Page 27 of The Love Bus

ABOVE IT ALL

T he spa receptionist, a young woman with a tight blond bun and an expression that suggested she'd rather be anywhere else, tapped at her keyboard with impossibly long nails.

“Name?” she asked.

“Luna Faraday. But the original booking might be under Evelyn Faraday—my mom.”

“Yes, right here,” she said. “I just need you to fill out this release for me.”

While I started reading through it, checking boxes, et cetera, I overheard Babs having some sort of issue at the next station.

“It should be there. Barbara Milton,” she chirped. “I know I signed up when I booked—this is one of the stops I was most looking forward to.”

Her receptionist tapped away, then frowned. “Hmm.”

Babs tilted her head, pushing her glasses higher up on her nose. “Hmm, what?”

“I’m not seeing anything under Milton.”

My hand had gone still. When I glanced over, Babs met my stare. “I knew I should’ve asked Tay for her phone number… She would have cleared this right up.”

Because the bus had already pulled out of the parking lot, taking the half of the tour who hadn’t signed up for massages, and Tay, to…I had no idea where.

Bab’s was talking to the receptionist again. “You can still get me in though, can’t you?”

The polished-looking woman offered a tight smile. “We’re fully booked. I’m sorry.”

Babs’s mouth trembled at the corners. And then how she tried masking her disappointment with a breezy shrug.

Nope. This wasn’t happening. Not to my sweet little seatmate.

“She can take mine,” I said quickly. “I don’t mind.”

Babs turned, startled. “Oh, no, dear. I can’t take your place.”

“I’m not even that big on massages,” I lied, forcing a smile. “Too many strangers touching me.” I gave a dramatic little shiver.

She hesitated, so I handed the half-filled release back to my receptionist. “Can we get a blank one, please?”

The woman looked mildly confused but passed it over.

“You’re sure?” Babs asked.

“Absolutely.” And surprisingly, I was. Seeing her face soften in relief—Totally worth it

“Oh, Luna.” Babs reached for my arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You’re a gem.”

A few minutes later she disappeared, thanking me again, as she followed the receptionist through the frosted glass door.

So…

I exhaled.

With the bus gone, I now had nowhere to go for the next?—

I glanced at my phone with a wince.

Three hours.

The woman who had initially been checking me in, gave me a sympathetic look. “You don’t need an appointment to take advantage of the vapor caves.”

As if on cue, the frosted doors swung open, and a thick, mineral-scented gust curled into the room. The tang of sulfur was not…pleasant.

“Uh, no.” I grimaced. Maybe this wasn’t my thing after all. “Thanks, though.”

She smiled, polite but already moving on. “Enjoy your evening, then.”

And just like that, I was alone again. No itinerary. No plans. Just me, standing awkwardly in a spa lobby that smelled vaguely like overcooked eggs.

I wasn’t sure where to go. Or what to do with myself. And with the episode before lunch still hovering in my thoughts, I felt a little fragile.

I didn’t particularly want to be left to my own devices; I’d gotten used to the near-constant distractions over the past two days.

It’s fine. I determined to stay calm even as my heart rate started to pick up. Everything is fine. It’s no big deal .

Something moved in my peripheral vision, and when I spun around, there was a man stepping away from the opposite counter, tucking his wallet into his pocket.

I knew that backside. I had, in fact, gotten a very up-close-and-personal view of it earlier.

True, I’d been hanging upside down, but if I’d been so inclined, I could have sunk my teeth?—

He turned, meeting my eyes, and I did my absolute best impression of someone who had definitely not just been contemplating wildly inappropriate ideas.

Again.

“Hey,” he offered.

“I thought you were staying with the bus,” I said. Not because I was keeping track of him or anything. Just…observational skills. Poor ones, apparently.

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“Right,” I muttered, lingering in that awkward limbo where I couldn’t tell if I should say something else or walk away. I had been talking his ear off all day.

Thankfully, he saved me from having to decide.

“Are you waiting to go in?” he asked.

“Miss Faraday gave up her appointment,” the receptionist chimed in—now quite happy to make conversation, apparently, since Noah was involved.

He didn’t seem to notice her. His attention stayed on me.

“Faraday.” There was a glint of something in his eyes as he said it. “Luna Faraday.”

He rolled my name around like he was tasting it.

“I like it. Makes me think of the sky.”

“The sky?” I blinked. Was that…a compliment?

His gaze locked on mine. “Yeah. Something about it feels…limitless.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again.

Loony Tunes. Moon girl. Lunatic.

Those were the words people usually tied my name to—woo-woo wild, something off-kilter. Not the sky.

Not limitless.

He straightened a little. “So…you’re not going in?”

I swallowed hard.

“Oh, yeah. No.” I waved a hand, forcing myself to sound more casual than I felt. “Babs’s reservation was lost, so I gave her mine. Which, honestly, is fine. Not a big deal.” Honestly, it wasn’t. “What about you? Did you book yourself a nice, relaxing facial?”

“Not really my thing.” But he was looking at me a little too closely, probably afraid he’d have a hysterical woman on his hands for the second time that day.

I forced a teasing smile. “A manicure then?”

“No.” A quirk of his mouth revealed a hint of amusement. “Just a few upgrades for my mom. She deserves it…”

I filed this into the store of information I’d been gathering on him. Not a mama’s boy—just a guy who genuinely appreciated the woman who’d raised him.

“Lucky Mom,” I said.

He didn’t argue, but his eyes slid to the exit and then back to me. Then, he pulled something from his back pocket, a glossy brochure, and unfolded it with a flick of his wrist.

It advertised an…amusement park? I took it, my eyes locking on the picture of a young woman laughing, riding a single-person roller coaster through some alpine trees, but I barely had time to register that before I noticed a smaller image.

Screaming passengers on a giant swing, suspended over a massive drop.

I was pretty sure I’d seen this in a TikTok compilation of World’s Scariest Rides (That Will Absolutely Make You Pee Your Pants).

“Well? What do you think?” he asked.

I cleared my throat. “Uh…I don’t think that’s on the itinerary.”

“It isn’t.” Only one side of his mouth went up, but his eyes held a familiar gleam—the same one I’d seen earlier when he was talking about skydiving. “Does everything have to be on the itinerary?”

“No!” I answered way too fast. I mean, how many times had I silently moaned to myself about the regimented schedule we’d be following?

I grimaced. “It’s just…I thought you’d be sick of me by now.” I mean, we’d spent all day together.

And it had been a really long day.

He just shook his head. “So you’re sick of me then?”

I just smiled at that. I mean, I should be sick of him, and yet…

“How would we get there?”

Noah lifted his phone, thumb hovering over an app. “Just a few minutes by Uber.”

While my new, anxious, hyper-rational brain was busy resisting straying away from the tour, another part of me—a part I’d almost forgotten even existed—suddenly uncoiled.

I didn’t want to go through life hesitating. I didn’t want to let fear make decisions for me.

I mean, yes, I had just endured a really messy breakup. Literally. And tanked the career I’d been building for almost a decade. Lost all my friends. Was going to lose my home…

And I was alone now.

Where was I going with this?

Anyway, there had been a few moments over the past few days where I’d felt older than some of my traveling companions,

But I wasn’t.

I wasn’t! And, damn it, I should be allowed to act the part. Besides, what else was I going to do for the next three hours?

My fingers tightened on the edge of the brochure.

I looked up at Noah. He was watching me, his silver-blue eyes lit up with something almost challenging.

So, before I could talk myself out of it, I said, “Okay.”

His grin widened.

“But just to be clear, I’m not going on this one.” I jabbed my finger at the bright yellow torture device hanging off the cliff. “It’s?—”

“Amazing?” Noah supplied helpfully.

I shuddered, staring at it. “Try insane.”

Oddly enough, he didn’t argue. He just kept grinning at me, like really grinning, and I realized it was the first time I’d seen him looking totally happy.

For some reason, that did something weird to my breathing.

Friends. He was just a new friend. Someone who, after this trip was over, I’d never see again.

“Eh, we’ll see about that when we get there,” he said. He was already opening up the app on his phone, calling for our ride, and less than a minute after we stepped outside into the sunshine, an Uber pulled up.

I slid into the backseat, and Noah followed after. Though we’d technically been closer to each other on the bus, in the confines of the car, our proximity felt somehow more intimate.

And that woodsy, clean smell of his wafted over to me, just enough that I wanted a little more…

Chill, Luna.

It didn’t take long for us to reach our destination, and I quickly realized Noah hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said it was only a few minutes away.

I barely had time to second-guess my decision before our driver came to a stop in the drop-off zone of a gondola station.

I peered out the window, but didn’t see any indication that there was an amusement park in the near vicinity, just the thick metal cables stretching high into the sky until they disappeared over the mountain ridge far above us.

I turned to Noah, narrowing my eyes. “I thought you said we were going to the park.”

He leaned back against the seat. “And we are. You saw the brochure. That rollercoaster has to come down the mountains, so… ?”