You've always been afraid to settle down, I don't even blame you cause look how, these boys are now

“Here it is,” Nick said, shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun. He looked up at the ride he’d suggested they go to.

The Ferris Wheel.

Kim’s face had been glowing since Nick suggested it, and it was obvious why. The Ferris Wheel had been one of the best parts of their date together for her; as messed up as other attractions at the Amusement Park were, this was something that brought her nothing but joy.

“Oh! What a great idea!” Mary marveled. “The Ferris Wheel! Such a sweet ride!”

“Aww, Nick! Did you want to get us girls up in the air all by ourselves?” Gina cooed, wiggling her eyebrows. “How bold…”

“Come on, cut him some slack,” Dawn said, rolling her eyes.

“Actually, she’s not wrong,” Nick said, getting a few surprised looks from the other girls.

“Oh, is that right?” Rose batted her eyelashes and teased at her hair. It was starting to dry, and her curls were regaining their natural bounciness just in time. “I can get behind that…”

“To be clear,” Nick said, cutting her off before she could get on a roll, “I’m not talking about going with me. Or, just going with me, I should say.”

He turned to Sylvia. “I want everyone to go on the ride with Sylvia at least one time. And if you do that, then I’ll go with you. Sound good?”

“Me?” Sylvia looked surprised. “Why me?”

He stared at her.

“…It’s what we talked about, remember?” He reminded her. “How you need to spend more time with the other girls, and getting to know them? This way, you’ll be locked on a seat with them for a rotation around the wheel. It should be enough time to get some conversations going, right?”

“…I guess, Daddy,” Sylvia admitted.

“So that’s it, foot down,” Nick said firmly. “I’ll be sitting out the first one, so you girls decide who wants to go with Sylvia first.”

“Can I go with you first, then?” Sylvia chirped.

Nick rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Sylvia, that… were you not listening, or…?”

“I’m teasing,” she giggled, batting her eyelashes. “Don’t worry, Daddy, it’s fine. I’m sure those girls are just lining up to go on the ride with me.”

Her voice carried a bitter note in it, like she knew that wasn’t true.

“Well, I’ll sit this one out, then,” Dani said, stepping back and crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s not like I have any interest being held down in a seat with a guy, even if he is my friend.” She shivered. “That’s just… ick. Way too many romantic connotations there.”

Nick could acknowledge that Dani had a point with that. And honestly, he wasn’t sure if he wanted Sylvia and Dani to be locked up together on a bench for an entire rotation either. The seatbelt bar didn’t exactly look like the most restrictive thing in the world, and he doubted Sylvia would be able to keep her mouth shut for very long.

“Okay, we’ve settled on an order!” Kim called over to Nick. She handed him the map, which had their names scrawled on it. “These are the girls who will be going with Sylvia.”

GINA

KIM

MORGANA

MARY

DAWN

ROSE

“I don’t see why I have to go last,” Rose sulked.

“You’ve got to spend the most time with him today, that’s why,” Dawn replied. “We agreed, the girls who’ve spent the least time with Nick get to go first. So that’s Gina, who was in the other group all day, then Kim, who had to be the attendant all morning, then Morgana who only got to be with him on the Bracup Ride, but didn’t get hot and heavy with him in the Body Pillow-”

“We didn’t get hot and heavy!” Mary screeched, her face turning red.

“…Right. Anyway, Mary is before us since she was also in the other group, and then you’ve been hogging him more than me. It all makes sense like that, right?” Dawn summed up.

Rose couldn’t deny that it made sense. But it wasn’t like fairness was the reason for her objection.

“Is this everybody?” Nick wondered. He glanced over at Carly. He thought that she would definitely want to get in on this.

“Sorry, we can’t go,” Marley apologized, smiling sheepishly. “We’d just, well… that’s a lot higher than ten feet, so if Carly went… splat.”

Her reasoning made sense, but Nick wasn’t sure that was the whole story. Carly had a strange look about her that he just couldn’t place. She’d been unusually quiet since they got off the Sploosh! Almost like she was thinking about something.

Then, she walked over to Dani.

“Hey…”

“Hmm?” Dani looked at her in surprise. Carly was staring at the ground, and digging her toe around in the pavement.

Finally she raised her head. “Wanna… wanna go together?” She suggested.

Dani’s eyes widened. “Wait, what, you and me?!” She stared at Carly like the cosplayer had been replaced by a martian. Carly’s hair had shrunk down to a pixie cut (since it would dry faster that way) and without the tan, it reminded Dani of her old hairstyle.

But the face staring back at her was one she’d never seen from her friend before.

“You… you don’t have to make a big deal about it or anything,” she said, trying to make it sound like everything was fine. “I just… I don’t know, I thought… I thought that maybe we could go for a few rotations and just talk, you know?”

“I… I would like that,” Dani said, flooded with emotions she couldn’t quite understand. She was both confused and excited, trying to figure out what Carly was thinking at the moment.

“Ahem.”

Carly’s eyes widened and she whirled around.

“O-oh! Marley!” She gasped. “I, uh… look, when I asked Dani that, I meant…”

“You were willing to leave me to turn into a slime puddle, yeah?” Marley raised her eyebrow. “You get a few rides on the Ferris Wheel, and I turn into sticky gunk?”

“Well… yeah, sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” Carly apologized, her face flushing with shame. “I just-”

“I know,” Marley cut her off, raising her hand. “And hey, look. If it fixes whatever the… this is, between you two? Fine with it. TOTALLY fine with it.”

“Really?” Carly’s eyes widened.

“Yeah, what’s a little sliming between sisters?” Marley shrugged. Then her expression turned serious. “But you owe me, sis. Seriously. You owe me big.”

“Yeah! Yes! Absolutely!” Carly nodded rapidly. “That’s fine, totally fine!”

“Good!” Marley smiled. “Then we don’t have a problem!”

“Actually, what about this?”

Sylvia suddenly popped in between the twins, startling them both.

“Sylvia?”

“Mom?! Err… Sylvia?”

Marley blushed. She might have thought of Sylvia as her mother in many ways, but she’d been trying not to refer to her directly like that, because of how complicated it made their family’s relationship.

Sylvia was fine with it, though. She smiled when she heard it, in fact.

“How about we do this? Marley, you don’t want to melt into slime, right? For obvious reasons, my girl,” Sylvia said, turning to Marley.

“Uh, yeah, obviously,” Marley said, rolling her eyes.

“Well unfortunately, the Ferris Wheel is a ride that can only be ridden by two people at a time,” Sylvia said, sighing in exaggeration and shrugging. “That’s just the way it is. So you can’t just tag along on the seat behind them.”

Marley crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. She kind of expected that would be the case, unfortunately.

Sylvia’s eyes were twinkling.

“However… there IS something that we can do,” she said, casting her eyes towards Nick. “Daddy! Instead of sitting out the first go around the Ferris Wheel, what if you went with Marley? The two of you could go together, and then Carly gets to go with Dani! That could work, right?”

“Hey, why does she get to cut?” Gina pouted.

“Gina…” Dawn sighed and shook her head, casting a disappointed look at the punk girl. “Just let her have this one, okay?”

“…Fine,” Gina sighed, rolling her eyes. “Okay.”

“Great! So everything’s settled!” Holly clapped, glad that they were all on the same page. “So Dani and Carly, you guys are going together, right?”

“Err…” Dani still hadn’t said an explicit “yes” yet, even though that’s what she felt in her heart. Carly looked desperately at her, and that was immediately enough.

“Okay! Yeah, let’s do it!” She said, nodding eagerly. Once the words left her lips, it felt like everything had changed in a second, and now she was more excited than ever before to go on the Ferris Wheel with her crush.

Holly nodded, approving the arrangement herself. “Then, master will go with Marley, and… Gina and Sylvia, right?”

“You got that right,” Gina said, slipping her leather jacket on and grinning at Sylvia. “Let’s go! Let’s get this thing up in the air!”

Gina didn’t really care for Ferris Wheels. She much preferred the rides where she could feel that good old shot of adrenaline.

But she was fine with sitting through a ride with Sylvia if it meant she could get Nick all to herself up in the air. Just the thought of that brought a smile to her face.

She grabbed Sylvia by the collar and practically dragged her towards the wheel as Nick and the other girls followed after her.

“Hello! Welcome to the Ferris Wheel!” Nola greeted them. “A nice, intimate place for couples to get together and have some fun! Don’t worry, there’s plenty of space to get your freak on. Have sex on the chairs? Well, sure you can! Even hand stuff is okay! I like hand stuff quite a bit, in fact-”

“Nola, save it for later, okay?” Sylvia said, trying her best to reassure the hyperactive leprechaun with a smile. She knew how excitable her friend was, but she really didn’t want to put up with this right now. “I know you’re always so eager to talk, Nola, but really it’s not having the effect you think it is.”

“Oh…” Nola’s face fell for a moment. But just for a moment. Then she perked right back up. “…Well, that’s okay! As long as everybody else is having fun! This is a really fun ride, I mean it! Fun, fun, fun fun fun! You all have some fun, okay? And remember, it’s two to a seat! No trying to get in any threesomes, or we’ll have a problem!”

She gave Nick a saucy wink as he walked onto the platform with Marley. It was a little awkward, since they so rarely had any one on one time together.

“Just three pairs, then? Well, alright!” Nola chirped. “Let’s get this cranking!”

“Actually, can we all have seats apart from one another?” Carly suggested suddenly. “I don’t want… well… I mean, if this is about talking and stuff… it would be kind of weird to eavesdrop, don’t you guys think?”

This wasn’t the kind of Ferris Wheel where the passengers were enclosed in their own little compartment. They were right there with their feet dangling out; in a situation like that, well… it would be very easy for someone who was nearby to hear.

“Carly…” Marley stared pointedly at her sister, reminding her of some of the restrictions on that idea. “I really don’t want to be turned back into a slime while suspended in midair, I’m just letting you know that right now.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, it doesn’t have to be that far apart,” Carly assured her. “Just a few cars’ worth, that’s all. And can we get on last?”

Nick was surprised at how bossy Carly was being. Usually, she was the kind of girl who was completely fine with taking things at a casual pace, and going with the flow. But she was really taking command right now.

Dani was surprised herself. But she didn’t have a problem with that.

A more aggressive Carly was actually kind of intriguing for her.

The groups all got on the Ferris Wheel. Gina and Sylvia went on first, since Gina wanted to get this over with as fast as possible. It didn’t matter that she’d have to wait for Nick to get off the ride either, she was just impatient.

Nick and Marley got on next, waiting for a few cars to go by. And then, finally, it was time for Dani and Carly to get on.

“Uh… which side do you want?” Carly asked, scratching her head.

Dani blinked, not sure what the difference was. Now that it was just the two of them (and Nola) Carly was being almost deferential. A complete flip from before.

It was weird.

“I’ll, uh… take the right side, I guess?” She shrugged, sitting down. Carly sat next to her, and the machine began to start going again.

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a little bit. Dani just stared at the cosplaying cheerleader, wondering when Carly would open up.

The whole point of going on this ride was so that we could talk, right? She thought. Had she gotten that wrong? Maybe Carly just wanted to go on the ride with her so they could have some fun.

Seeing no change, Dani decided that unless they wanted to spend the whole ride in an awkward silence, she should be the one to say something. “Carly?”

“Ah! What? Oh… right…” Carly’s cheeks lit up. “Um… sorry. I was just… I just thinking. I was just thinking! ...Sorry.”

“Thinking about what?” Dani asked gently. Her heart was pounding in confusion. She’d never seen Carly like this before. Most of the time, the cosplayer was larger than life; in a lot of ways, crushing on Carly was like yearning after the sun. She seemed so much more **** now, though, and in a completely different way than when Dani had comforted her over what had happened to her daughter.

“I was thinking about that ride… the water one,” Carly said, looking into Dani’s eyes. Dani thought she could see tears. “When you fell into the water… I got so scared. I thought… I thought the sirens had gotten you, and you were going to drown.”

“Oh…” Dani’s eyes widened. She tried to laugh it off. “Hey, come on, it wasn’t a big deal! This is Harem Hotel, remember? There’s no way Dakota would just let me die!”

“Yeah, I know that,” Carly sighed. It was one of the reasons she felt so ashamed and embarrassed, because that had completely slipped her mind. “But in that moment… I was just so overwhelmed, you know? I didn’t know what to think, so I…”

She turned away and looked down at the ground beneath their feet. They’d actually gone pretty high already. In fact, the car was already stopping, most likely for Gina and Sylvia to have their “alone time” up at the top.

“Thank you for worrying me,” Dani said, patting her friend on the shoulder. “But I’m alright. You saw how fast I swam, right?”

Carly shook her head. She still wasn’t looking Dani’s way.

“It wasn’t just that,” she said quietly, and turned back to her friend. Dani’s eyes widened when she saw Carly’s face.

It was bright red. She was also biting her lip.

“When that siren girl… when she kissed you… I don’t know, it felt so strange!” Carly held her hand over her chest. “I don’t know why, but it did! It’s like… I didn’t like it! I hated it, but I don’t know why! I’ve never felt this way before!”

Dani’s heart was pounding in her chest. What was Carly saying right now? She leaned in, eyes wide as she tried to get a better sense of what her friend was saying. And a part of her secretly hoped that maybe… just maybe…

“Felt what way?” She asked, swallowing.

“Felt… jealous.”

It was such a soft word. Barely above a whisper. But the Ferris Wheel started moving just as she said it, so Dani could hardly hear it.

But she did.

“…Jealous?” She asked, just to make sure. “You… you were jealous?”

“I know, it sounds crazy,” Carly said, shaking her head. “Me? Jealous? I never get jealous! I’ve slept with guys in open relationships, I’ve watched guys I hook up with start dating other girls, and Nick?! He sleeps with everyone now, and I couldn’t care less!”

“…But you were jealous when you saw me kissing that siren?” Dani asked as the Ferris Wheel pulled to a stop again. “Kissing another girl?”

She found it hard to believe. But the desperation in Carly’s voice was real. She looked utterly confused, just as confused as Dani felt.

“I don’t… I don’t know,” Carly muttered, shaking her head. “I thought… I thought we were all having fun today… and then, when I saw you fall into the water, it’s like my heart stopped beating. Then when you surfaced, and you were safe… I was overwhelmed with relief.”

“Well, yeah, I think that’s natural,” Dani said, rolling her eyes. “You’d feel the same way if it was Mary, or Rose, or anybody, right?”

“Yeah…” Carly nodded, but she didn’t sound very convincing. While she knew that she’d be terrified for them, and relieved when they were okay, there was something much more visceral about how she’d felt in that moment.

And it didn’t explain her jealousy at seeing that siren kiss Dani.

Only one thing could explain that. But it couldn’t be. That wasn’t Carly! That wasn’t who Carly Granger was at all!

…Was it?

“Dani… this is wrong,” she said, shaking her head. She scooted away as best she could with the bar over her lap, trying to get away from the other girl. “You… saying stuff like this to you… you still… you…”

They hadn’t spoken about it in days. But they both knew.

“You still have feelings for me, right?” Carly asked. She didn’t mean it to come out like a plea.

Dani’s eyes widened, not expecting the conversation to actually go in the direction she’d been secretly hoping for.

Embarrassed, she softly nodded her head.

“…Yeah,” she admitted. “I know, it’s crazy, but-”

“It’s not crazy!” Carly exclaimed. The Ferris Wheel jerked up again, and she grasped the bar for support. “It’s just… I mean… after everything that’s happened…”

She took a deep breath and exhaled again. She really wasn’t sure what she meant to say here.

“…I shouldn’t have asked you onto this ride,” she said finally, hanging her head. “This was a huge mistake. Knowing how you feel about me… knowing how romantically-charged something like this would be… it’s just leading you on.”

She couldn’t return Dani’s feelings, after all. She wasn’t attracted to women.

“I don’t feel like it was a mistake,” Dani replied firmly. She reached over and placed her hand over Carly’s on the bar. “It’s been too long since we’ve had a real conversation, Carly. That isn’t a mistake. As for the romantic stuff… it’s fine. I’m a strong girl. You don’t have to worry about me.”

The Ferris Wheel stopped gain, and this time, the girls were at the top. This was their moment in perfect privacy, at the peak of the wheel, with no one to see them.

Carly stared at Dani’s smiling face in amazement. Even heartbroken, even resigned to sadness, she could still smile so brilliantly.

“I think I’m in love with you!” Carly blurted out.