the sunlight shined a golden tint across tyler's face, streaks of his brown hair turned amber and his eyes a sea of melted chocolate. one of his tanned arms was rested across the console, nearly brushing against you. he wouldn't tell you where he was taking you, and the small grin he couldn't wipe off of his face only made you more curious.
you continued to question him about it, but to no avail. he wouldn't give in. so you jokingly slapped his arm, and instead of yanking himself away, he grabbed onto your hand. he glanced at you quickly, sending you a dimpled smile before turning his focus back to the road.
you figured you had finally arrived when tyler drove into a small parking lot. you could see a playground up ahead, and you knew immediately that was where he had been so excited to take you.
"really, ty?" you said with a laugh, opening your car door.
"yup!" he exclaimed as he got out, running over to you so that he could grab your hand. he practically dragged you across the parking lot as you tried to keep pace with him.
it was a pretty average sized playground with swings and slides. there weren't any kids here, most likely because the sun would be setting, and it would soon be dark. and from the occasional drop of water you'd feel on your skin, you figured that it'd be raining soon. since it was just the both of you, it was rather quiet besides the sounds of the wind and birds chirping.
tyler took off for the swings first, so of course you had no choice but to follow him. you both sat down on separate swings beside one another, and tyler instantly began swinging as high as he could go. you tried catching up to him so you could reach his height.
"i bet that i could jump off farther from you," he stated, obviously challenging you to a contest. you should've seen that one coming. he had to turn everything into a competition, and he was always so confident that he would win.
"i bet that you can't," you countered. you knew that if you ended up losing now, he would definitely playfully rub it in. he enjoyed winning a little too much.
"alright. and if i win, then you owe me something," he said, setting up the rules of the game. he always did this, but he never asked for something ridiculous. it was always something simple like a hug, or occasionally a red bull.
"okay. you go first," you told him. he looked at you in fake annoyance. you knew he liked to go second, but since you had already called it, he couldn't do anything about it. his rules, not yours.
he waited until he reached a high point as he swung, and then he let go and flew through the air for a split second before landing on the rubbery playground surface. he wiped his hands on his pants as he sat there, awaiting your turn.
you copied his movements, hoping you'd land farther than him as you launched yourself off of the swing. you landed with a thump, leaning backwards on your hands and looking up to tyler. you groaned when you realized that he was just a few inches away from you.
"i win," he stated with a smug smile. "now you have to kiss me."
you tried looking away from him. although kissing him didn't sound too bad, you didn't want to give him the satisfaction of giving in so easily. so without thinking, you got up and bolted across the playground. you already heard tyler chasing you from behind.
"hey!" he called with a laugh. "no cheating!"
you ignored him, climbing up the monkey bars. when you reached the top, you sat down towards the middle on the warm metal surface. eventually tyler was up there too, sitting beside you with an expectant expression on his face.
"i'm waiting," he said softly, his voice filling the silence that now surrounded you. you thought about running away again, but decided against it. he did win, after all, and it was only fair to kiss him. besides, it wasn't like you were adverse to it or anything.
