Ghosts ✔

094 • Juice/Dana

A little awkwardly they looked at each other. 

"I'm nervous," she said softly. "Stupid, huh."

"No, not at all." It felt like there was a brick in his throat, but nevertheless he admitted: "I'm nervous too."

Even though being so open scared him, it felt good. Hoping to break the ice a bit, he got off his bike and held out his arm in some subtle invitation of a hug. 

The smile he caught before she wrapped her arms around him, called up an intense heat in his body. Their bodies formed to each other during the embrace; it felt like they were a perfect unity. Her perfume gave him weak knees and he had to keep himself from taking a deep breath. 

Their hug was way too long for a normal greeting. Now she was standing so close to him, he thought about all the times he had hold her in his arms without clothes separating them. He wanted it back... He wanted her back so badly. 

As he noticed that the excitement in his pants was giving away his thoughts, he broke away from the embrace. There was a pink tinge on her cheeks and his heart was pounding frantically in his chest, and he felt the warm glow spread across his own face too. It felt like he had fallen for her all over.

Which really wasn't his intention – this wasn't a date, this was a trip they took as friends. Instead of panicking, he glanced at her blue eyes. 

It's okay, they seemed to tell him. You can have feelings for me. As long as you don't act on them. 

He hoped he could keep himself in check. If he would try to kiss her again today, he didn't believe a friendship was a real possibility. And since he was convinced he would never be able to find back his old self without her, he really didn't want to fuck this up. 

. . .

It wasn't the first time Dana visited Fun Town. Two days ago she'd been there with Kip and Casper too. The three of them being there had been nice, relaxed. They'd laughed a lot, which was the reason she wanted to take Juice there too. If she could just see his smile for one moment... She believed it would be a great victory for him. 

His whole demeanor showed her how nervous he felt, but at the same time she sensed that the voices in his head had calmed down a bit. They were here to have fun, he knew that. To keep herself from grabbing his hand, her hands slipped into the pockets of her jeans. 

"What do you want to do?" Juice asked as they walked up the terrain. 

"Everything! We're gonna do everything." She showed him a cheerful smile. "Let's start with the bumper cars!"

It was working. The moment they had both taken a seat in a cart, the expression on his face changed. For a moment he was that boy again, barely an adult, who loved to fool around and who was trying to corner her now. 

As they left the attraction a little later, he was more energetic than before. They got themselves some cotton candy which they ate at the edge of a pond, there after they went to the shooting gallery where they stayed until they had both won a giant stuffed animal. Those made a bigger challenge of the other attractions; when they went on the Kiddy Coaster – for which they were obviously too old, but the teenager selling them the tickets was too chicken to send a Son away – they were sitting so close that Juice had to wrap an arm around her to sit a bit comfortable. The gesture felt so familiar it almost made Dana cry. Although she wasn't sure it was wise, she leaned with her head on his shoulder. Even though the arm around her shoulders had been born out of necessity, she felt how he was tightening his grasp around her now. Dana didn't dare to look up, she knew for sure he was feeling the same kind of tinglings.