Page 89 of Accidentally Amy

“There aren’t any ostriches. Are your eyes closed?”

I sighed but still didn’t open them. “Maybe just a little. I’m tired.”

“They’resqueezedshut, you liar,” she said. “What is going on with you?”

I sighed again, keeping my eyes closed because in addition to not wanting to see how high we were, now I didn’t want to see her looking at me like I was a nutjob. “I maybe don’t love ski lifts.”

“What?”

“It’s no big deal,” I said, working hard to maintain a relaxed voice, “but they just aren’t my thing.”

“So why are youonone?”

Because you kissed my arm.That wasn’t a rational answer, so I went with “You wanted to and I thought maybe I liked them now.”

“Look at me,” she said, and she sounded like she wanted to laugh. “Blake.”

“I don’t want to,” I said, keeping my eyes closed. I honestly wasn’t sure if that was making it better or worse, but I knew the zoo geography enough to know we had to be getting close to the monkey island, a place I definitely didn’t want to hover over.

“Okay,” she said, clearing her throat. “Um, maybe if you…”

She didn’t trail off, but my ability to listen to her did, because the lift stopped.

It fuckingstopped.

It wasn’t supposed to stop, it was supposed to keep circling around and around. That was its job, right? To keep moving on a constant loop? I wasn’t sure what was going on, but why would the ski lift just stop?

Ryker, what the fuck?

“Try opening your eyes?”

“I’m good,” I said, swallowing. “Really. Don’t worry about me, I’m good, just look around at the zoo and have fun while we wait for this thing to start moving. I’m fine, I promise.”

“Well, you don’tlookfine,” she said, her voice soft. “Your knuckles are literally white and you’re sweating even though it’s starting to get cold. How can I help you?”

I loved her more at that moment than it was right to love her this early in our relationship, and I really wanted to open my eyes and look at her face.

But that seemed to be physically impossible for me.

It was like my eyes were glued shut.

“I promise I’m okay, Iz,” I said, “I just really need this thing to start moving. Why isn’t it moving?”

“Oh, this happens all the time,” she said calmly. “Nothing’s wrong, I promise. Sometimes they’ll have to stop and, like,clean out a car because a kid spilled, things like that. I know because Idestroyeda lift car with an ice-cream cone when I was seven.”

That made me smile in spite of this hell. “So on-brand.”

“Right?” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “It was like a hundred degrees, I was with my brother, and I dropped a large cone the instant we took off. By the time we got back, melted ice cream wasall overour shorts and the seat, and the sticky chocolate was even dripping down onto people walking below.”

“Nice.”

“Do your brothers know about your aversion to heights?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Jason is exactly the same.”

“Okay, what’s his phone number?”

Obviously she was going to call him, which wasn’t going to help anything at all, but I was so incapable of any thoughts other thanwhat the fuck, Rykerthat I gave her my brother’s number.

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