“And what about you?” she asks. “How do you feel about all of it? I mean, you went from paparazzi photographer to fake girlfriend of Zane Calloway, which, by the way, that’s shot to hell, I think.”
“What do you mean?” I ask with little to no success, biting back a smile.
“I mean, if your best friend can tell you got it bad for one of the sexiest men alive…you have it bad for one of the sexiest men alive. And his kid.”
I open my mouth to argue, but as I watch Zane holding Bentley with one hand while pointing at birds with the other, I realize I have no response to that. Not an argumentative one, anyways.
“Yeah…I guess I do,” I admit.
After we are finished looking at birds, we make our way out. Demi and Cal argue about which way we should go next, and Zane hands Bentley off to me.
“That was cute,” I tell him.
“What was?” he asks.
“I didn’t know you liked birds so much,” I say with a smile. “I mean, I really do prefer lions,” he says. “But not after what he did to Bentley.”
“He looked at him,” I say flatly.
“He terrified him! Did you see that little lip? It broke my heart. Fuck that lion.”
I start laughing. But all of a sudden, I stop. “Do you hear that?” I ask.
“What?”
I crane my neck to listen harder, and after another couple of seconds, I confirm it.
“That music,” I say. “Come on, let’s go! He’s going to love this.”
I head off with Bentley toward the music, and everyone else follows. After following the path through the trees, we round a corner and come to an opening, and I stop.
“It’s a merry-go-round,” Cal says.
“A carousel,” I say.
“Like the mobile above the crib,” Zane chimes in.
Yes, just like that.
“Well, I think we need to ride it,” Cal says. “All of us.”
With that, he tugs Demi towards the entrance and pulls her up onto the platform, and helps her onto a zebra despite her protests.
Zane helps me and Bentley up, and we sit in a chariot. As the music starts to play, the ride spins and Bentley’s eyes grow wide as he watches the animals and the lights. Meanwhile, I can’t stop smiling.
“I feel like a kid again,” Zane says.
“I do too. I think we all feel that way. This has been really fun,” I say.
“I think we needed this,” he says. Then he turns to me. “So I gotta ask, what’s the obsession with carousels?”
“You picked up on that?” I ask, and he gives me a look.
“You’re slowly decorating the entire nursery in circus themed stuff,” he says. “It’s kind of hard to miss. So, what is it?”
“Well,” I say, but he cuts me off.
“Wait. Let me guess. You haven’t been close to your parents in years. It’s part of why you want to be a mom so badly. And your favorite memory with them was at a carnival where you begged them to take you on the carousel and proceeded to ride it until the park closed for the night.”
