Fly With Me

“Whoa….” Joe breathes as we arrive. “Who puts up those huge tents?” He marvels. “It must be magic!”

“Yeah, sure,” Frankie rolls his eyes, pretending to act like a teen and it makes everyone laugh. “Come on,” he whines impatiently. “I want cotton candy!”

“Kids these days,” Kevin jokes as Joe volunteers to go and they run off, racing to a place they haven’t found quite yet. “And I have to call Mary,” he adds with a foolish grin.

Denise and Paul glance at us, wave, and head off. Big Rob gives a groan, muttering how he’s gotta keep moving around since we’ve all split up. But it’ll only be for an hour, we’d promised him, so it wouldn’t be too awful.

“So, what shall we do?” I ask him brightly.

“Mmmm….” Nick wraps his arms around me from behind, and slowly we turn around in a few circles, trying to decide what to do. “Well… what do you want to do?”

“Nu-uh,” I argue. “I asked first. Choose, mister.”

“But I don’t know what to choose,” He whines.

I chuckle. “Well, I’m not any better,” I inform him. “But… it reminds me of the carnival,” I smile absently to myself.

“We keep reliving all those dates,” Nick whispers, chuckling in my ear softly.

“Not that it’s a problem,” I insert quickly. “Though you do need more ideas,” I add teasingly.

“Whatever,” He mutters and then he points somewhere random. “Let’s try that way,” he decides. I laugh a little, but with his arms still wrapped around me from behind, we begin walking along the street, Big Rob sticking a few yards behind, but well within reaching distance of a few seconds.

The circus is so much more than that little carnival, though. It’s absolutely wild, everything that’s going on here. It’s more than double the size- maybe four times- and, there’s just so much more here.

“Cicily, you need to blink sometime,” Nick chuckles, squeezing my hand.

I turn to him with a sheepish smile. “Right. But… it’s just so… big!” I manage at last. “Everything, Nick!”

He laughs lightly, looping an arm around my shoulders. “You’re much more amazing than all this, and you have lived in L.A. all your life, Cicily. Isn’t there tons of wild things there, too?”

“Well, yeah,” I roll my eyes. “But mother never let me get within miles distance, silly.” I sigh with a slight frown. “Now. Where can we possibly begin?”

“There,” Nick’s smile widens, pointing to a photo booth.

I bite my lip, glancing at him. “Must we?” I ask somewhat wistfully. Sure, I’ve modeled, I’ve been on camera, but… I just never liked the idea of being watched like that. With any camera, either, since.

“Yes,” Nick decides firmly. “Something for the memories, right?” He nudges me and pulls me on. I follow silently, content enough just to be with him, at his side. He puts in the two dollars and pulls me in on the bench.

“So-” I begin slowly, and there’s a flash. I nearly fall over and Nick laughs, kissing my cheek. Another flash. I wrap my arms around him and kiss his nose. Another flash. We make faces at the camera, and another flash. And then there’s the last flash when we’ve got our arms around each other in a kiss with our lips matching at once.

“Mommy, they’re eating their faces!”

We glance outside the booth and see a little boy, staring at us with wide eyes. I cover my mouth to hide my laughter and Nick grabs my hand and the pictures and we run out before the mommy finds us. When we’re far enough away, we fall on a bench, laughing together.

Holding hands, we stroll around for a little bit, and we talk about how everything is going, and we converse over the pictures we took. I almost want one or two, and Nick wants to give me some of them, but I only take the last one, where we’re kissing and completely ignoring the camera.

“Hungry yet?” He offers.

“Isn’t it a little late for food?” I wrinkle my nose, glancing around. Carnivals, I’ve noted, have something of a stale sweet smell to them. It’s okay for the first few hours, but after… it’s just disgusting. Thankfully, we haven’t reached that stage yet.

Keeping my eyes focused purposely away and on the Ferris wheel, I think for a moment about eating. As I’ve stated, I’m eating normally- okay, not normally, but better. Over the past few months, we’ve run over several different diets with the doctors, many of which Nick’s gone on with me, for support. But every now and then, my stomach just rebels, and I never know when it’ll happen. Which scares me, because it throws Nicholas off and I know that sometimes, he has to wonder if it’s really my stomach that’s doing it, on it’s own. Then I sigh, my heartbeat fading into the distance as I lean against Nick, giving in the one I love, instead of my mute stomach. “Sure. Let’s share some fries?”