Page 79 of River & Rue

“Things started going downhill when we moved in together. A week after she dumped me, I found out she’d moved in with her other boyfriend.”

Rue gasps. “That bitch.”

Her indignation makes me chuckle, which makes her frown in confusion.

“I wasn’t heartbroken. Hurt, yes, but as shitty as it sounds, my ego was what suffered the most. I was more upset about the betrayal than losing her. I don’t blame her, either. Not anymore. On some level, I think she knew I was performing love instead of feeling it, and she deserves someone who can really love her.” I pause, wincing. “She was a bit of a bitch though. The kind of person who yells at servers.”

Perplexed blue eyes scan mine. “Then why? Why were you with her so long?”

“The short, pathetic answer is I didn’t want to be alone.”

Someday, I’ll tell her the rest. That I settled because I was too afraid to be honest about my feelings for her.

Rue’s indignation returns, this time directed at me. “You told your parents you were going to marry her.”

It might be wishful thinking on my part, but she sounds personally offended.

“I was a fool.”

“Bold of you to go with past tense.”

I grin. “This fool wants to journey to the stars with you. Shall we?”

She rolls her eyes, those pretty lips twitching. “If we die, my soul will haunt yours for eternity.”

“An afterlife with you isn’t the threat you think it is.”

I’m positioning my feet back on the pedals as I say it, so I don’t see her expression. But I hear the catch in her breath before she scoffs.

“Do lines like that actually work?”

I glance at her with a smile. “That’s up to you. Now hurry up and tell the stars a secret. You’re looking a little sunburned.”

She makes a face but closes her eyes. Her lashes flutter open a few seconds later.

“All right, done. Did you do yours?”

I nod. I’ve been shouting my secret at the stars for hours.

“Ready? Push.”

It doesn’t take long for us to realize the entire installation needs a bath in grease. The pressure required to move the pedals is immense, the grinding and screeching almost intolerable. But I don’t ask Rue if she wants to stop, and she doesn’t ask me. We’re the same kind of stubborn.

When the spokes on the ground begin to rotate, we share a grin and pedal harder. By the time they rise into the air, we’re panting and sweating and cussing.

But it’s worth it.

As the spokes lift to their highest point, the grinding sound fades, and a deep, sonorous whistle takes its place. The pedals also lose the majority of their resistance, allowing us to catch our breath and actually see what we’ve accomplished.

A tornado of spinning metal surrounds us. There are three different levels, all moving at different speeds and oscillating at different rates. Light flashes off thousands of tiny mirrors, creating the surreal feeling that we’ve defied natural law and summoned the stars to us.

Rue laughs, bright and loud.

“It’s incredible!”

I lean toward her so I don’t have to yell. “Told you we wouldn’t die.”

“We still need to slow it down somehow.”