They walk together, hands entwined, fingers slippery from popcorn and salted pretzels and too many elephant ears.
They've run out of tickets for any more rides, which is fine with her because she's not sure his dizzying exuberance for the Tilt-A-Whirl will survive the sheer number of fried bananas he has consumed in the past ten minutes. Instead, she tugs him along towards the twinkling main lights of the boardwalk. They saunter along casually, a far more leisurely pace than their constant running, and she smiles into his shoulder.
Arms now linked, they meander past the callers and piped music at the ring toss stand and the bright bulb lights flickering over the ski ball booth. He nudges her playfully towards the weight guessing game, and muses over how many kilos of bratwurst she has eaten today. It's when he actually starts calculating his prediction aloud that she nudges him hard in the ribs, and he coughs and splutters – but he's not nearly as wounded as he woulda been had he finished that thought.
At his self-pitying whine, she sticks out her tongue, still red from the raspberry shaved ice they're currently sharing, and as his eyes flick to her mouth she waves her spoon teasingly in the direction of the kissing booth as a retort.
He turns his head to look where she's pointing and she freezes for a moment, oddly panicked and suddenly regretting this, a sudden chill running down her spine that is even colder than the frozen dessert clutched in her hand. The girl in the booth is beautiful, blonde hair and blue eyes and a little too reminiscent of someone she'd just as soon they both forget.
He turns around back towards her slowly and shrugs.
"You've got the money," he says, smiling cheekily, eyes sparkling as he takes a huge, overfilled spoonfill of the shaved ice that would have given a mere human brainfreeze, but leaves him untouched except for the tiny trail of red sugar on his cheek.
She lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding, her relief bubbling up as a grin on her face.
"Could have one for free, ya know," she says, and it's far more innuendo than she ever would normally say around this version of him, and she's momentarily nervous but he smiles at her in a slow, simmering grin and it's all OK.
She leans forward towards him, slowly, eyes intent, and sees his own eyes widen as his breath slows and he stands completely still, waiting for her move.
Lips slightly parted, she leans close in to him, drawing her bottom lip slowly across the red sugar left over from their shared snack.
"Mmmmm tastes nice," she murmurs as his breath catches, then she takes a big breath, purses her lips and delivers a noisy gust of air to his cheek.
"Raspberry," she smiles playfully at him, as he chuckles and leans in to capture her lips with his own.