over?
He nodded his head with a grin on his face that told me he didn’t believe a word I said. “Whatever you say.” He patted my back just as we got to the girls.
I ignored him and held Brooke’s wristband out to her. She stuck her arm out, and I held her small wrist in my hand as I wrapped it around.
“You ready?”
She looked up from her wrist and smiled. “I’m so ready.”
The place was packed. People were roaming around everywhere, and Brooke was taking it all in like it was the most fascinating place she had ever been.
“What do you want to do first?”
She pointed to some ride that looked like it was made for the sole purpose of making its victims puke, but I followed her anyway.
We climbed inside, and I pulled the metal bar against our laps while Sophie and Jase climbed into the seat in front of us. She was sitting right next to me even though another person could have fit on the other side of her, but I didn’t mind.
Actually, I more than didn’t mind. I liked it too much.
“I’m a little too excited, huh?” She tucked a piece of stray hair behind her ear and looked away from me.
I put my arm over the back of the seat, around her shoulders, and ran my thumb over the skin there. “No. I think it’s cute.”
She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t quit smiling. “Cute?”
“What would you prefer I call you? Hot? Gorgeous?”
“Those would be better than cute.”
“You already know those things. I don’t need to tell you you’re gorgeous.”
She looked up at me then, really looked at me, and I could tell she hesitated on what she said next. “I don’t already know that you think those things.”
The ride creaked beneath us, and we started to move as I thought of what to say to her. “You have to know that I think you’re beautiful.”
She didn’t look at me then. She was watching the crowd as we started picking up speed before looking back over her shoulder at me. “You’ve never told me that. Not when we weren’t pretending.”
“Any time I tell you you’re beautiful, I’m not pretending.”
The ride was moving faster and faster and she was all I could see. Everything else was whizzing by us in a blur, but none of it mattered in that moment. I wasn’t sure that it ever did.
“You get me?”
She nodded and relaxed a bit into my side. “I get you.”
We didn’t speak for the rest of the ride. Not that we could even if we wanted to. The ride picked up even more speed, knocking us around in our seat as we spun around. Brooke started laughing beside me.
It started out as a small burst of laughter but soon became uncontrollable as her body slammed into mine from the speed.
I only thought I knew what beautiful was until that moment.
I couldn’t help laughing with her. It was contagious and once I started, I couldn’t stop. Jace and Sophie were looking back at me like they had never seen me before as we came to a stop, and I couldn’t blame them.
There was something about Brooke that made me feel different. Made me act different. There was something about being here with her that was changing everything.
But I didn’t care.
I would go back to being the same workaholic asshole I was before all this started, but I would soak up the time we had left as much as I could. If that meant laughing on a ride that was making me nauseous with the girl who was making me question everything, then I would take it.
I wasn’t ready to give her up, and I still had the rest of the night before we had to put on another show with the wedding tomorrow.
Then I would tell her that the building was ours, that the owner accepted the offer while she was gone with my mom this morning, but not tonight. I didn’t want tonight to be about the agreement or business or what either of us had at stake. I just wanted it to be about us tonight with nothing at risk.
But I was beginning to see how big of a fool I was.
I was at risk any moment I was with her. I just didn’t know it until that moment that she was becoming a risk I was willing to take.
Fourteen
No Regrets
Brooke
I hadn’t had this much fun in forever.
We rode every ride we came across, and