#sarahbartowski

"I’m not gonna do it. You can’t make me." 

"Come on, Em. Everyone does it. It’s tradition.”

"A disgusting tradition! What if I catch something?”

"We did not drive all the way up here for you to chicken out because of germs. Emma, we spent the morning breaking into a room at a sleazy motel that hadn’t been cleaned yet. It probably hadn’t been cleaned in the last decade, did you see the bathroom? And you’re worried about germs from a wall?” 

Her response was a defiant pop of the sour cherry double bubble she was chomping on. Neal had already had her doing excessive amounts of tourist shenanigans all morning. First they took a trip to the top of a needle to see the whole city from an unnecessarily high vantage point. Then he made her rub the nose of some metallic pig that ate some of their precious pocket change for ‘good luck’. This evening they were apparently going to spend nearly all of their money to ride a ‘duck bus’ that drives on the water. How ridiculous is that, a bus that floats! And they were going to spend money on it! And to top it off, he insisted they end their day fine dining at some place he kept referring to as “dicks”. Dicks? She hadn’t figured out if he was just messing with her or if someone actually named a restaurant “dicks”, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to find out. 

And now, now he was trying to get her to put her chewed up gum on the side of a wall that was already inhabited by millions of other gross, germ infested pieces of gum spat out by god knows who over the last decade. Was he insane?

Oh, he was insane alright. But he also wasn’t backing down. The two were locked in a staring contest now, waiting for one to concede. Nearly a minute passed before they both sighed and, eyes still locked together, lifted up their hands to do the only thing they could do in this situation - rock, paper, scissors.

Neal won 3 out of 3. 

Neal always won. Emma was pretty sure he cheated. One time she accused him of that and he chuckled and asked her how it was even possible to cheat at rock, paper scissors. She hadn’t figured it out yet, but someday she would. Someday she’d learn his secret. And Neal would never tell her that she crinkled  her nose every time she decided to use ‘scissors’, and the right side of her mouth turned up in a smirk ever so slightly when she decided to use ‘rock’.  

Emma rolled her eyes as she pulled the stringy piece of gum out of her mouth and stuck it to the wall in front of her, her hand retreating quickly as she groaned in disgust. 

"Together forever," Neal mused as he finished sticking his piece of gum to a spot next to hers. 

"Yeah, forever stuck to a germ infested wall of colors to rot and disgust people for generations to come."

"Come on now, it wasn’t so bad. I think you’ll live.”

“Probably,” Emma smiled as Neal wrapped his arms around her. She giggled as his fingers grazed lightly over her stomach and pulled her closer to him. “But if I keel over dead tomorrow, you know why. Now let’s go ride that duck before I decide to make you sleep alone for a week because of how much money you spent today.” 

"I just want you to have experience you can. I don’t want you to miss out on anything. And it hasn’t even rained on us yet, so I’d consider this trip to Seattle to be a real winner on all counts."

Do they follow me: Yes | No

Do I follow them: Yes | No | Now