It Was Always You

Ch. 6 Little Moments

Angela smiled as she held Juice's hand while they walked around the Fun Town carnival, swinging their interlaced hands between them. She was still on a high from the night before when Juice had said told her he loved her. The words had come to him so easily, she hadn't thought she'd heard him right at first, and his responding smile when she'd said it back had knocked her off her feet. She'd been on cloud nine ever since. Not even Gemma could knock her down that night at dinner with her little remarks, even though in the end, they'd found some kind of even ground. She didn't think there was anything that could dim her sunshine. She wanted to revel in it, sear this feeling into her brain forever. She squeezed his hand, catching his attention as she nodded to a photobooth. "Let's take some pictures," she said, tugging him towards it. "Replace those old ones from Coney Island."

He slowed, dragging his feet a little as he frowned, his brows pulling together. "I don't wanna replace those," he said, pulling her in closer to him. He let go of her hand to pull on his wallet chain, opening the fold and taking out a worn and faded strip of photos. "Some of my favorites here."

She was shocked as she stared at the photos from almost five years before, surprised he still had them. Even more so that he had them in his wallet. "How long have you had these in there?" she asked, smiling at how young they both looked in the photos. Juice had a full head of hair that was spiked with gel, though the tops curled slightly. Her hair was in two Dutch braids, and she was rocking a pair of hoops, winged eyeliner, and darker lip color than she'd wear nowadays. They were making faces at the camera in each frame except the last one. They'd clearly been caught off guard by it because they were facing each other, leaning into each other as they laughed; a candid shot since neither of them realized there was one photo left to take. Looking at it now, she could see what everyone else had always said was obvious; they loved each other. Even back then.

Juice shrugged a shoulder, putting them back in his wallet. "Since we took 'em. Wallet's changed a few times, but I wasn't gonna toss these. You got 'em in your room at your Ma's."

Angela nodded, a brush creeping up into her cheeks; she couldn't believe he'd noticed. "I took them home 'cause it felt weird having them up at the apartment with Raj there. Used to look at them when I didn't want to go back to remind myself I had you to come back to. I had pictures of me and Raj too, of course, but it was these that made me miss New York the most."

He moved his arm around her shoulders, bringing her in closer to his side. "And you say I'm the mushy one," he murmured, kissing her temple.

She slid her arm around his waist. "No mush. All truth. All my best memories over there were with you. Some had Raj in them too, but he was always so busy. We did some fun shit back then just the two of us."

"Like that time we ditched the waiter gig at that fancy hotel and ended up drinking expensive ass champagne in that indoor pool."

Angela laughed, remembering the way he'd stripped out of his waiter garb to his boxers and cannonballed into the pool they definitely were not supposed to be in. She'd been content sitting on the edge of the pool watching as he splashed about, champagne bottle in his hand. She'd wanted to get in with him but stripping down to her lacy underwear in front of him while she had a boyfriend had felt wrong so she enjoyed watching Juice splash about while she kicked water at him. They'd gotten caught the next morning by one of the hotel staff members, passed out on the lounge chairs with multiple empty bottles of champagne around them. "That was amazing. Best champagne ever."

"Agreed," he said, pulling back the curtain on the photo booth and allowing her to go inside first. He squished in beside her, feeding money into the machine. His eyes were bright with excitement as he looked at her. "Ready?"