Page 22 of Temporarily in Love

“Come on, love, let’s go on the zipper,” he said and took my hand.

I didn’t question his slip up. The old pet name rolled off his tongue like it hadn’t been sixteen years since I broke his heart. Like I hadn’t stood in his driveway all those years ago and told him I got accepted to Stanford and wasn’t going with him to Penn State. I told him I wanted to break up, because long-distance relationships never worked, but I’d always love him. That part had been true, was still true, but I never came back to him. I went to California and stayed there while he stayed in our gossipy small town and made a name for himself.

The pad of his thumb brushed against the back of my palm. “Love?”

“Right. Let’s go on the zipper!” I said excitedly, pulling myself away from the trip down memory lane.

We walked over to the ride and waited in line for a few minutes, but neither of us wanted to sever the connection of our hands. I wondered if he was thinking about all the times we had done this before. Of those times back in high school when he was the one dragging me toward the rides. Adult Declan was quiet and reserved, and I couldn’t get a read on him. He wasn’t the boy I fell in love with, but yet, at the same time, he was.

He led me into the cage and made sure I was seated before he slid in next to me. We pulled the lap bar down, and the ride operator clicked us in before shutting us inside the metal cage. We were pressed so close together, I felt his thigh against my own.

I didn’t know why I did it, but I turned to him and found he was staring back at me intensely. He didn’t jerk back when I brushed my lips against his. He threaded his hands through my hair, one of them gripping my neck possessively as he deepened the kiss. We kissed like we hadn’t forgotten, like it hadn’t been years since we were pressed together. We still fit so perfectly.

Then the ride lurched, and I pulled away to grab onto the handlebar above my head as we moved upwards. We screamed our heads off as our cage flipped us around. I held onto Declan’s arm when the ride took us up to its full height and then brought us back down to the ground, all the while flipping us upside down in our cage.

I felt dizzy by the time we were back on the ground, and the ride operator opened the cage for us. Declan got out first, then offered me a hand when I stumbled out.

He studied me. “Okay, love?”

I could only nod.

My heart was doing somersaults, and it wasn’t because I was motion sick from the ride. It was singing with the way this man still turned me inside out. But I couldn’t get ideas like that. I didn’t deserve him after what I did. Not after I had been such a coward and cut him out of my life.

I shoved my hands in my pockets as we walked off. All the rides were lit up bright and colorful against the dark October night sky. It reminded me of being a kid, of all the possibilities. It helped me forget that my fiancé cheated on me and my family’s bar was about to go under.

Declan walked with me around the fairgrounds. I don’t think he knew what to say about that kiss, either. I wanted to know if his lips on mine still felt the same way, or if I was just nostalgic for my high school sweetheart.

It felt the same. When we kissed, it was like the planets aligned, and I knew for sure why none of my relationships had panned out since. My heart belonged to Declan freaking MacGregor.

“Lila,” Declan began.

I turned to him and watched him rub a frustrated hand down his jaw. His five o’clock shadow had come in, but it looked like the type of scruff that would hurt good when he rubbed it against my face. Or my thighs.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out, noticing a text from my sister.

KELS: Can Dec give you a ride home? Cora puked on the scrambler, so we gotta go.

Dammit.

ME: I’ll ask.

KELS: K! You looked cozy. Maybe it’s a good thing.

I ignored that last part. How she even knew I was with him was a mystery to me.

Declan gave me a quizzical look. “Everything okay?”

I sighed. “No. My sister ditched me, and she was my ride.”

“Oh. I can take you home.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll call a car.”

“Lila, it’s fine. I’ll take you home.”

“Thank you,” I muttered and looked down at my boots.

We were both pretending the kiss didn’t happen. If it happened, that meant I had to deal with all these pent-up feelings. When Declan kissed me, a lightbulb had gone off. When other men kissed me, I convinced myself I loved them. Convinced myself I could find love again. But my heart would always belong to the tall, lanky man in front of me.