kiss an angel( Jikook ver.)

Chapter 11

JIMIN stumbled up the ramp at ten the next morning. His leg muscles screamed in protest with every step, and his arms felt as if they’d been stretched on a torture rack. “I’m sorry, Digger. I fell asleep in the truck.”

Despite his exhaustion last night, he’d awakened sometime just before three from a dream in which he and Jungkook had been floating through an old-fashioned tunnel of love in a pink swan boat. Jungkook had kissed him, and his face had been so filled with tenderness that Jimin had felt himself melting into the boat, the water, into his very body. The sensation had awakened him, and he’d lain on the couch until dawn thinking about the painful contrast between his beautiful dream and the reality of his marriage.

When they’d arrived at this new lot in a High Point, North Carolina, strip mall, the trailer hauling the elephants hadn’t yet appeared, so he’d stayed in the truck for a short nap. Two hours later, he’d awakened with a stiff neck and a headache.

As he reached the top of the ramp, he saw that Digger had nearly finished mucking out the trailer. Mixed with a sense of relief, he felt a stab of guilt. That was his job. “I’ll finish up for you.”

“The worst part’s done.” He spoke like a man who had long ago grown accustomed to getting the short end of life.

“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

He gave a sniff that told Jimin he’d wait and see.
From his vantage point at the top of the ramp, he had a good view of the new site located between a Pizza Hut and a gas station. Most of the performers, Jungkook had told him, preferred the smooth, regular surface of a parking lot to grass, but setting up on asphalt also meant that the holes left by the stakes had to be repaired before they left.

As the stake driver thumped rhythmically in the background, he looked toward the backyard and saw Hanni sitting in a lawn chair outside the trailer, with Suzy standing behind her putting a French braid in the teenager’s hair. Yesterday he’d caught glimpses of Suzy helping Hanni with her gymnastics. He’d also seen the circus owner patching up one of the workers and trying to console the Lipscomb’s six-year-old after he’d taken a fall. Suzy Quest seemed to be full of contradictions: a wicked witch with Jimin, earth mother with everyone else.

A feisty trumpeting brought him up short, and he looked down to see Tater standing at the bottom of the ramp gazing adoringly up at him through his ridiculously curly lashes.

Digger cackled. “Your boyfriend’s come to visit you.”

“He’s going to be disappointed. I’m not wearing perfume.”

“ ‘Spect he’ll have to figger that out for hisself. Take him over with the rest, will ya? They all need to be watered.” He jerked his head. “Bull hook’s right there.”

He gazed at the object leaning against the side of the truck with loathing. At the bottom of the ramp, Tater trumpeted again, then began to turn in a tight circle, performing just as he did in the center ring. When he stopped, he lifted one leg and then the other in his baby’s tap dance. Unless Jimin was very much mistaken, he was showing off for him.