Page 96 of Theoretically Straight

I shake my head, then take Caleb’s hand into mine, no longer able to care about the attendant or the crowds below us. “But youareworth the risk. It’s not fair that you’re stuck with someone that’s afraid all the time. You deserve to be able to hold hands and hug and kiss your boyfriend whenever you want.”

Caleb turns his body to face towards me. “Theo, you need to listen to me. I’m not ‘stuck’ with you. Okay? I want to be with you, too. I thought you knew that.”

The gondolas start moving up again, and we’re headed to the top. I glance up at the sun’s position on the horizon. “I know. I’m sorry. We literally just had this conversation. I’m just being paranoid.” I squeeze his hand. “No more serious stuff. Let’s just watch the sunset.”

Caleb studies me warily for another second but repositions to face the horizon, leaning against my shoulder again.

I look down and around us one last time. Surely, we’re high enough. No one is watching. No one cares.

The gondola stops at the top, rocking slightly. I take a moment to look at Caleb, really taking him in. His face is glowing in this light, the bright orange sky making everything look radiant, but especially Caleb. The golden rays bounce off his hair, his freckles, his smile, his eyes—God, hiseyes.

I reach across the distance between us, my body moving on its own without input from my brain. I gently cup his cheek with my hand to turn his head towards me, and I kiss him. I kiss him with everything that I am, with all the courage I wish I had, with all the love I can’t speak of yet. And Caleb kisses me back, hesitantly at first, but it’s not long before he melts into it, too.

Fuck Specter. Fuck potential witnesses. Fuck the possible consequences.

Right now, Caleb is mine, and I’m his, and nothing else in the world matters.

While his lips are on mine, something snaps in my brain, and suddenly, all I want ismore. I need to be closer. I want to be lost in him. Everything else fades away as my hands slowly explore on their own, one moving up into Caleb’s hair, the other down to his hip, basically wherever I can reach. I can smell his shampoo. I can taste the remnants of sour gummy worms. Every nerve in my body is screaming, but my brain feels like it’s floating.

It takes the gondola moving again to pull me out of the dreamlike trance of kissing Caleb, and as we pull away, I also have to untangle my fingers from his hair and release my grip from his shirt. My entire being feels engulfed in flames, and I’m nearly out of breath from it. I risk a glance into Caleb’s eyes, which are still way too big and gorgeous, and I almost dive in for another round before my brain finally kicks back on.

“Wow,” Caleb says, his face flushed, but he has a nervous but genuine smile.

I hear myself laughing, which is probably the safest reaction my slowly rebooting brain can come up with. “Wow, indeed.”

“Did–did you mean to do that?” Caleb asks while laughing.

“Kind of?” I say honestly. I finally look back out across the sky, and the sun is gone, dipped below the horizon, leaving brilliant pink and orange streaks across the sky. “Shit, I think I missed the sunset.”

“Yeah, I think I did, too.”

“I’m sorry.”

Caleb raises his eyebrows and stares at me before bursting into giggles, which has me giggling uncontrollably, too. Is this what getting drunk feels like?

The gondola stops one last time, and I’m sure the Ferris wheel ride is almost over when I see her. I notice the familiar gleam of copper hair out of the corner of my eye, so I instinctively turn to see where it’s coming from and freeze.

Sienna is staring up at me from the ground, her eyes wide with shock and…something else. My blood runs cold.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Caleb asks, but his voice feels far away. “What are you looking at?”

I open my mouth to answer him, but nothing comes out. I just stare at Sienna as she stares at me and–

Oh my God, she saw us.

Sienna finally breaks our eye contact and starts to walk away from the Ferris wheel, and the panic immediately sets in.

She saw us. She saw me kiss Caleb.

Not just that—she saw memaking outwith Caleb. It wasn’t just a tiny kiss or a peck or holding hands or anything like that. Sienna saw me lose myself.

“Theo?”

Forweeks,I’ve been living in fear of the wrong person seeing me with Caleb. Forweeks, I’ve been too afraid to even hold hands with my own boyfriend in public. Forweeks, we have deprived ourselves of even the smallest displays of affection around people.

All those weeks of caution, all those moments of self-control and restraint, all of it has been fornothingbecause I just ruined everything.

“Theo, you’re scaring me.”

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