“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

- Oscar Wilde

I shoot the gun. The bullet goes soaring through the wind and hits the bull’s eye. I blow the smoke and smile smugly. “Who’s the boss now, Carlson?”

Oliver tips his cowboy hat up and gives me a look. “The game is not over yet, Bradbury.”

He points his gun at me. “Shall we?”

“Ahem,” someone clears their throat. “You’ll be able to hit the cloth at least once if you focus.”

I turn around and see none other than Oliver. He is giving me a look. I flare my nostrils. So what if I was having a daydream?

I look at the cloth again. It has a bright red star in the middle. All you have to do is to shoot out the star. There is a huge stuffed teddy bear for the first prize. Call me a kid, but I want it. I want to win.

The truth is, these BB guns are so bad, there’s no way I can. My turn is going to be over soon, and I have only managed to put one hole in the cloth, which is far away from the star.

“Why do I suck at this?” I huff.

“You really do. You should be able to at least hit the corner by now,” says none other than the oh-so-expert Oliver.

I turn back and glare at him. “Why don’t you try instead and show me how easy it is?”

“Yeah, you are right. I do need to show you,” Oliver says, and I don’t know if I’m wrong, but I see a glint in his eyes. The glint that sparks in his eyes when he does something different, the same glint I saw before he bit my neck.

My cheeks get flushed, and thanks to Oliver, my mind goes back to the moment when he pressed his lips on me. Great, just great. Here goes my focus.

As if on cue, I hear Oliver right behind me. “You’re not holding the gun properly.”

Before I can register what’s happening, Oliver’s hand comes around me. I’m pressed against him while he touches my elbow and fixes my aim.

“Also, you’re not standing in the right place.” He places his palm on the side of my stomach, trying to make me move. I’m following his movements like water, flowing right in the direction he wants me to, like I have no control over my body.

My attention is fixated where his hands are, on my hand and on my stomach, and all my focus is right at the place where they made contact. The rest of the world have vanished away.

God, what does this boy do to me?

“Now you can aim and try to shoot,” Oliver says from right behind me, still not backing down even after he’s done.

“Okay,” I say, a little breathless because I’ve been holding my breath this whole time. It’s not my fault that I forgot to breathe. I blame Oliver.

“Shoot, Gwen,” Oliver whispers right in my ear.

I try to take my mind off the fact that Oliver’s pressing against me and look at the teddy bear on display. That’s what I want.

Are you sure? Because I think you want something else. Like maybe turning around and teaching Oliver how to shoot as well.

God, I need focus. I’m out of my mind.

I finally look through the little hole of the gun and aim again. When I pull the trigger, Oliver breathes on my neck, making me shudder. I miss the cloth by a whole foot.

Oliver makes a sound of disappointment. “How did that happen? You were aiming right.”

That happened because you breathed on my neck you son of a-

I need to take my mind off Oliver, so again I look at the teddy. I need that teddy. It’s going to be so nice to cuddle it.

“I think I know where the problem is,” Oliver says in a low voice right in my ear.

That’s a nice teddy, a good teddy. I want cuddles, cuddle a teddy.

“Take your eyes off the prize, Gwen,” Oliver says, holding one of my elbows. “Focus on your work only. Forget about the prize.”

“I can’t when it’s breathing on my neck,” I blurt out. Crap.

Hmm, you want cuddles, huh? You sure you want to cuddle a teddy?

My brain is ruined. I need to wash it. At the same time, all I want to do is to sag against Oliver and let go. What would he do, stand back and let me fall? I mean, I might not get a hug from him, but I might at least get him hugging me from the back.

“Now you’ve only got two bullets. Try to hit at least once, and keep your aim,” Oliver says, reminding me that I still have to finish this game. I don’t want to. My mind has wandered off somewhere else.

“Gwen,” Oliver puts both his hands on my shoulders and shakes me. “Focus.”

I can’t feel him behind me anymore. I guess he put some distance between us, and I’m already missing him being there.

But it does the trick. I aim at the star again, and when I shoot, I hit it somewhere around the corner.

Before I celebrate, I want to hit it once again, right in the middle. This game doesn’t have a bull’s eye. You have to shoot the star out completely, and all I have done in my round was to put a centimeter hole in it. Might as well put another one.

I aim and hit it right in the middle, where I wanted to.

“Yes!” I say. It’s ridiculous that I didn’t even win anything, but I’m celebrating.

I look at Oliver, embarrassed of myself, expecting him to shake his head in disappointment and tell me how bad I am at this. But Oliver surprises me. He smiles a little, almost like he’s proud.

“No ‘thanks’?” Oliver says.

I’m almost surprised by his reply. “What would I be thanking you for?”

“I taught you how to shoot. I deserve a thank you,” Oliver says stepping closer. “You owe me a thank you.”

“I can think of a few ways to thank you.” My mouth does its job before I can register what I’m saying.

Oliver’s smile almost gets a little wider. “How?”

“Like, um,” I clear my throat. God I can only think of one thing. Crap. I’m so dead. “Like, um. Um.”

I didn’t expect him to ask me. I expected him to back away like he always does. But something about Oliver today is surprising. He’s replying to my stupid thoughts.

“I’m waiting, Gwen,” Oliver says, and I look up at him.

It seems like he means something else. He isn’t only waiting for a thank you, he’s waiting for something else, too. I don’t know what that is.

“I think we should go to some other booth,” I say, stepping aside, suddenly a bit flustered at getting so much attention from Oliver in the span of a day.

It’s been almost two hours since we’ve been alone together. It’s not like before, when we used to be silent and were just there next to each other. Somehow, it feels like we are more connected now. I don’t know how that happened.

“Okay, but remember, you owe me,” Oliver says, like he’s making a point of something really important, like by teaching me how to shoot a BB gun he changed my life.

“Fine.” I roll my eyes.

We go around the corner and come across the whack-a-mole stand. I stop in front of it and cheer up immediately. I might not know how to shoot, but I am good at whacking. That’s my job, to whack moles.

I take the mallet and say, “Don’t get surprised if I beat the high score on the first try.”

Oliver gives me an amused look. I can see it in his eyes although he literally has no expression in his face. “Okay, I won’t.”

He could have just stayed silent. But he didn’t. Oliver sure is making some progress. He is finally learning how to talk.

I turn to the moles and start the machine. This one is actually for fun. There’s no prizes. You have to put on your carnival coins and play.

The moles come up slow at first so I don’t even miss one. Then they gradually speed up. But my reflexes are good. I keep going as it gets impossibly fast. I have to try really hard to hit them all. I see a mole, I hit.

And then I miss two moles at once and then another. I sigh, shaking my head, and the machine plays a song. The screen shows, “Congratulations. High score.”

“Hmm, I am so not surprised,” Oliver comments as I look at him. He is lying. He looks surprised.

I smile broadly. “That’s how you play.”

“Yes, you forgot that anything else existed,” Oliver says.

“I can get hyper focused when I’m doing something I love,” I confess. “I just give it my all.”

“When don’t you?” Oliver asks looking at me.

“Huh?” I say being confused.

Oliver becomes typical Oliver and doesn’t reply to me. He wraps his fingers with mine and walks beside me silently.

We find the food stalls around the corner and I realize I am really hungry. My stomach agrees with me by making a sound out loud and of course Oliver hears it.

“That’s my stomach saying hello to you,” I reply.

Oliver doesn’t say anything. He changes the direction we were heading towards. Now we are going to the food stalls. I am following him like I’m water again, water in the river waiting to fall into the ocean, where it belongs.

We end up at the corn dog stand. He orders one corn dog. “Are you not going to eat?”

Oliver doesn’t reply. The guy gives us our corndog soon, and we go to the next stall, which has funnel cakes. Oliver buys one as well. I am holding the corn dog while Oliver takes the funnel cake. We look for somewhere to sit, but there’s nothing here. So we stand near the booths. I can’t wait anymore, so I bite into my corndog.

“When it comes to food, you always forget me,” Oliver says, and I look at him with my mouth full. Well, um, that is true. I do forget him when I see food.

Oliver shakes his head and holds my wrist on which the corndog is. He leans forwards and bites right over where I just bit seconds ago.

I-

He almost finishes half of the corndog in one bite, along with part where I was eating from. Just how big is his mouth? I stare at it.

“We’ll buy another one,” Oliver shrugs, breaking the funnel cake and eating from it.

We will buy another one. Not like, he will buy me another one. We are eating from the same corndog, and I guess the same funnel cake too.

I look down at the pink funnel cake. It looks delicious. I guess we are eating from the same cake.

I stare at the corndog where he bit. I guess I’m eating the rest. We’re sharing food. It’s so normal that it makes my heart thud loudly. After finishing the corndog, I look at the cake, which is already half eaten by none other than Oliver. I break myself a piece.

“Your stomach might be decent enough not to make a sound, but you eat like a caveman,” I say, accusing him. “You didn’t look that hungry. You finished my corndog.”

Oliver looks up at me and says, “Yes, I’m hungry.” He licks the tip of his fingers. “Just because it doesn’t look it doesn’t mean I’m not.”

I stare at him, open-mouthed. Then I close it and turn my attention to the funnel cake. But it’s hard to stop my heart thudding like it is now. God, stop it. We are just eating together.

I am not going to lie. I am in the gutter. And Oliver inspired it.

Breaking another piece of cake, I put in my mouth. When I look at Oliver, he is staring at me, smirking a little.

I am not the only one in the gutter.

We try different food from the stalls. We find a stall selling tater-tots. My day is complete.

I order a large packet because I know we’ll need it.

“You never thanked me for making you taste this,” I say. “Without me you would’ve never eaten tots.”

“It’s just tots,” Oliver says. He has my fingers in his in a loose hold. We are almost comfortable holding hands like that, standing together and talking nonsense. Okay, Oliver may not talk nonsense, but he replies to me.

“No, it’s not just tots, and you know it. Admit it tastes great. Because I know you love it as much as I do,” I say. I remember the day he bought me tots.

“Hmm.” He thinks for a moment. “Okay. They do taste good.”

“There you go,” I say. Our tots arrive right at that second, and when I am about to take it, Oliver snatches it right out of my hand.

“Hey!” I shout instantly. That’s my usual response whenever anyone touches my food.

“Give it back!” I say as I go to grab it. He holds it over my reach.

“What? I love them so I am going to eat them all,” Oliver replies with a smug look.

“No! How could you do that to me? It's large and I ordered it,” I almost scream.

“Hmm.” Oliver thinks for a moment. “Doesn’t really matter. I’m going to eat it anyway.”

I look at him. “You-you-” I slap him on the chest as he holds the tots over me. “Give it back.”

“Listen,” Oliver says in a calm tone, “You are the one who got me saying I like them, so I just want to let you know if I want something, I don’t stop until I get it.”

I stare at him. Oliver continues. “After I get it, I don’t give it up that easily. What’s mine is mine, Gwen.”

I am not sure if we are talking about tater tots here.

Oliver leans down a little, so his eyes are in level with mine. “With me, if you’re in, there’s no way out.”

“Why would you think I’d need a way out?” I say in a low tone, “I’d probably get lost if I do.”

Oliver gazes at me before suddenly placing the tots right in my hand and says in a whisper, “So will I.”

It feels like he didn’t want me to hear it, but also wants it at the same time. So I look at the food in front of me. Let’s just think about the tots for now.

“So um,” I say as we finish our food, “I think we had enough carnival games for today.” I look up at the big Ferris wheel in the middle.

Oliver follows my gaze and looks at the wheel as well.

“Let’s get into some rides,” I say, smiling and looking at Oliver, who doesn’t look so happy, to be honest.

“We will see about that,” He mumbles under his breath.

*****