You Owe Me a Murder(56)

“You know mentioning your freak tendencies just turns me on, right?” I punched him lightly in the stomach. He backed up, laughing. “Just because I said you could hit me once doesn’t mean you can make a habit out of it.”

“Look, I feel—?”

“I hate that th—?”

We’d both started talking at the same time and then laughed. Alex held up a hand. “I was going to say that I hate that things are weird between us.”

“Me too,” I replied.

“Let’s just forget that all that stuff happened.”

I nodded. All that stuff were my lies and his need to run to Tasha and tell on me. I wondered how he’d respond if he saw the list I’d made of why I wanted to kill Connor. We both looked away from each other. Clearly neither of us was great at the whole talking-about-our-feelings thing.

“So, I had an idea and I made a plan for something for us to do. That is, if you’re game.” His mouth curled up at the corner and I felt a flutter in my chest.

“What kind of plan?”

“A surprise.” He bounced on his feet like a toddler. “Grab your phone. We’re going out.”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to guess what he was up to. “Out where?”

“You do understand the concept of a surprise, right?” When I opened my mouth to protest, he turned me by my waist and pointed me toward the stairs. The heat of his hands felt as if they were burning through my thin shirt, marking my skin. “No more debating—?get your phone, unless you don’t want to go?”

I liked the feeling of his hands on my hips. “I want to go.”

“Of course you do. Who doesn’t like an adventure?”

“Is everybody going?”

He shook his head. “Nope. This is just the two of us.”

I wanted to tell him I couldn’t care less about any adventure. We could sit on this stupid dusty sofa all night and he could give me a blow-by-blow description of some stupid role-playing game he liked and I’d be thrilled. It was his company that I loved.

“Count me in,” I said.



* * *





Alex pulled me down the street. I liked the feel of my hand in his, as though it belonged there. “C’mon, we don’t want to be late,” he said.

Alex weaved between people on the sidewalk and then stopped short. “Ta-da!”

We were at the base of the London Eye, the huge glassed-in Ferris wheel attraction right on the river. It spun slowly, impossibly high in the sky, its glass pods full of people.

“Are you serious?” My voice went up. My inner afraid-of-heights voice was already screaming, Hell no! “I heard this sells out a lot.” My guts were turning to water. Please let him not have tickets.

“Would I drag you all the way here and not make sure we were ready to go?” Alex pulled two tickets out of his pocket, fanning them out. “I even splurged for the VIP option. We get a glass of sparkling cider and chocolates when we’re at the top because we are very important people.”

“Wow, it’s really tall,” I said, shading my eyes to look up even though the sun was no longer in the sky.

“It goes up something like five hundred feet! It’s Europe’s tallest Ferris wheel.”

“Huh, how about that.”

There was no way I could do this. I would throw up or pass out. Or throw up and then pass out.

Alex bowed and pointed me in the direction of the entrance. Clammy sweat broke out all over my body. I forced my legs forward, marching like a stiff toy soldier. Alex passed over our tickets and we were moved to the next area to wait for our car.

“Are you okay?” Alex asked.

So much for thinking I was playing it cool. “Heights freak me out a little.” I managed a watery smile.

His expression crumpled. “Oh. I had no idea.” He stepped to the side. “We can do something else.”

I felt a wave of relief. And then tension swept back in. The tickets weren’t cheap. He’d planned this whole thing to do something nice for me, something special. I stiffened my spine. “No, I want to go.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind if you don’t want to do it.”

I sucked in a deep breath. It wasn’t just about the price of the tickets. Being scared was illogical. This thing had passed a million and one safety checks. The only thing in my way was my own fear. I had to stop being afraid of everything. And it wasn’t about doing it because he’d planned something special. I believed him that it didn’t matter to him. What mattered is that I wanted to do it. “No, I’m going.”

Our car coasted to the base, and the guide started to direct everyone in. The pod moved slowly enough that it didn’t have to come to a complete stop. Alex hesitated, but when he saw the determination in my eyes, he reached for my hand.

“You can do this,” he said, then squeezed.

I paused as I stepped over the threshold. There would be no getting off once I was on. They weren’t going to stop the whole thing just because I was freaking out. Once we were inside, my knees felt as though they were going to give out. I had a death grip on Alex’s hand.

“Do you want to sit down?” Alex motioned to the curved bench in the center of the pod.

“No. I want to see.” I clutched the railing as we—?very slowly—?started to rise. This was going to be the longest thirty minutes of my life.