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“Let’s do something a little more quiet. How about the train?” I suggested. There was a train that slowly went around the entire park. It was perfect for those who didn’t like intense rides and for kids who were too small to go on them and their families.
“It’s a deal. As long as we get lunch after, and that lunch includes cotton candy,” she said. There was a maniacal gleam in her eyes at the mere idea of cotton candy.
“Don’t eat too much, or else you’re going to be hopped up on sugar all day,” I said.
“Okay, Mom,” she threw back at me.
The train was fun, but crowded. Natalie and I had gotten crammed on the inside with part of a family blocking us in. I wouldn’t have minded so much if Natalie hadn’t been completely pressed up against my left side.
It was…a lot of contact. The weather at the park was hot and humid, and being so close to her was just making things hotter and humider.
The ride lasted for what felt like forever. I could barely pay attention to the scenery of the park crawling past. All I could think about was Natalie.
At last, the ride ended and I was able to escape the confines of the train.
“Lunchtime,” Natalie said, skipping ahead of me as if she wasn’t even affected at all. I shook my head at myself. The heat must be getting to me.
* * *
“You have cotton candy on your face,” Natalie said, and I tried to wipe it off, but she just used her thumb to help me, then sucked the sugary sweetness from her finger.
“Thanks,” I said, completely stunned. I’d thought eating would help me, but as the day wore on, I kept feeling more and more strange inside.
“We should probably get going,” I said. We’d spent most of the day at the theme park. I was going to have to do so much freaking driving to get to the hotel tonight.
Natalie sighed. “I guess. But we have to do one more thing.”
She dragged me toward the photo booth.
“Could you be more cliché?” I asked. Natalie loved photo booths. If there was a photo booth anywhere, Natalie would make us use it. I still had some of them in a box.
“Come onnnn,” she whined, and I relented.
It wasn’t our first rodeo, so Natalie called the poses as the camera did the little countdown.
For the last picture she yelled “surprise” and then she was kissing me on the cheek. I was too shocked to do anything with my face, so I probably looked awful.
“What the hell, Natalie?” I said, shoving myself out of the booth. She followed me, snatching the roll of pictures on the way.
“What? It was cute. Look.” She tried to shove the pictures at me to look at, but I didn’t want to see them. I just wanted to get back in the truck and get this shit over with.
* * *
It was long past dinner before we got to the hotel. Thankfully, the room had two beds. I might have thrown a fit if there hadn’t been. Or just sucked it up and put another room on my credit card and then hoped the charge went through.
Natalie had been quiet after we left the theme park, and hadn’t suggested we stop anywhere else.
“Let’s just have dinner in the room,” I said. I didn’t want to be around people right now. I didn’t want to be around Natalie either, but I didn’t really have a choice about that.
She handed me the room service menu and a notepad. I picked whatever and wrote it down, handing it back to her. She gave me the remote. That was a first.
I turned on the TV and selected reruns of an old sitcom. Natalie put in the dinner order and then lay back on the bed with a sigh.
A message from Paige popped up on my phone.
How are things going?
I wasn’t sure how to answer that.
