“Fuck, I? Are you, like, announcing you’re gonna fuck me, Yoda style? So hot, but… Um, Jamie, this totally isn’t – this isn’t the time,” fluctuated with laughter – childish, bubbling springs of it, borderline infectious – as she studied his face, eyes panning all over, only focused on him. Not the sting in her arm. Not the fact that whatever threads she’d felt untangle from Danny as they zipped down the streets felt tangled again, now, knots swallowed and sitting uncomfortably in her stomach. Maybe it would always be this way, with something like that. Someone like him. Maybe he’d forever leak from her pores at the slightest reminder. “What’s Magellan? Is that, like, ice cream? Like Magnum?” she asked, no hint of a joke in her voice, genuinely curious. Hooked on his every word. Fully engrossed as she tried to keep up. Any thought of receiving an answer was wiped from her brain when he squatted, grin charging onto her face with all the tenacity of a bull let loose in a China shop, destroying ever delicate concentration. She gasped, instantly enamoured by the idea. “A noble steed! Donkey from Shrek, I love your work,” she gushed, already in the process of springing onto his back when the sirens began to wail. “Ew, can they keep it down? Like, my ears. We’re wahlkin’ here!” A horrifically butchered try at an accent from Queens, some disgruntled pedestrian cursing out a cab. You’d think, considering she’d grown up feasibly local, that she’d be better equipped to attempt it. Lana had always been terrible at accents, though – it was almost as if she didn’t try, sometimes, like she found her failures funnier, far more sensational if they were rough around the edges. Hissing softly when she looped her arms, accidentally poking at the worst of her scrape, Lana instinctively shut her eyes. Childish, in a way. If you couldn’t see a monster, it didn’t exist. She phased over the reaction with a hum, right against his ear, adjusting so she could grasp without pain. Secure, then. Thighs either side of him, clasped to support her weight. “Bella and Edward roleplay. Is this the part where you tell me to hold on tight, spider monkey?” Despite the laughter in her voice, tone light as spun sugar, a finger etched his shoulder so gently that it almost implied an apology – who was to know what for, Lana certainly didn’t. In fact, she was barely even aware of it, always straying into idle touches like subconscious habits, especially with Jamie. It was difficult, sometimes, to remember where the line was drawn. Exes probably weren’t supposed to behave that way, but Lana had never known anything different. Even with friends, with strangers – with people that weren’t supposed to come near her – physical intimacy was more normalised than a handshake. “Lemme know if you get tired. We can swap. I’m, like, super ripped, not to brag, or anything. I once bench pressed a Jeep in a Taco Bell parking lot. With a dog inside. My twelve pack’s way intense.”
“No, Magnum like a magnum condom for my giant horse cock,” he joked, a complete exaggeration. He let out a small groan, swaying slightly as Lana hopped onto his back, trying to right himself like he was a ship bobbing along of a turbulent sea. He could practically feel the alcohol sloshing around in his empty stomach. “Hey! Stop making fun of my culture,” he spat out jokingly to Lana’s terrible New York accent, the one that slipped out of him comically when he was inebriated. “What’s with the hissing? are you transforming into Nagini?” He asked her, starting to trudge off into the night, weaker than he thought in his inebriated state, his knees already starting to buckle. “I don’t know what a an Edward Cullen is. Was he in One Direction? The one with the hair?” Jamie asked her, seriously, trying to rack his mind for the reference. Feeling a shiver run down his spine at her tracing of his shoulder, Jamie’s feet transitioned from cobblestones to grass, looking up suddenly to realize he had lost his path, vineyards branches now swaying in front of his eyes. He had been distracted by her hands, something that happened to him often. He probably shouldn’t have given in to her as often as he did, slipping back into touches that were probably not how exes should have behaved with each other. His hands gripped onto her thighs, holding her up, head whipping around wildly, his knees sinking into the grass. “Yeah, uh, can we take a break? I just realized I have no clue where the fuck we are,” he admitted, letting go of her, flopping back onto the grass in defeat, a hand lingering on her thigh before he removed it, looking up at her. “Oh, sick! Can I see it? I’ve always wanted to see one. Feel like it’s the next best thing to a unicorn sighting. Will you give me your autograph?” He asked, rolling over onto his side. “You know, it’s actually kind of comfy here. Feels almost like a temperpedic mattress.”
