Demi and I stare up at the ride. A giant circle sways back and forth the entire length of the park and out over the river. My phone dings in my pocket. I hit ignore without looking at the name.

“You can take it,” Demi says, spooning a frozen sorbet thing we just bought.

“Nah.”

“Okay, let's go before I second guess this.” She starts walking toward the entrance.

“You race down a hill at eighty miles per hour, but you can't ride a simple amusement park ride?”

Her attention is fixated on the motion of the ride, her head moving side to side. “I've been doing that since I was five.”

“Seriously? You don’t get out much, do you?”

She throws away the sorbet, pulls out her sanitizer, squirts it on her hands and rubs it all over her palms. “My mom keeps me busy.”

I have a feeling there's more to this mom thing then she’s saying, but I'm not going to pry. If I pry then I care, and if I care then we're more than just short-lived hookup buddies.

My phone dings again and I pick it up to mute it when the picture on the screen stops me.

“Fucking hell,” I mumble.

“What?” she asks, pretending not to peer over my shoulder.

I turn my phone her way and her mouth drops open. Her head twists around searching for the culprit.

The picture is of us, her kissing my cheek as she takes the sorbet from my hands while I'm paying the vendor. It came from Beckett, which means he's around here somewhere, with Skylar no doubt.

“I wonder where they are?” she asks.

“Who cares. Let's ride.” The line opens up and she accepts my decision to just ride and forget them. Maybe we can meet up with them later.

We take our seats, the harness comes down and we buckle in. Her chest heaves like it usually does after we’re done banging, so I reach over and grab her hand.

“This is safe, right?” she asks.

I laugh. “Completely.”

She nods a few times, her eyes cast down. Then she lifts her chin, her head pressed against the back of the ride, her eyes shut tight.

The ride starts swaying a few times, gradually getting higher and higher. Demi's eyes are still shut, little groans coming from her as we drop and head to the next side. I hold her hand in mine while her other free hand clutches the metal bar.

“We're almost done,” I say, and she peeks one eye open and shuts it again quickly.

“Liar.”

“One glimpse,” I urge her right as we're over the river.

She opens her eyes, but we fall down to the other side and since we're on top now, our bodies feel the pull of gravity.

“Fuck! How did you convince me to do this?” Her eyes shut and she lets go of my hand, gripping the other metal handle for dear life.

I laugh.

“It's not funny. We're going to die. I'm going to die before I even have a chance to compete.”

I laugh harder this time and her foot moves to the side to kick me.

“Maybe you just need to be distracted,” I say. “Should I take of my coat and shirt?”

She huffs and I know if her eyes were open she’d be rolling them and I smile.

“Not even the sight of your Sochi tattoo on those pecs of yours can help me now.”

I chuckle.

“Speaking of, you didn’t have that tattoo when we were fooling around four years ago.”

“I got it after the games. I’ll get one after these games, too. Something to remember them by.”

“Makes sense,” she says.

I’m thinking I may have successfully distracted her when the ride jolts a bit and she let’s a cry out and grips even tighter.

“Okay, okay, relax. We're slowing down now. Almost done.”

The tension in her body diminishes the tiniest bit. If I wasn’t so in tune with her body, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

“Thank God.”

The ride comes to an end a few seconds later and Demi can't get out of the harness fast enough.

“Okay, that was my one adrenaline rush today.” She points her finger at me.

I grab her finger and pull her to me, my lips landing on hers. She doesn't fight me or push me away. She wraps her arms around my waist, inching up on her toes to get even closer to me.

“I'm proud of you,” I say, once I pull back.

A smile I've yet to see crosses her lips. It almost makes me think she doesn't hear that nearly enough.

“Thanks.” She rises on her toes one more time, planting a kiss on my lips. “Can we shop now?”

I roll my eyes. “Sure.”

Hand in hand we leave the ride, but my phone dings again and I don't even have to look to see who it's from because four sets of eyes are focused on us when we step out of the exit.

---

“Funny meeting you here,” Grady says, fist bumping me.

Mia swarms Demi and a reluctant Skylar joins the girls in what is probably a mission ditch Dax conversation.

“Funny, asshole,” I say to Beckett whose two dimples are so far indented into his face that I'd like to punch the smug look right off.

“Hey, you gave me the ammo,” he holds his hands out to his sides.

“How was the game show?” Grady asks, wrapping his arm around Mia now that the girls’ private convo is over.

We share a look and shrug. “Kind of a letdown,” Demi answers.

“Well, we're heading to some Bar-B-Que place.” Beckett thumbs away from where we're at. “Wanna join?”

“Sure,” Demi says way too fast for my liking.

I would’ve been happy to spend the day with just her, but my friends are cool, too. I just can't touch her as much with them here. That's the suck ass part.

We walk to the restaurant as a group. Grady and Mia are all touchy-feely, Skylar's arm is now linked through Demi's, leaving me with Beckett, who won't stop side glancing me.

“What?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Nothing.”

We leave Lotte World, the amusement park, and I keep waiting for Skylar to stop her rambling about what they all did this morning and what train did we take, and can Demi believe how fast it was. My body hums for Demi to walk closer to me. To watch her put on her lip balm, to point things out or to share a laugh when someone really odd walks by. I don't want to walk with Beckett. I mean he's cool and everything but if I had a choice…

“I'm surprised you stayed in Seoul. Don't you have to get back?” Beckett asks.

He's right. My prelims are in two days. The last thing I should be doing is walking the streets of Seoul, eating their food, but lately, the Classics are the furthest thing from my mind. I'd have my thumb up my ass if I stayed back anyway. I did my workout and my visualization exercises this morning, so in my books, I’m good.

“It's just a waiting game until qualifiers. Figured some down time might do me good.”

He slaps me on the back. “We'll be there for you, brah.” The California accent that earned him the nickname Hoff appears briefly.

“Thanks.”

“And I'm sure Demi will be there, too.”

I look at him from the corner of my eye. “Stop digging. We're just having fun.”

He nods and says nothing else, but I know his mind is working overtime. It always is.

Ten minutes later we walk into the restaurant and I'm hoping I can arrange it so I can sit next to Demi. Surely a little touchy feely on the upper thigh is okay.

But Skylar being the cockblocker she's become, somehow manipulates the entire situation so that Demi and I are seated across from each other. I can't even play footsie with her since the table has a grill in the middle of it.

She looks over at me, smiling and then placing the napkin in her lap and picking up her menu. Guess she doesn't really care.

The waitress comes over, and we pretty much order whatever she suggests since we can’t understand the menu. Although we’ve had Korean Bar-B-Que when we came for the press tour, others took care of our ordering for us because of the language barrier.

Then it was like a buffet was set up on our table. Bowls with small portions came out filled with cucumbers, radishes, bean sprouts and a bunch of other ones with sauce over them, soup, salad, white rice. The traditional kimchi placed down.

“Sake?” the waitress asks, holding a small bottle up in the air with six shot glasses on her tray.

“Definitely.” Beckett raises his hand.

Says the man that's done competing. Demi and I both decline since we're only days away now, but the other four don't mind sharing the bottle.

The waitress brings a tray of meat and picks up the items, putting the pieces on the grill in the middle of the table.

“This is so fun” Demi says, sitting up a little straighter in her chair.

She takes her chopsticks, and looks to the bowls, picking up a piece of cucumber and eating it. Her movements are so flawless, while I'm just thankful the waitress brought us forks and spoons. They must be used to the foreigners with the Classics going on.

“Want to learn?” Demi asks me since my eyes are fixated on her placing the cucumber in her mouth.

It's not the chopsticks I want right now but I’ll play along.

“My hands are way too big to handle those.”

She laughs and all four of our friend’s heads twist her way. Demi raises her eyebrows staring back at them like what's the matter?

“You laughed?” Mia asks.

“Yeah, people tend to do that when I speak,” I say.

Demi laughs again, rolling her eyes.

“She did it again?” Skylar says.

“I'm not a robot, guys. I do have a sense of humor.” Demi places the chopsticks down and a pink flush washes over her pale face and neck.

“But it was Dax. You laughed at Dax.” Mia literally sounds confused by the situation.

Demi's gaze rests on me. “He's kind of funny.” The look on her face says it’s more like we have a private joke that we really don't want to share with others.

“I'm so confused. I thought you guys were just fucking,” Skylar chimes in.

“We are,” Demi confirms and then looks to me, eyes wide like she needs me to back her up.

“Yeah, we’re in it strictly for the orgasms.”

Demi laughs again, and the girls share a look amongst themselves, but let it rest.

“Now do you want me to show you?” Demi asks, already getting out of her seat to come over.

“You can show me anything. Preferably your tits.” I lean back in my seat.

She smacks me upside the back of my head.

“There you go. Now we’re back to normal,” Beckett comments as the four of them ding their shot glasses in a toast and sip their sake.

I’m starting to wonder if there’s no going back to normal for Demi and me.