Challenge Accepted Page 11

  But surprisingly, Emma tuned it to the nearest classic rock station, which was currently playing a Rolling Stones song. Imagine my surprise when she started softly singing along with it.

  I glanced sideways at her as I pulled out of the driveway. “You like classic rock?”

  She looked at me like she thought I was an idiot for even asking. “Uh, yeah. Who doesn’t?”

  I didn’t even miss a beat. “Grace doesn’t.” Grace liked boy band crap. She loved it when they sang about how beautiful and amazing she was and how she never needed to change because she was perfect.

  “That’s her problem, not mine.”

  I chuckled as I pulled to a stop at the end of our street. “Well, I’ve got to say, I’m impressed with your taste in music. Your singing voice, however, could use some work.”

  She rolled her eyes at my insult, but didn’t verbally respond to it. Probably because she knew it was bogus. Her singing voice wasn’t half-bad. In fact, it was pretty good, considering her talking voice usually made me want to puncture my eardrums with Q-tips.

  “I’ve grown up on this music,” she said. “My dad’s obsessed. Zeppelin, Floyd, Stones, you name it.”

  “Yeah, my dad’s obsessed, too,” I said. “I guess that makes sense, considering they’re best friends. Maybe their love of classic rock was what forged their friendship.” I glanced over at her with a fake expression of hope. “Maybe it will forge a friendship between us as well.”

  She chortled at the suggestion. “It’s going to take a lot more than a shared love of classic rock for us to ever be friends, Logan.”

  I placed a hand over my heart. “That’s hurtful, Dawson.”

  “It is what it is,” she said, a small smile playing at her lips.

  We didn’t talk for the rest of the trip, which was how I liked it. Since Emma and I weren’t friends, and had nothing in common but liking the same music, there wasn’t anything for us to talk about. Neither one of us felt the need to engage in forced small-talk.

  I guess that was another thing we had in common.

  Once we arrived downtown, I headed straight for the parking garage and parked the car, as requested.

  “So, where are we going?” I asked as we made our way to the elevator.

  Emma pressed the button for the ground level. “Somewhere close by. You’ll know when we get there.”

  I hated how mysterious she was being, but to be fair, I was being no different. Still, I couldn’t help but fear for my life, considering she was probably taking me somewhere to do something that would bore me to death.

  And I had every right to have that fear, because after less than two minutes of walking, she stopped in front of a large, brick building that I recognized immediately as—

  “The art museum?” My shoulders slumped forward in disappointment. “Please tell me we’re not going in.”

  “Oh, we’re going in,” Emma said in a bubbly voice I almost didn’t recognize. She was genuinely excited about this.

  I groaned as I reluctantly followed her through the entrance doors. The last time I’d been to the art museum, it was for a field trip my sophomore year. I hated it then, too, even though I’d managed to get Melanie Appleton to sneak off with me to make out behind some weird phallic-shaped sculpture.

  “Emma!” the middle-aged woman behind the counter exclaimed as soon as we entered the lobby.

  “Mary!” Emma exclaimed back, and I had to refrain from snorting. Apparently, Emma was a frequent visitor. Why wasn’t I surprised?

  “Where are your friends?” Mary asked as we approached her.

  “They’re in Florida, remember?”

  “Ah, yes. That’s right.” Mary smiled and nodded, averting her gaze to me. Raising her eyebrows slightly, she said, “And who is this friend of yours?”

  “This is Logan,” Emma replied. “But he’s not my friend.”

  Mary’s smile widened. “Oh, sorry. Boyfriend?”

  Emma burst into laughter so loud it echoed throughout the lobby.

  Geez, I knew the idea of me being Emma’s boyfriend was humorous, but I didn’t know it was practically rolling-on-the-floor-laughing humorous.

  After her laughter subsided, Emma wiped tears from her eyes and said, “Logan’s an acquaintance. We’re working on a project together.”

  Mary pursed her lips. “Okay, if you say so.”

  Emma’s mirth quickly dissipated, and I could tell that she was done talking about what kind of relationship she and I had or didn’t have. Taking her wallet out of her pocket, she pulled out some money and held it out for Mary to take.

  “Nonsense, honey,” Mary said, pushing Emma’s hand away. “Admission’s free today.”

  Emma narrowed her eyes at the woman. “For just us, or everybody?”

  Mary gave a wink and said, “You two enjoy.”

  “Thank you, Mary,” Emma said politely, returning the money to her wallet. She glanced up at me. “Are you ready for this?”

  No, I wasn’t, but I followed her anyway.

  “Why did you bring me here?” I asked her quietly, not knowing if I should keep my voice down at art museums, or if that was only libraries.

  “Because,” she replied with a smirk. “I know whatever you’re going to have me do today will be something I hate, so I figured I would have you do something you hate. It’s only fair.”

  She had no idea how right she was about hating what I had planned for her. There was a good chance she was even going to kill me after it was over. So, I’d be a good sport about the art museum. It was the least I could do.

  We entered a room lined wall-to-wall with modern art paintings. I didn’t know a lot about art, but I could tell the difference between modern art and old school art. Modern art, for the most part, made no sense to me. A lot of it was stuff I felt I could do myself if I had a canvas, a paintbrush and half a brain. Old school art, however—Michelangelo, Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir—I had a bit more respect for. Those guys knew what they were doing.

  “So, you come here often, huh?” I said, scanning my eyes across a large painting of different colored squares. Like I said, I could do that myself.

  “Yeah.” Emma stared at the same painting but looked more impressed than I felt. “Chloe’s going to art school when we graduate, so we come here all the time, mostly for her, but Sophia and I enjoy it as well. They sometimes have different exhibits to check out.”

  “Hmm,” I said, trying to act interested. “Where are the Magritte paintings?”

  Emma blinked up at me. “The what-now?”

  “Magritte paintings,” I repeated. “You know, René Magritte? The surrealist painter?”

  “I know exactly who Magritte is. I just didn’t realize you knew who Magritte was.”

  I took great enjoyment at how impressed she sounded. “Hey, I paid attention in art class. He was the only artist Mrs. Marsh covered that was worth paying attention to. The man was a genius. His art makes you think. I like that.”

  “Well that’s unfortunate,” she mumbled.

  “What is?”

  “That’s something else we have in common. I love Magritte.”

  That was unfortunate. If Emma and I kept discovering things we had in common, we might start to consider becoming friends. And that would be the most unfortunate thing of all.

  With a dismissive wave of my hand, I said, “Let’s forget we even had this conversation. Why don’t we keep moving?”

  She seemed pleased at that suggestion, so that’s what we did. After stopping at every painting in the room, we headed into another one containing a bunch of sculptures, including that phallic-shaped one I’d made out behind. I couldn’t help but smirk at the memory as we walked past it.

  I glanced down at my watch after every room we walked through, expecting it to tell me that hours had passed between each one, but it was only ever just a few minutes. Emma knew what she was doing by bringing me here.

  It was pure torture.

  I didn’t want to give her
the satisfaction of knowing that, though, so I pretended to be interested in every painting she pointed out, and even pointed some out myself to really sell the bit.

  “When you and Grace get back together, you should bring her here,” Emma said as we walked through the last exhibit. “She’ll hate it.”

  I scoffed. “Grace and I are never getting back together.”

  “Sure, you’re not,” she said, a small smile playing at her lips. She didn’t believe me.

  I wasn’t sure I believed me either.

  “Okay,” she continued. “I think you’ve been tortured enough for one day. I suppose we can move onto whatever you have planned for me now.”

  She sounded nervous, and rightfully so. If she only knew what I had planned for her, she would have never left that museum.

  With a sly smile, I turned to her. “Alright then. Let’s go.”

  ***

  We arrived at our destination less than thirty minutes later. As soon as I pulled into a parking space, Emma glanced over at me curiously.

  “An amusement park?”

  “Not just any amusement park,” I said as we exited the car. “This is Funland Park.”

  “I know this is Funland Park,” Emma said. “But, what are we doing here?”

  “We’re going to have fun, like the name suggests.”

  Emma smirked and shook her head. “So, this was your big plan for the day? To bring me to an amusement park to have ‘fun’ because you don’t think I’m capable of having fun?”

  “I think you’re capable of having fun, I just think you choose not to.”

  We walked up to the ticket window and I flashed a toothy smile to the woman behind the plexiglass. “Hello, there. Two adult bracelets, please.” I dropped some bills onto the counter and pushed them toward her.

  “Sure thing,” the woman said politely. She rang us up and asked for our wrists to snap the blue bracelets onto. Once our transaction was over, we proceeded through the turnstile and entered the park.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked Emma. “We could go get some fried dough or something.”

  She didn’t respond. Instead, she was too busy staring up at all the rides surrounding us. In the distance was the Thunderbolt rollercoaster, the tallest in the state. A short distance from that was The Belly Drop, one of those rides that goes straight up, stops at the top, and then suddenly plunges a couple hundred feet toward the earth. But we weren’t there for either of those rides. Not yet, anyway.

  We were there for the Ferris wheel.

  My plan was quite simple. See, I knew a guy. My cousin, Beck, to be exact. Beck was in college, and a couple weeks ago, he’d landed a summer job at Funland Park, where on any given day he would alternate between operating rides and running game booths. This afternoon, he just so happened to be operating rides. More specifically, he was operating the Ferris wheel. All it took was one phone call to him the previous night and the promise of a twenty-dollar bill for him to go along with my request.

  Finally, Emma turned to look at me and answered my question. “No, thanks, I’m not hungry. I’m more curious as to what you’ve got planned for me here.” She paused for a second. “You’re not taking me on the Thunderbolt, are you? Or The Belly Drop?”

  I laughed and threw an arm around her shoulders as I began to lead her deeper into the park. “No way. I would never do that to you. What we’re going to do is something a lot lamer.”

  She looked relieved at the prospect, but that look dissipated the closer we got to the wheel. As she started to figure out where I was taking her.

  “No,” she said, stopping dead in her tracks when we were only a few feet away from the sparse line of people waiting to get on the ride.

  “Yes,” I said, taking her arm and attempting to pull her forward. But she pulled in the opposite direction, leaving us standing exactly where we were. She wasn’t that strong, and I could have forced the issue, but instead I stopped tugging and said, “C’mon, Emma, please? I endured the torture of the art museum. You can endure the torture of a Ferris wheel—which most people don’t even consider to be torture, by the way.”

  Emma yanked her arm out of my grasp. “Logan, you know I’m afraid of heights.”

  “Yes, I do know that. That’s why we’re doing this. When was the last time you went on a Ferris wheel? Maybe it won’t be as bad this time.”

  Emma nervously bit her lower lip. “I’ve never been on a Ferris wheel,” she admitted in a small, ashamed voice.

  I blinked at her. “Are you serious?” I grabbed her hand and began to pull her again. She must have let her guard down because she stumbled forward slightly as she attempted to keep up with me for the remaining distance. “We’re getting on this ride.”

  “Logan,” she protested. She tried to slip her hand from my grasp, but I held on tighter this time. “Why? Why are you making me do this?”

  “Don’t you want to be with Matt?”

  She threw me a confused glance. “What does going on a Ferris wheel have to do with me wanting to be with Matt?”

  “Matt loves Ferris wheels,” I lied. Well, it wasn’t a total lie. Matt liked Ferris wheels, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker or anything. But Emma didn’t have to know that. “And he loves girls who are willing to face their fears.” That wasn’t necessarily true, either.

  The line started moving forward and I looked at Emma expectantly. “What do you say? Are you going to be a big girl today and face your fear?”

  Her big, wide eyes went from me, to the wheel, to the line in front of us. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Okay. Fine. I’ll go on this stupid thing.”

  Victory. With a grin, I glanced over at Beck and caught his eye. I gave him a nod to let him know the plan was still on and we were good to go.

  “Hey, isn’t that your cousin?” Emma asked, following my line of vision.

  “Yep, that’s Beck,” I said, waving at him.

  When Emma wasn’t looking, I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the twenty-dollar bill I’d stashed in there earlier for easy access. As we approached Beck, I held the folded-up bill in the palm of my hand so Emma couldn’t see it. Once we were first in line, I shook Beck’s hand and inconspicuously transferred the money to him, while making it look like we were conducting a secret cousin handshake.

  “Hey, man,” Beck said, flashing us both a grin. “How’s it going?”

  “Good,” I replied as I felt the money slip from my hand. “How’ve you been?”

  “Living the dream.” Beck chuckled as he moved his gaze to Emma. “Hey, Emma. Long time, no see. You guys here on a date?”

  I narrowed my eyes into a glare. He knew damn well Emma and I weren’t there on a date, as I had explained the whole situation to him in detail the other night over the phone. He was just doing this to be an ass.

  “Nah, man,” I replied. “Just friends.”

  “Cool, cool.”

  The next car stopped at the bottom and Beck motioned for us to get in. Knowing Emma wasn’t going to do it on her own without any help, I tightened my grip on her hand and pulled her forward. I got in first and she followed, taking a seat next to me.

  Beck winked as he lowered the bar over us. “Enjoy, you two.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I glanced sideways at Emma and for a second I contemplated calling the whole thing off. She stared straight ahead, looking paler than normal. Her hands gripped the bar so tightly, her knuckles had turned white. She was genuinely scared.

  I opened my mouth to say something. Maybe to tell Beck we wanted to get off the ride, but before I could, we started to move slowly backward. It was too late to turn back now.

  I heard the sharp intake of breath next to me and I looked over to see how Emma was holding up.

  “Hey,” I said to her. “How are you doing?”

  She didn’t respond, just closed her eyes tightly as we continued to move. As we moved closer to the top, she started breathing in short spurts, inhaling deeply but never truly breathing out.


  She was hyperventilating.

  “Emma,” I said, placing my hand gently over hers. “Are you okay?”

  With her eyes still closed, she shook her head forcefully back and forth.

  Shit. I’d made a huge mistake. I had completely underestimated her fear of heights. I figured it was mild, at best. I had no idea she would freak out this much. Which made me really regret what was about to happen next.

  That twenty I’d slipped Beck was for him to stop us at the top for two minutes.

  When the wheel came to a stop as promised a few seconds later, Emma cringed. “What’s going on?” she panted, her eyes still tightly closed.

  “It’s okay,” I assured her. “Beck stopped the ride. I asked him to.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Why would you do that, Logan?” she screeched. Her breath was still coming in short bursts.

  Because I’m a jerk, I silently answered. “Because I wanted you to face your fear. I wanted you to see that sometimes heights aren’t so bad.”

  But this was a failed experiment. The girl was more terrified than anyone I’d ever seen in my life, and I was the one who’d caused it. I felt lower than low. No wonder she hated me.

  “Hey,” I said softly, placing my hand on the side of her face. “Open your eyes, Emma.”

  “No,” she said stubbornly, shaking her head again.

  “Emma, please. Look at me.” I gently turned her face toward me. “You’re okay. Just open your eyes.”

  Surprisingly, her eyes fluttered open at my request; her gaze immediately landing on mine. I expected to see anger there. Fury. But there was only fear, and I hated myself for being the one to have put it there.

  “Just breathe,” I instructed. “Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it slowly out of your mouth.”

  She did as she was told, as a tear escaped her eye and traveled slowly down her cheek.

  I promptly brushed it away with my thumb.

  We held each other’s gaze as she continued to breathe in and out. When I finally felt she had calmed down enough, I said, “Okay, now look around.”

  She closed her eyes again, but only briefly this time. “No,” she whispered.