💠 Amber 💠

"It's not a secret anymore, isn't it?" Hunter asked as he smothered a laugh.

I could not help but to grin at him. I casually looked away to stare into the far distance in an attempt to be cool about it. In actual fact, my heart was jumping like crazy. If the place we were currently at was not a public bus, I would have did my awkward weird dance.

My crappy mood because Isabella stood me up, was instantly lifted. I was really disappointed when Isabella called to cancel our meet up.

My eyes wander around the scenery as the bus drove by. I leant closer to the window as a small bird flew right beside where I seated. A small smile was tugging my lips when my forefinger touched the cold surface. With this simple movement, the bird was frightened as it flew further away from the bus.

I was practically sticking myself onto the window as my gaze followed where the bird flew. In no time, I lost sight of the bird as the bus was driving in the opposite direction.

As I turned to face the front and leant backwards, Hunter offered me a ear bud. I shook my head with a shy smile and he shrugged in response.

I was beginning to enjoy the silence, when Hunter nudged me in the sides. As he opened his mouth to speak, the vehicle stopped and a group of noisy commuters boarded the bus.

"Are you always this quiet?" Hunter's question caught me off guard because I turned to him with wide eyes.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You have not spoken a word since we got on the bus."

A letter 'o' was formed on my mouth and I smiled inwardly. On the outside, I had a blank expression. Slowly, I leant back to stare at the clouds.

"I just don't feel like talking."

"To me?"

"No, no that's not what I meant."

A deep chuckle came from Hunter as I saw a mischievous twinkle in his chocolate brown eyes.

"Relax I know exactly what you meant."

"Lame." I replied while sticking out my tongue to him. Yeah, that was real mature of me.

Hunter rolled his eyes as he removed his ear buds while shooting me a lazy grin.

"Are you the only child?" Hunter was really nosy for a guy.

"No, I have an elder twin brother and a younger brother."

Here I thought that was the end of our conversation, but Hunter was persistent.

"Don't you wanna know if I'm an only child or?"

"Honestly, not really."

Surprisingly, Hunter looked hurt by my words and I immediately regretted what I had said.

"Wow, Amber. I appreciate your honesty. But, I'm still telling you though." Hunter cleared his throat before he carried on talking.

"I have an older brother too. But I'm the youngest in my family."

"I could tell." I did not meant for that to be said aloud.

Well that piqued Hunter's interest as he turned to look at me.

"Oh really. How?"

"My gut tells me that."

Hunter continued to look at me as he thought I was not finished with what I wanted to say. Okay, he was right.

"Well, and it's also because you acted just like my annoying younger brother."

As soon as the word 'annoying' came out of my mouth, I knew Hunter would definitely ask me why.

"Are you saying that I'm annoying? Why?"

"Do you remember how we met?"

Hunter nodded as a hint of smile appeared and I avoided his piercing gaze.

"You knew that I was going to be late for class and still wouldn't share the cab with me."

I have no idea why but Hunter laughed as though I have just told him a joke. My lips were pursed into a straight line because I found it irritating of him to laugh at something which was not funny at all.

Before I could ask him the reason behind his laughter, Hunter grabbed my hand as he led me out of the bus. Everything happened so fast that I was still in a daze when we exited the bus.

"Have you been here?" Hunter asked me with a huge grin pasted on his handsome face. He was still holding my hand and I must have looked really awkward. Instantly, Hunter loosened his grip and my hand fell out to hit my thigh.

"Um, my dad promised to take me here..." I trailed off and glanced down to play with my fingers.

"But, something happened which made both of us forgotten about that promise." I added after a few seconds of silence.

"You didn't forget about that promise." Hunter said softly which made me lifted my head to look at him.

I cracked a sad smile and nodded in agreement. There was something in Hunter's gaze which made me comfortable in saying this much. Usually, I was pretty good at covering my true feelings and avoided any conversation about my family's tough time. Currently, other than Tyler, no one really knew what happened. Even my best friend, Isabella have no clue about it. Well, that was because Tyler and I have been friends much longer.

"C'mon, let's go!" Hunter said for the third time today but he did not slung his arm around my shoulders this time.

Even though this was my first time at the carnival, I jumped straight to the first booth we saw without hesitation. The first game was a flop because we totally sucked at it.

I was wandering around to check out the other games when a sitck of cotton candy appeared in front of me. Hunter was missing in action for the past five minutes but I did not expect him to buy this. I was digging through my pocket to return him the money.

"Hey, it's my treat, alright?" Hunter shot me a sideway glance as he bite off his cotton candy.

Personally, I was not comfortable with a guy paying for my food. The reason was simple, I could afford it myself. It would not be fair for him since we are both students too.

I insisted on paying the cotton candy and Hunter had no other choices but to accept my money.

"Are you always this stubborn?" Hunter licked his lips after finishing the cotton candy.

"Sometimes." A corner of my mouth twitched up into a smirk.

Hunter chuckled as he knew that I was lying through my teeth. Stubbornness was in my blood since the day I was born.

"Hunter? Are you up for this?" I pointed towards the long queue.

"Yeah, why not?"

As we were queuing for the ferris wheel ride, a little girl carrying a basket of flowers approached us.

"Do you want to buy one of this for your girlfriend?" The innocent young girl's question made me choked on my drink.

On the contrary, Hunter gave the girl a heart melting grin and you could see her cheeks became rosy pink.

"Yeah, of course. How much is it? By the way, she's too quiet to be my girlfriend." The last sentence came out as a whisper, but I could still hear that clearly. I rolled my eyes at him and the girl giggled.

Hunter paid for the flower and handed it to me with a tentative look.

"Will you accept this without arguing to pay?"

"Thanks for the flower." I snickered as my hands went over to take the flower. Hunter let out a breath of relief which was accompanied with the hand actions of wiping imaginary sweat off his forehead.

When it was finally our turn to squeeze into the narrow entrance, I was pretty excited about the ride. I could say that we were really lucky because the small carriage was at the top just in time for us to witness the beautiful sunset.

"Wow.." I commented as the sky was painted a lighter shade of red. The view was magnificent and of course I did not forget to snap a few photos.

I noticed that Hunter was quiet from the moment we stepped into this carriage. He was focused on staring ahead, that was when I realised something.

"Hey, are you afraid of heights?" Hunter's attention was on me as denial flashed past his eyes. Hunter ignored my question as he looked away because he was too proud to admit the truth.

The ride was over before I even realised it, I stepped out of the carriage with my head hung low. I did not even bother to talk about what happened earlier on.

To be honest, I felt bad for not being observant enough when I suggested the ferris wheel ride. As I think back, Hunter was extremely quiet while we were queuing. After that incident, he was walking in front of me and neither of us spoke.

Great. This was exactly how I wanted to end the day.

A/N :
Hiii! This update came earlier than I expected though! I just had the 'feel' to write and bam! This chapter was done in a week 😄 I have never been to a carnival before so I tried my best to write out the things that people do when they are there 😅 Thank you for reading! 😊 Give the story a vote/comment/share, if you want to! 💟