Alek had brought me to a carnival. It was a perfect choice. My mom brought me to every carnival that came to San Francisco when I was younger. After he bought our tickets he told me to pick the first ride, and I picked the scrambler. We headed over and got a seat. Soon the ride started up, and we were twirling around like crazy. A minute later we got off, slightly dizzy, and I told Alek it was his turn to choose.

"Pirate Ship, for sure. That was always my favorite." He replied. So we rode the pirate ship, which was always one of my favorites too, and then we continued through the all of the rides until only a few were left. We had training soon, so there would probably only be enough time for one more ride.

"You get to pick the last ride, Alek."

"How about the tunnel of love?" he said with a smile.

I looked down and blushed a little and said, "Well if you really want to. You get to choose."

"Alright, tunnel of love it is!" he said without even a hint of embarrassment. So we walked over to the tunnel and got in the boat, and the ride started. Alek spoke first.

"I know that this is cheesy and all, and I don't really know how to tell you this, but I really care about you Chloe. You are sweet and kind and beautiful. You don't have to feel the same way, I'll understand if you don't, but I just had to tell you how I feel."

Was that the unknown emotion in his eyes last night? I definitely care about him, but is it in the same way? I think back to yesterday, how he comforted me even though I was crying over another guy. How I never went to sleep afraid, because I knew he was watching out for me. I made my decision.

"Alek, I guess it took me some time to realize it, but you're always there for me. I can trust you and I care about you more than anyone else, and even though you can be arrogant and annoying sometimes, I still like you." I admitted. I looked over to him and he was smiling. I leaned over as he was leaning in, and our lips met. The chemistry that had always been between us practically exploded. This was so much better than my first kiss with Xavier. We eventually had to break apart for air.

"Wow." We both said at the exact same time. We laughed. The ride stopped, and he helped me out like a gentleman. We walked out of the park, hand in hand, and got in his car. We sat there silently, but it wasn't awkward. He drove to the building where we were supposed to meet Jasmine for training and parked.

"Do you want to tell her yet?" Alek asked.

"Well, she's one of my best friends, and she's your cousin. I think she'll figure it out even if we don't tell her, so we might as well." I replied.

"I agree, I just didn't know if you wanted anyone to know." He said quietly.

"What? I'm not ashamed of you! You are so good to me, I'm proud to be with you."

He smiled. "So we're together? Like officially?"

"Yeah I guess we are." I smiled. He kissed me quickly and we got out of the car.

Alek looked at his cell phone. "Jasmine is probably wondering what's taking us so long. We're fifteen minutes late." He chuckled. We leaped up to the fire escape on the side of the building, and climbed the rest of the way up to the rooftop. Jasmine was already there, looking very impatient.

"Where have you been? I've been waiting for twenty minutes!"

"We were at the carnival. We sort of just got carried away and lost track of time, sorry." I said.

Alek chimed in, "We, well Chloe and I, we're sort of together now, like a couple." He stuttered a little. You could tell that Jasmine's opinion meant a lot to him, and he was nervous.

"That's great, I'm so happy for you guys! Just make sure you don't get distracted. Chloe still has people after her, and she has to stay focused." She said. You could tell that she meant it, but she was obviously worried about the whole staying focused part. Training started and ended pretty uneventfully. We all raced again at the end of training, and this time Alek and I tied. Maybe he really had just been too exhausted yesterday. After the race, we all went to get some ice cream, and we filled Jasmine in on the whole Brian working with the Order thing.

"So Brian is now trying to kill you?" She asked.

"Yeah, I trusted him and I thought we were friends, but he said something about the Mai killing his mother. Is that true?"

"I can't imagine that any Mai would ever kill a human unless they were part of the Order or if they kissed them." She said.

"So you think his dad was lying?" I asked.

"I don't know. I'll ask my mom to check on it though." She replied.

We finished our ice cream and said goodbye to Jasmine. Alek walked me home again, but this time he came in with me. I cooked a frozen pizza while Alek showered. I texted Amy to ask to hang out tomorrow, I had a lot to tell her. Alek came downstairs with comments about my girly smelling soap and made me smile. The oven beeped and I got out the pizza and cut it.

"You never told me you were an expert cook." He smiled.

I laughed. "I don't think that putting a premade pizza in the oven counts as cooking." We both laughed.

After dinner I got ready for bed and Alek did the same. I turned on the TV and some old movie was on. I kissed Alek goodnight, and turned over to go to sleep.

Alek put his arm around me and whispered in my ear, "goodnight, my love."