- Text Size +
Author's Chapter Notes:
Another moon bounce fic. Feel free to alert me to any typos or anything as I was trying to finish this pretty quickly so it wouldn't be the millionth moon bounce fic, you know?

Also, I own nothing but love for how excited Jim seemed about the moon bounce.


As she’s walking to her car, she hears quick footsteps behind her. And then there are loose, soft fingers holding onto her wrist, pulling her gently. She stops and turns, the breeze blowing chunks of hair into her face so her view of him is obstructed. But he’s smiling. No, grinning at her with his thumb and index finger still hanging on to her hand.

He’s just slightly out of breath from the jog across the parking lot when he says, “You know, they haven’t deflated that moon bounce yet.”

He drops her hand then, letting his fingers drag along her skin as he does.

“I think you mean castle,” she says returning his wide smile and turning her body towards his.

“Right, castle,” he says and looks at her with his head bent down a little and his hands now shoved deep in his pockets. “So…Would you like to be the queen and have a little fun?”

She considers the question for a moment, trying to ignore the feeling of expansion in her chest at the sickeningly clichéd idea of being his queen. And she watches the late evening sun catch in his hair as he shifts his weight to his left foot while biting his lip. Then she smiles, a real smile for the first time in weeks.

The muscles in her face ache a little as it spreads and she says, “Can I just put my purse and stuff in my car?”

“Of course.”

So they’re standing outside of their castle, looking tentatively at each other because this feels like something. She’s taken off her cardigan and undone another one of the top buttons on her shirt because it’s warmer out than she thought it would be when she left her apartment that morning. He’s rolling up his sleeves like he used to and he’s loosening the knot on his tie and pulling it over his head.

She tries not to watch his shoulders and his forearms or the way his hair gets a little mussed as he pulls the tie off. But he’s standing there and she can’t stop herself from thinking that in another setting, this would be entirely different. She swallows, looks away, busies herself with sliding off her work shoes and lining them up by the corner of the moon bounce.

Still, he’s smiling over at her. Just the right corner of his mouth upturned and she’s sure he’s seeing the color spilling across her cheeks. Her skin burns even more when she turns back to him and meets his eyes. They’ve turned this spring green suddenly and there’s a look in them that she recognizes from a year ago and suddenly she’s having trouble breathing.

He quickly slides his shoes off as well and then gestures to the opening of the castle. “My lady,” he says and half bows to her.

She ducks her head, suddenly feeling shy and starts to climb up into the moon bounce. But her pantyhose don’t offer much in the way of traction and her right foot slips from the edge. His hands are warm and wide when they find her hips, catching her and supporting her before she loses balance completely.

She looks over her shoulder and smiles apologetically at him. “God, I’m such a klutz,” she says, laughing a little. His hands are still on her hips, strong and stable, and she thinks about letting her other foot slide back down to the pavement and pressing her back against his chest, his palms finding pieces of bare skin where her shirt’s riding up. Instead, she lets him lift her just slightly so that she can make her way into the moon bounce.

Once she’s in, she just stands there and watches him climb up. His movements cause the entire thing to shake and wobble and she has to grab onto the netting to keep herself from falling over.

“Man, it’s been forever since I’ve been in one of these,” he says as he makes his way over to the side of the moon bounce where she’s clinging onto the net.

She almost falls again when his weight right next to her causes even more wobbling, but he catches her with those hands again and she feels his long fingers curling around the hem of her shirt, gripping it just a little as he says in a low whisper, “Whoa, there.”

“Sorry,” she says sheepishly. “It’s obviously been a while for me, too.”

“Yeah.”

They stand there for a while, just bobbing up and down slightly with the natural shift of the structure. Then he says, “So I think the point of the moon bounce is to bounce…”

“Oh, really? They’re not meant for just standing awkwardly like this? Huh.”

He laughs, “You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.” He takes both of her hands and walks slowly backwards, leading her to the center.

She watches his socked feet and her stocking feet and thinks that it’s an oddly intimate sort of thing. She knows she should bring up Karen, make a passing remark just to gauge the situation properly, but she can’t bring herself to even think about her right now.

He starts bouncing slowly, but then quickly gains speed and height. He gestures for her to join him, “Come on, I promise you won’t pop it or anything.”

Soon, they’re both bouncing around like six year olds, crying from laughter when neither one of them can say what it is that’s so funny. She’s just happy, is all. And she feels light and young and every so often they’ll bounce into each other and it’s been so long since they’ve just been alone with each other like this.

After fifteen minutes, they both collapse after one last bounce. She collapses first, falling into the far left corner. He follows quickly, landing half on top of her. His right arm is stretched across her stomach and they’re both breathing heavily. He buries his face in her shoulder and tries to regain composure. She just tries not to notice how their legs are tangled together or how nice it feels to have the weight of his body pressing down on her.

He rolls over onto his back, her arm getting stuck beneath him. He’s still close. The sides of their bodies are just barely touching and when he turns his head to look at her, she can feel his breath on her cheek.

“That was fun,” he pants.

She just nods, afraid of what her voice would sound like if she tried to speak. She tugs on the arm that’s underneath him slightly and he quickly lifts himself up enough so that she can move it back to her side. When she drops it back down beside her, she feels his hand beneath hers. And she feels a sting behind her eyes when his fingers seem to instinctively push through hers and grip tightly.

They stay like that. Staring up at the ceiling of their inflatable castle, their palms flat against each others. They stay until the sun sets and it’s suddenly dark outside. She shivers a little at the cooler nighttime air and the first thing either of them has said in the last couple of hours is him saying, “Oh, are you cold?”

“Um, a little,” she says quietly, because she doesn’t want to get up, to leave, to let go of his hand. She’d rather be freezing than have to leave now.

“Here,” he says and apparently she won’t have to leave because he’s offering his arms to her and pulling her against him. His arms go around her waist and she buries her face in his chest. His hands move up and down on her back to warm her up. The motion causes them to start bouncing up and down slightly.

“Thanks,” she says against the cotton of his dress shirt, but her legs are still cold so she slips one in between his and he automatically presses them closed around her to keep her leg warm.

She can’t pretend that this isn’t anything so she tilts her face up to look at him and says, “Jim, I can’t- What exactly is this? Because I don’t think I can just wake up tomorrow and pretend it didn’t happen. I know you’re good at that, but I’m not, okay? So I really just need you to tell me what this means.”

He lets go of her then and she’s instantly freezing and lonely, but he’s rolling his head to the other side where he can see the night sky through the net and when she tries to reach out for him something stops her. He says, “I don’t know,” and then his head is rolling back to face her and she can’t see his eyes very clearly in the dark. “I just miss you, I guess.”  

He pushes her bangs from her face even though they’re already tucked securely behind her ear. But she moves her head away from his hand. “Don’t just say that and then walk in tomorrow morning with Karen, smiling and pretending like I mean nothing again. Please, just don’t.”

“You’ve never meant nothing,” he whispers roughly, moving his head until his forehead is just barely grazing hers.

“It feels like it these days,” and she almost hates herself for turning her body in towards his, because she’s trying to be mad right now, trying to finally stand up for herself. Courage and honestly and all that stuff that’s supposed to make her a better artist, a better person.

“I never wanted you to feel that way. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” she says, just barely managing to sound as dismissive as she wants to sound. She turns her head away form him and closes her eyes as she half buries her face into the floor of the castle.

She feels him standing up, sending her up and down and up and down. She slowly rolls back over and watches him put his tie and his shoes back on without looking at her. He’s barely more than a shadow with jus the faint light from the parking lot and she just hears the sound of his shoes as he starts to walk away.

“Jim-” She calls after him, sitting up a little.

He stops, his shoulders slumping forward and then he turns around. “Yeah?”

“I just- I miss you, too.”

He laughs softly, “Yeah. I bet you ten bucks that tomorrow neither of us acts like it.”

And then she’s watching his back again and feeling herself sink down a little on the floor of the moon bounce. She slides out of the castle and as she’s working her feet back into her shoes, she wonders if it’ll still be here tomorrow night.


unfold is the author of 102 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 10 members. Members who liked find us a kingdom also liked 1072 other stories.


You must login (register) to review or leave jellybeans