Page 70 of You Met Me There

I look up at the sky as the sun burns orange, almost kissing the horizon. “Yeah, but nowhere near as high as that.” I point at a plane as it floats behind a cloud. I blink at him. “You don’t actually want me to go skydiving, do you?”

“No.” He shakes his head, a playful twinkle in his eyes. “I would never put you in danger, remember? I think horses were enough of an adventure, anyway.”

My eyes slide down to his lips as he speaks.

“Hey,” he says, lifting my chin between his thumb and finger. “My eyes are up here.”

I meet his gaze and slide closer to him on the bench, my stomach rising and dipping, but not from the motion of the Ferris wheel.

“Did you really miss me when I was gone?” Luke asks, cupping my cheek.

I lean into his touch like it’s second nature. “I did. I wanted to turn over in bed and feel you beside me. The cabin is too quiet without you.”

“I’m here now, sweet girl. I’ll always come back to you, wherever you are.”

I lean in and kiss him—hard. In the two days he’s been back, I haven’t gotten nearly enough of him. I close my eyes, and he brings his hand to the back of my neck, tangling in my hair. My fingers drag lightly across his arm, and I smile as I feel goose bumps lift across his skin.

We kiss like that until the Ferris wheel slows, and when it comes to a stop, my lips are swollen and my heart is full of him. Luke removes his hand from my hair, and with a hand on my lower back, he guides me away from the ride’s platform to wait for Jules and Sandra.

Luke’s fingers are entwined with mine as we wait on the grass. He leans close to my ear, his heat radiating onto my skin. “I can’t get enough of your touch, Nat—your kiss. You do things to me.” Once again, his lips graze mine.

I step back to look up at him, furrowing my brow. “Right here? In front of everyone?” I look around, all too aware of the people moving around us.

Luke steps in front of me, blocking my view of the people who continue to exit the ride. In his shadow, he’s all I see. “Expect an audience, Natalie. Because I plan to kiss you a lot more, no matter who’s watching.”

He catches my lips with his, and my heart pounds at the suddenness of it. I don’t know what’s gotten into Luke, but I like what it’s doing to me. He releases me from his all-consuming kiss, holding my waist with a firm but gentle hand. I feel lightheaded, grateful for his steady grip.

“Hey, there you are!” Sandra shouts, reaching us, with Juliet close behind her. She points a finger at Luke. “I saw that kiss. You trying to burn the whole place down or something?” She fans herself with her hand.

I chuckle nervously, still a little breathless as Luke steps away from me.

He slides his hand to the small of my back—it’s hot through the thin fabric of my tank top. “Something like that.” He smirks at her, then looks at me and winks. My cheeks flush. Then he tugs me along. “Let’s go find the guys,” he says. “I’m starving.”

Not long after, we find my parents sitting at a picnic table with Levi and Archie. The boys sport white powdered sugar on their faces and shirts, with smiles that spark a childlike joy in me. Cam and Tyler enjoy their own spread of food at a neighboring table.

Luke seats himself next to Cam, digging into a hot dog he grabbed on the way over and already jumping into conversation about the cabin and the new photos I took for their listing.

I nudge Tyler as I sit by him, across from the other guys. “Why haven’t you proposed to Sandra yet?” I whisper.

He frowns, looking over his other shoulder to make sure she can’t hear us. Turning back to me, he keeps his voice low. “I just … haven’t yet. I don’t know. The timing hasn’t seemed right.”

“When will the timing seem right?” I ask, then bite into a fried pickle I stole from his plate.

He shrugs his shoulders. “I’m not really sure. We’re both really busy. We’re invested in our jobs, and I visit Maple Lake almost every month, so that takes up some time. Her family lives in Vermont, so she travels to see them. I don’t really have the time to plan a wedding.”

“So, elope,” I say, like it’s obvious.

He leans closer to me. “Are you being serious? She would kill me if I even suggested it.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s Sandra.” Grease drips from the turkey leg in his hand. “She likes nice things. Big, expensive things that would take a year alone to plan, and I’d probably have to drive all the way up to Vermont just to get hitched.”

“So what I’m hearing you say is you don’t want to propose because it will throw your comfortable yet busy life into a whirlwind of listening to her talk about wedding plans—which she’ll most likely plan without you anyway—and you’ll have to take a road trip to Vermont for one weekend?”

He pauses, chewing on a juicy bit of turkey. “When you say it like that, it doesn’t sound so chaotic.”

“Because it’s not,” I say, chuckling. The cheese fries between Luke and Cam smell heavenly, so I snatch one and bask in its glorious cheesiness.