Rolling her eyes at him, “ I actually wouldn’t challenge you on that one. I’m pretty bad at winning stuffed animals.” Juniper muttered under her breath. They did have fun at these things, and somehow ended up running into each other. They made it to the rink after the first nice car ride they’d had…well ever, and she snorted when he pointed out the balloons. “I don’t know why they do this every year it’s- WAIT THEY BROUGHT THE PINK MONKEYS BACK?” She non-sarcastically squealed. Juniper actually loved love, despite her gloomy disposition towards the taller man and their not love affair. “We can do that later. I’m very much about getting mama a sugar high and throwing snowballs at you.” Giggling, the five foot five normally serious Australian pulled the gentle giant along towards a stand, perhaps too excited for her previous disposition towards him.
But people can change and to be honest, she was a little tired of faking mean to him. “Can we have two beaver tails and some hot chocolate please?” they were handed their drinks and as she stood there sipping her warmed chocolate milk, Juniper blurted,” So..uh..you wanna do some skating before the zamboni heist but after snowballs? I won’t lick you unless you want me to.” She winked, before grabbing their cakes and paying. “My valentines gift to you, a few years pennance for accidentally being my valentine on account of you being nearby.”
Jasper cracked a crooked grin, "Good to know, I'll remember that." If he ever had to get into a competition with Juni (and, let's be real, breathing was pretty much a competition with them - he could see them in seventy years, in hospital beds, bickering about who was gonna beat the other to the grave), it would be wise to pick winning small stuffed animals. Not that Jasper was good at it - he was pretty sure that most of these things required no actual skill and existed on sheer dumb luck.
They walked a ways, and he listened as Juniper settled into one of her sarcastic soliloquies, and nearly leaped out of his skin when she suddenly started squealing about monkeys. "The pink monkeys? You like the pink monkeys?" he asked. Yeah, that probably sounded judgy as hell, but he was putting that into the mental inventory of useless things he knew about Juniper. Like how she felt about lawnmowers or igloos. But Juniper was already off, making plans and heading towards food. "Sounds good," Jasper said, feeling a little like he'd been run into by a very tenacious bulldozer. Probably the least romantic description ever, but, weirdly, it was as good thing.
"Thank you," he said, careful not to accidentally dump his drink all over Juniper (which would be a great way to ruin this very nice moment, which he was half expecting to fall apart at any moment cuz he was, well, him), "And sounds good." He counted off on his gloved fingers, "Snowballs. Skating. Zamboni heist. No licking. Or biting." It would probably be vaguely creepy to say that he really didn't actually mind. It wasn't like she was going all jaws on his arm and running off like a little cannibal.
After a few minutes of general peace, Jasper lunged at the ground, grabbed a handful of snow (which wound up a malformed snowball) and whipped it at Juniper, "HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY."
And he dodged behind the nearest object like a little shit.
