Car Number 5

“Come on, I’ve always wanted to take a picture of people on a Ferris wheel!” Meg whined, holding her camera up. I was at the county fair with her and her brother Nick, but Meg had been in charge all day. She had dragged us from stall to stall, taking pictures with the digital camera she had received that morning as a present from myself. Even if it was her birthday, I should’ve known better. Then again, how was I supposed to know I’d be roped into bringing Meg to the fair as a distraction tactic while her family got the party ready?

“Meg, I’m sure Landon has better things to do than ride the Ferris wheel with me,” Nick muttered from his place on the bench behind us. He had been previously sitting there, eating cotton candy and watching Meg and me go back and forth. Meg made a face at her older brother.

“If he’s so busy, he shouldn’t have come!” she said. Nick and I exchanged a look before Meg grabbed us both and started dragging us over to the Ferris wheel.

To tell the truth, Nick had been the one to ask me. Sometimes I wondered if he knew that part of the reason I visited Meg so much was that he would inevitably be there. I’d never tell either of them this fact, though.

“Come on, just one go-around!” Meg whined when we got to the end of the line. “It’s my birthday!” With that, she gave us a final shove, and we found ourselves being ushered into car number five.

“I already gave her her birthday present,” I complained as the cart door was shut, cutting off any chance for our escape. Nick glanced out at Meg, who was getting her camera ready.

“Yeah, thanks for that,” he said sarcastically. My face started burning, and Nick just eyed me before going to sit down again. “What kind of teenager gets ANYONE a high-end digital camera for their birthday, anyway?” The Ferris wheel was starting, and so I was forced to sit down.

“My mother is a photographer,” I muttered. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” The Ferris wheel suddenly stopped, though, and I had to grab onto the handlebars to not fall flat on my face. I followed Nick’s gaze down to the ground, and the woman who was operating the Ferris wheel was looking utterly perplexed. Meg walked up to her and, I assumed, asked what was wrong. Eventually, cell phones were taken out while an attendant used a megaphone to assure us that it’s just a minor technical difficulty.

“Crap,” I muttered, leaning back in my seat and making the car shake slightly.

“What, would you rather be stuck up here with my sister?” Nick asked. His voice was even, but it still threw me for a loop.

“I-no!” I said. “Why would I?”

“Meg’s always talking about how you’re going to ask her out any day now,” he said. He wasn’t looking at me, but at the ground. He was utterly unconcerned about what he was saying, and it pissed me off.

“Well I’m not!” I said. “I mean, she’s my friend, but I don’t have interest in her THAT way! That’s just… weird.” I stopped talking then, not because I was done, but because if I dug my grave any deeper, I’d be six feet under. I decided instead to look down to the ground, where the woman who worked the Ferris wheel was looking nervous at the lack of showing up that the maintenance crew was currently engaged in.

“So what, then? You’ll just keep stringing my sister and me along?” he asked. I stared at him.

“And you?” I asked. Nick refused to say anything, returning his gaze to the frantic carnie. “You’re really that concerned about your sister?” More carnie glaring. This was getting ridiculous. And the Ferris wheel still wasn’t starting back up again. I glanced up at the next car, which was at the very top of the wheel. I didn’t even know what to do anymore. Apparently Nick did, though.

I found myself pulled across the car by the front of my shirt, our lips smashed together. I winced at first, but seeing that I wasn’t pulling away, Nick deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue into my mouth. I finally had the sense to kiss back.

And then the car started again.

Meg was looking at us suspiciously as we finally got off the car. She was clutching the digital camera in her hands, and she lifted it up to show us the screen. It was a picture of just after the car started. We weren’t kissing, but I was still awkwardly close to Nick. Nick just smiled and ruffled his younger sister’s hair.

“I’ll explain it to you when you’re older.”

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This story was a request from my older sister, who wanted a story centering around two guys getting stuck on a Ferris wheel. Yay!