. She has to be stubborn and headstrong. And tough. She could take on anything the world throws at her, even if she has doubts sometimes.”

I listened, wondering if I knew a girl like that. I had a feeling like I did. He couldn’t mean me, though. But it sounded like he meant someone.

I didn’t want to think about what that meant.

“Your turn,” he said, eyes finding mine again. Their beauty and intensity took my breath away. “What’s your type, Cynthia?”

You.

It was the only possible answer, but also the one I couldn’t say aloud.

Fortunately, the ride jolted forward once more, and this time it was our turn to depart.

The attendant unlocked our safety bar. Asher hopped out first, then held out his hand to help me down. I took it, and we stepped aside to let a new couple board.

At the ride exit, Joseph was fuming. I hesitated just inside the gate.

“You don’t have to go with him,” Asher whispered in my ear. “You could stay with me.”

It was a tempting offer, but as I considered it, Asher’s date called for him.

“Asher! Come over here, you have to check this out!”

Asher was ignoring her, until I shook my head at him. “We both have other priorities tonight.”

“You’re always my first priority,” he said.

My heart tore in half. I wanted him to mean romantically, but I knew he only meant to protect me as a friend.

“I’ll be okay,” I told him, giving him a small smile, and walked away from him, back to Joseph.

When I was within grasp, Joseph snagged my hand and yanked me away, dragging me down the makeshift streets between the stalls to a quieter corner in a pavilion stuffed with picnic tables.

“He kissed you,” Joseph hissed. His anger radiated off of him in waves.

“No,” I said at once. Quickly I realized that I had lied, though unintentionally so. I amended, “Only on the cheek.”

He laughed but it was bitter and sharp. “Of course. How fucking chivalrous.”

I didn’t like when he used harsh language. This furious, he scared me a little bit. But I didn’t dare say so.

“And I suppose you liked it, huh?” Joseph asked. “You let him kiss you?”

“It wasn’t…” I couldn’t tell him it wasn’t a big deal or it didn’t mean anything. Maybe it didn’t to Asher, but it did to me. So instead, I said, “I’m sorry.”

“If you mean that, then make it up to me.”

My hands began to tremble so I curled them into fists. “How?”

“Kiss me.”

I reeled backwards. “It was just a kiss on the cheek.”

He tightened his grip on my wrist, dragging me back, closer to him. “Then kiss me on the cheek, Cynthia.”

He said my name like it was a dirty word.

I wanted to get away, but… maybe I brought this on myself. I had let Asher kiss me on the cheek. I had wanted him to kiss me on the mouth.

But Joseph was my date. Maybe it was only fair to kiss him, too, as I had been kissed.

“Just on the cheek, okay?” I wanted to appease him so he’d loosen his bruising grip on my skin.

“Do it,” he insisted. His demands weren’t as endearing as Asher’s. Asher took control but would never hurt me.

With Joseph, I wasn’t so sure.

“What are you waiting for?” he snapped.

If I kissed him, maybe he would be less angry, and we could go back to the okay time we had been having before all this started. It hadn’t been perfect, but anything was better than this.

Slowly, carefully, I leaned in, feeling like I was heading into the territory of a wild, murderous animal, lips first.

Aiming for his cheek, I brought my mouth very close before closing my eyes.

At once, he released his grip on my wrist, but only to grab my face with both hands. He overpowered me, yanking my mouth to his where he kissed me full on the mouth.

He tried to shove his tongue past my lips, but I snapped my teeth closed and would not open them no matter how hard he dug his thumbs into my cheeks.

Eventually, blessedly, he backed off and shoved me away from him.

“There,” he spat. “Now I got more than him.”

Stumbling backwards, I clutched onto a beam of the pavilion for support. Embarrassment, shame, and disgust filled me in equal measure. I thought I might throw up.

At least Asher hadn’t seen, I reasoned. If he had seen, I didn’t know if I could have recovered.

I didn’t want him to see Joseph treat me this way.

Or see that I let him.

Yet when I listened close, above the chatter of a happy crowd, the calls of the game attendants, and the clatter of the rides, I heard a very low, deadly growl.

I looked behind me, and gasped.

Asher stood there, body tense as a snake about to strike.

Or a wolf about to lunge.

He had seen it all.