Bitter Sweet

Chapter 4

Sooo... anyone looking forward to this? ..... Yeah, didn't think so. Apparently my work is boring :/

Oh well! Here you go anyway. I HOPE you enjoy it, but we'll see.

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I looked up, off towards the ice-cream parlor that Gavin had just wandered off to minutes before. He still wasn't back and I couldn't see him walking out of the shop, either. The line must have been fairly long, and it was understandable; what, with all the children wandering around in the heat. The bell dinged faintly across the street and a woman came out, a small girl clinging to the hem of her skirt. The girl had sticky chocolate ice-cream all around her mouth, making the mother stop and try to wipe it off her face quickly before it stuck. I laughed, paying too much attention to the couple, and didn't notice Gavin come out of the parlor and walk over towards me.

“What's so funny?” he asked as he held out the chocolate filled cone for me to take. I slowly took it from his outstretched hand, trying to keep the drips of slowly melting chocolate from overflowing and dripping into my hand. I licked the drips from the rim of the cone as quick as I could, and thanked him for his generosity.

“No problem,” he replied. “Thank you for coming with me today. For a second I didn't think you'd agree to it, but I'm glad you did. It's better than being alone, right?”

I smiled in agreement before I remembered something. “But... wont your girlfriend be angry? Shouldn't you find her?”

He cocked his head slightly before licking his ice-cream. “I don't have a girlfriend.”

“Oh,” I paused, embarrassed for assuming wrongly, “I just assumed that the woman you had originally intended to share a room with was your girlfriend.”

Understanding flashed across his eyes and he shook his head. “No, actually she's my secretary. But don't worry, she called this morning and told me she left already.”

I nodded, slightly understanding the situation. I guess that left us both without anyone to share the festival with. “I guess it is...” I said, but he hadn't understood what I meant, “Better than going alone, I mean.”

He smiled at me and licked his ice-cream again. We sat for a few minutes more, talking about nothing and finishing our ice-creams. He'd randomly pause the conversation once in a while before remember he was talking and resume his sentence. We sat for a bit more before getting up to continue walking around again. We'd been wandering around for a while, the sky slowly dimming and changing from bright blues to dim purple and orange colors. The sounds of test fireworks exploded occasionally through the air, though no color or spark was displayed.

A man on a unicycle whizzed passed us and tipped his top hat to us along the way. Kids pointed in awe and I giggled at the bizarre sight. The tiny tails of his tailcoat were flapping in the breeze as he peddled leisurely. I guess you could say that this festival was somewhat of a contained circus, and I laughed again at the mental image. Gavin glanced at me, like he'd been doing multiple times throughout the day.

“What?” I asked, “Is there something on my face?”

He laughed awkwardly, “Nothing, I was just staring off into space.”

I pouted and looked away, wondering what he was thinking about. He'd been somewhat absent minded for a while, now, and I wanted to know what for. I decided to shrug it off and ignore his absentmindedness. He didn't have to tell me if he didn't want to, it wasn't any of my business.

The vendors in their stalls called out to us as we passed, offering up their foods, crafts, and other objects that people had an interest in to the crowd. We politely declined each and every one of them, just enjoying our time walking together with the noise of the crowd swarming around us. It came to me then that I didn't know how long it'd be like this, the two of us enjoying each others company.