33Author's Note: This was written in response to a prompt made by jenn0bi on tumblr a couple of months ago. It's taken me a ridiculously long time to get it written, but I got completely carried away with it, and it became LONG. It's been several years since I've been to Disney World, so I had to do a lot of research to refresh my memory. I know some things aren't completely current and accurate, but most of that was a deliberate choice for creative reasons. Still, if you see any glaring mistakes I've made, feel free to point them out. There will be at least three more parts after this one. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Disney owns pretty much everything in this story except the scenarios.
Part 1
It was their last day at Disney World and Riley had talked her parents into letting her and Lucas park hop while the two of them took the kids back to the Magic Kingdom. They'd visited all four parks over the course of the week, and Auggie and Ava had decided that that was the one they wanted to revisit on their final day.
So Riley and Lucas were on their own. At least until 3:00 o'clock, when they were supposed to meet up with the others to spend the rest of the day with them.
They'd decided to hit Hollywood Studios first, so Cory had dropped them off at the gate in the rental car before continuing on with everyone else to Magic Kingdom.
Once they'd made it through the queue to get inside, they went to the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster first, but only to get Fast Passes to ride it later on. They'd just had breakfast at the hotel before they came and neither of them thought it was a good idea to take on the thrill ride so soon after eating.
"So, Star Tours or Toy Story first?" Riley asked as they maneuvered out of the crowd gathered around the kiosk. "The lines for both will probably fill up fast."
"You want to do Toy Story, don't you?" he guessed with a smile.
"I want do whichever one you want to do," she countered as they meandered towards the other side of the park.
"Well, I want to do whatever you want to do," he returned, playfully nudging her with his shoulder.
Riley smilingly rolled her eyes. "One of us has to choose, and I like them both, so you pick."
"Fine. I piiick...Toy Story."
"You're just saying that because you think it's what I want to do," she charged lightly.
"Now why would I do a thing like that?" he queried with mock innocence.
Thrusting her chin up at him, she smiled beatifically. "Because you love me," she lilted in answer, moving in closer to his side as they walked.
"Well, I can't argue with that," he said in agreement while putting his arm around her to tuck her in closer. Looking down at her through his lashes, he returned her smile then leaned in to kiss her upturned lips. Riley responded to the sweetness of his kiss, anchoring herself with an arm around his waist, while her other hand reached up to tangle her fingers with his at her shoulder.
They were both completely oblivious to the fact that kissing while walking nearly made them bump into people several times, but those people just smiled at the couple indulgently and altered their course to keep them from colliding with them.
They did go ride Toy Story Mania. Lucas hadn't been wrong about it being the one Riley wanted to do first. It was one of her favorite rides from all of the parks.
There was already a bit of a line waiting outside, even though they'd gotten there when the park opened and had only made that one short detour along the way. It was a popular ride and the crowds had increased with the arrival of summer, as they always did, so relatively long lines at the attractions had been something they'd had to contend with all week.
This particular line wasn't that bad though, because once they made it inside the building, the queue wound around different displays that looked like giant toys set up everywhere; on the floor, the walls, and even on the ceiling. There were stacked building blocks and dominoes, giant game boards on the ceiling, towering structures put together from tinker toys, coloring book pages on the walls, a cabin made of lincoln logs, chains of monkeys linking arms, and they'd all been built on a scale that made the onlookers feel like they were just another toy among them in Andy's room.
There were things everywhere to look at and marvel over to help pass the time while the line shuffled forward, and it was all cheerfully accompanied by the theme music from the Toy Story movies playing in the background.
Even though they'd already seen it all once when they were there earlier in the week, Riley still enjoyed looking it all over and discovering small details she'd missed the first time.
"Oh, look, Ants in the Pants," she pointed out a giant game box with a picture of a bell-shaped pair of overalls with red ants inside them on the front. "Did you ever play that when you were a kid?"
Standing behind her, Lucas was caging her in with his arms on either side of her, his hands grasping the railing that separated them from the whimsical display on the other side.
"Doesn't look familiar," he shook his head, his jaw brushing against the hair at her crown. "If I did, I don't remember it."
Riley rested her back against him, comfortable within the circle of his arms. "We had an old game that belonged to my dad when he was a kid. There were these plastic ants- that really didn't look much like ants at all- and they had a sort of tail on the back of them-"
"Ants with tails?" he questioned in amusement.
"Well, they weren't really supposed to be tails, it was just this extra little thing on the back that you pushed on to force it down, and when you let it go, the ant sprang up in the air. The object was to try and aim it so it landed inside the overalls. My dad used to try do to all these trick shots because he thought he had so much experience over me and it was just a kids' game, but that usually made him miss and I ended up winning all the time." She laughed in remembrance and Lucas chuckled along with her.
"I don't guess I ever played it."
Riley tsked lightly. "You had such a deprived childhood. I mean, first no Disney, and now no Ants in the Pants?"
"I know," he agreed with pretended woe. "All I had were video games and Cuddle Bunnies. I was very deprived."
She made as if to poke him with her elbow in punishment for the slight mockery, and he jerked reflexively to protect his mid-section, laughing. But in the next moment, he wrapped his arms around her from behind in a conciliatory hug, and they rocked back and forth in tandem.
The line moved forward a bit and it brought the next configuration of giant toys into view. They spent the rest of their time in the queue pointing things out in the displays all around them that the other might have missed. It secretly tickled Riley that Lucas knew the significance of almost as many objects from the Toy Story movies as she did. That was only true because they'd 'crammed' before the trip.
When she'd found out Lucas had never been to Disney World before, she'd made it her personal mission to get him included on their trip there. Her parents had planned the vacation as a last family outing before she moved out to go to college. When she'd first asked Lucas to come along he'd said he didn't want to intrude on their family time, but after six years of being close friends, the last three of them spent dating, he'd practically become a member of her family. He was over at her house all the time, and he and her dad had even become close once he'd stopped viewing Lucas as the single biggest threat to her virtue. Auggie adored him, her mother indulged him, he was pretty much an honorary Matthews, she'd told him.
Once he'd agreed, she'd gone to work on her parents. She thought the argument that had finally swayed them was that this was going to be her and Lucas's last summer together before they parted to go to separate colleges, and she'd wanted to make the most of it. Of course, if he went, Auggie had argued that his girlfriend should get to go too, and that had almost derailed the entire thing. But in the end, it was finally decided that they both could come as long as their parents were okay with it. Neither of them had a particularly stellar home life, and her parents were admittedly softies.
It was when she and Lucas had been making plans for the trip that she'd found out he'd never even seen that many Disney movies. He'd seen a few when he was a kid of course, but that was it. And he didn't remember that much about those. After learning that, she'd insisted that they watch every Disney movie in her collection- which was a considerable number- and for the ones she didn't own, she'd rented every one she could get her hands on. It wouldn't mean as much if he wasn't familiar with the characters and didn't know what it was all about, she'd told him.
She might've felt a little guilty for making him sit through all those movies- especially the princess ones, which hadn't exactly been his cup of tea- but he'd seemed to enjoy them for the most part. And she thought it had enhanced his experience at the parks to understand all the little details that you just wouldn't get unless you knew the story behind them.
When their waiting was over and they finally reached the head of the line, they picked up a pair of 3D glasses from the bin and were ushered onto a moving conveyor by a smiling Disney employee.
The cars that carried everyone through the ride approached the entry platform in a non-stop rotation, having just become empty after their last occupants exited further down the platform. Each car held four people, but the back of the seat was a tall partition that essentially divided it into a two-seater on each side, with neither side being able to see the other. The cars ran alongside the moving conveyor without stopping, like they did at so many of the rides there, and anyone boarding had a limited time to get off the conveyor and into the car before it disappeared into the depths of the attraction.
Lucas made sure to stay behind Riley, and he put one hand under her elbow and the other at her hip to help her into the car, while at the same time watching his own step as he hopped off the conveyor behind her. He'd lost count of the number of times she'd stumbled while attempting that maneuver over the course of the week, and he didn't want her to trip.
Once they were seated , they kept their hands clear as the safety bar automatically lowered across their laps, then they slipped on their glasses and reached for the shooting mechanisms mounted on the dashboard of their car. There was one for each of them and they were shaped like small cartoon-ish looking cannons with a stationary wheel on the back that was used to guide its direction, and a short string with a hand pull on the end dangling from the center of it, used to make the gun fire.
Riley immediately began 'warming up', taking hold of the guidance wheel with both hands and jerking the gun left and right, then left again, and up.
"I'm gonna beat you this time. You're goin' down, Friar," she challenged playfully.
"We'll see about that, City Girl. If there's one thing we Texans know how to do, it's shoot a gun, you know," he threw back. The statement was blatantly false. He'd only shot a real gun maybe three or four times in his life, but he wasn't gonna admit to that now.
The car went through the inner doors into darkness and a change of music playing overhead. It was still theme music from the movie, but it was a different version than what was playing outside.
The ride was basically a multi-screened first person shooter video game, with screens that were almost as big as the ones seen in a movie theater. Their car stopped and turned them to face the first screen, where they were instructed how to use their toy cannons and allowed to take some practice shots, then it spun them around and moved along to the first actual playing screen.
In this first game, their cannons were launching eggs at the images of pigs, cows, chickens, and ducks that were arranged around a virtual barnyard. Each animal had a target on it that showed how many points they would win for downing it. Some targets were stationary, while others were moving around on the screen.
As soon as their car spun them to face the projected image, Lucas and Riley started jerking on their pull-strings to fire their cannons. The projectiles they were launching were only images and not something that was actually coming out of the barrels, but the virtual eggs looked as if they were flying in from outside the screen, entering the picture from the direction they were aiming their guns. Riley's eggs were red and Lucas's were blue so they could track where their shots were landing. Being able to aim accurately enough to hit the targets with higher point value played a big part in how many points they were able to rack up, but their ability to manipulate the pull-strings in quick succession was a factor in it too.
"Hey, Riley," Lucas called over the music after they'd been firing for a few seconds. "If you have trouble shooting them just pretend they're zombie chickens," he jokingly suggested, referencing the video game, Zombies Eat Your Brains, that they'd played together once upon a time. When first faced with the chickens in that game, Riley had been reluctant to shoot them because they were too cute. But when they'd morphed into zombie chickens she hadn't had any qualms whatsoever about shooting them.
Riley laughed at the reminder. "We're not shooting them, we're just throwing eggs at them, so that's okay," she called back.
"Okay." He accepted her logic with a smiling nod, his attention never veering from the screen.
The entire time they'd been shooting, Hamm, the pig from the movie had been speaking, giving them tips to improve their shots and commenting on their progress. When they'd been playing for almost 30 seconds, his voice was joined with a few of the other toys' as they started counting down the final five seconds left in the game. Riley started pulling more feverishly on the firing cord to get in as many shots as she could, but the frenzied tension of trying to beat the clock threw off her aim, so most of her last shots missed their targets.
When the barnyard animals reached 'one' in their countdown, their car swung them away and moved down the track to the next screen, rounding a curve, and throwing in a spin or two along the way. Riley used the travel time to look at the small screen in the middle of their dashboard showing what each of their scores were so far. Hers was 14,500 and his was 19,200.
"Still think you're gonna beat me?" he baited with a grin.
"Just wait, Friar. I got this," she boasted back, making him laugh.
The next screen was filled with the image of a volcano, fiery lava flowing down its side. A bit incongruously placed, there were rows of balloons at the base of the volcano, set amidst red waves of lava. The targets were the leaves on the palm trees clustered around it, various dinosaurs popping up and meandering around, and the balloons.
They were launching darts from their cannons this time. When they popped the balloons with their projections, each one appeared as though it was filled with water, and an explosion of confetti-like spray flew out at them from the screen, courtesy of the 3D effects. In addition to the image of flying water droplets, actual mists of water poofed out at them from some unknown source. Each time she got sprayed in the face it made Riley giggle. The targets on the dinosaurs and the tall peak of the volcano offered more points, but she couldn't help but aim for the balloons to keep the mists coming at them.
Unbeknownst to her, those were the targets Lucas aimed for as well, because her laughter made him smile.
It was Rex the dinosaur who led the countdown to the last five seconds this time. Riley tried not to let the ticking clock rattle her, but her flurry of last-minute shots still went a little off-kilter when she tried to put on an extra burst of speed.
The countdown ended and they were off to the next screen. Now Riley's score was 26,600 and his was 27,900.
"I'm catching up with you," she sing-songed to Lucas, smiling smugly.
"We're not done yet," he returned in the same cheerful manner, and they both snickered.
The next game had them shooting baseballs at china plates. The little green army men from the movie were featured in this one, and there were army jeeps and helicopters carrying some of the plates around the screen. Hitting the target on the plate made it shatter, so the tiny clicks of their busily shooting cannons were accompanied by the tinkling sound of breaking china. Occasionally the broken shards would fly towards them in 3D. Riley and Lucas both jerked back when one particularly realistic-looking fragment appeared to come right at their faces, and they looked at each other briefly and laughed.
At their fourth stop they found Buzz Lightyear and a one-dimensional rocket. In this one, they were tossing rings at rows of identical green alien squeak-toys in a virtual game of ring toss. To add to the level of difficulty, the aliens popped in and out of holes in the rocket like the animals in a whack-a-mole game.
When they left that screen to go to the next one, their scores sat at Riley- 43,100, Lucas-56,300.
"No way!" she exclaimed. "How'd you get so far ahead?"
"I told ya. Texans. Guns..." He ended with a breezy shrug as if the whole thing was a given, and Riley reached up between them to push at his shoulder, making him sway away from her with a laugh.
Fittingly, the final game's setting was the old west with Woody and Jessie the cowgirl. There was a saloon that looked like a cardboard cut-out along with other similar buildings from an old west town, and they were all set in a desert landscape with red clay peaks and cacti all around. 'You've Got A Friend In Me' changed to an arrangement played by a tinkling bar piano in the background.
"Okay, Cowboy. Time to put your money where your mouth is," Riley challenged, planting herself more firmly in her seat and hunching over her cannon's controls in readiness.
A renewed determination to beat him overtook her, and she zeroed in on her targets and started rapidly firing the moment their car turned them toward the screen. They were shooting darts with suction cups on the ends this time, and the bullseye targets were popping up all around the buildings. She tried to focus in on the ones that were worth 1000 points and get all those she could.
Lucas glanced at her and grinned at the fierce concentration on her face. She was so cute when the tiger came out in her. It was one of the reasons he'd started calling her that in the first place. He'd been surprised to learn she had that fierceness within her. It was so different from her usual sweet and cheery demeanor. At times like these he enjoyed her competitive spirit when it showed itself because even now, after knowing her so well, for so long, it seemed so unexpected from her.
He spent almost as much time watching her play as he did on his own game, and when he realized it, he tried to refocus his attention on the screen. His own competitive spirit wouldn't allow him to just sit back and let her beat him. He loved her, but come on.
The car slowly crawled toward the next screen, hanging right beside the current one. Bunnies, buzzards, and other desert creatures popped up among the dunes presenting targets, but after only a short time, the scene changed into that of a mine with multiple entrances, and mine carts started rolling out of them one after the other. The targets on the front of all of them were for 500 points each, but in seconds they changed to 1000 points each. This was where it was the easiest to rack up the most points because they didn't have to track so many targets, and it was obvious where the next one would be coming from.
Riley concentrated on catching every one of them that came out of the entrance right in front of her and a few from the entrance next to it besides. They were coming out fast so it was no easy feat.
Woody's voice announced that it was their last game, and the final target popped up in front of them. There was a red one on her side and a blue one on Lucas's, and they were both marked with a large green 500 in the center. The target stayed in place without moving and the voices of the toys encouraged them to go as fast as they could and keep hitting it. A bell rang each time they managed to get it, so a constant, quick *ding ding ding ding* accompanied their flurry of shots.
Lucas and Riley laughed as they competed with each other to successively tug on the pull string more quickly than the other. Just when Riley's arm grew so tired she wasn't sure how much longer she could do it, an onscreen explosion blew everything up and a resulting blastwave of air bursted in their faces. It was a release of tension and a fun effect that made her giggle as she relaxed back in her seat.
Her eyes immediately went to their scoreboard and her arms went up in victory at what she saw. "Yes!" she crowed triumphantly. "I told you you were going down!" She punctuated the boastful cry with a downward swing of her arm that sent a pointed finger in his direction.
"Yeah, yeah," he drawled in reluctant acceptance. He couldn't be too mad about it, because her gleeful satisfaction was threatening to make him smile.
"You just got outgunned by a city girl, Cowboy. What up!" The last was sang out at a higher register than her normal voice, and she made a pointing motion with both fingers this time, her upper body bobbing around in a seated dance of victory.
Lucas shook his head, his lips quirked at the corners. "It was just by 400 points, City Girl. That's not outgunned by much."
"Doesn't matter. Outgunned is outgunned," she insisted, still doing her dance, and shaking her head in a bopping counterpoint.
"Okay, fine," he smilingly conceded. "You're the queen of toy cannons. Happy now?"
"Exceedingly," she replied with a wide smile. And in the next second she softened her teasing with the consolation prize of a kiss to his cheek.
When they got off the ride and made their way out of the attraction, they saw that they only had fifteen minutes to get back to the roller coaster or their passes would expire. So they sped up their pace as they headed back to the other side of the park, holding hands tightly so they wouldn't get separated. The park had been open for well over an hour now and the crowds milling about had grown in size; they definitely didn't want to lose each other amongst all the other Disney-goers.
They made it just in the nick of time. As they approached the stucco arch with an upside down roller coaster car hanging at its center, the sounds of heavy-metal rock, the roar of the roller coaster racing by on its track, and the muted screams of its riders met their ears.
It was an indoor track, and a towering red and white guitar adorned the outside of the building where the queues were formed. They bumped their wristbands against the scanner when they got there and were ushered into the shorter line made up of the others who held Fast Passes for that time. They didn't have to wait long at all, and there was all kinds of music memorabilia inside the building to look at while they moved forward, so it seemed like they got to the front of the line in no time.
As they reached the front, right before going in for boarding, there was a Disney-esque introduction with Aerosmith themselves. A mock-up of a recording studio was set up at the side of the queue and the music group appeared as though they were behind the glass in the sound booth. Their 'manager' apologized to everyone waiting, saying they had to leave to get to a concert, but Steven Tyler protested. He didn't want to leave all these people behind, so he made the manager promise to get them all backstage passes. The manager agreed, and told everyone that the concert was all the way across town, but she'd gotten them a really fast car.
When they were ushered through the final door to the actual ride, a line of roller coaster cars was waiting in what appeared to be a narrow parking garage, complete with concrete walls, chain link fences, and a large rolled-up garage door. The lead car on the train had a nose on it like an old fifties Cadillac or some similar car, while the last one had a rear bumper with tall tail-lights and fins. It was supposed to represent a stretch limo that would be transporting them to the concert awaiting them.
The last stage of waiting was dividing everyone up into lines of four on the boarding platform, each line sectioned off with metal railings on either side to designate which car they would be getting into. Riley and Lucas were directed to stand in row three and in a few moments they were joined by a couple of older guys that would be the backseat riders in their car.
The last train that had filled with passengers was sitting motionlessly at the dark entrance of the ride, waiting to launch. A growing din of musical sound seemed to rev up the tension as a screeching countdown started from five. At the count of one, the cars shot forward with a squeal of illusionary tires and disappeared into the abyss of darkness, a few of its riders already screaming. The ride was said to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds, so Riley couldn't blame them at all.
Butterflies were making themselves felt in her stomach. She loved roller coasters, she really did, she wouldn't ride one every year with her dad if she didn't. But the nervous anticipation got her every time, no matter how many times she rode one. And this particular ride was pretty intense. The launch alone had enough force to bring tears to your eyes, and it went upside down three times once it got underway.
In the few minutes they waited for the next train to arrive, Riley reached behind her to catch hold of Lucas's hands. She played with them there for a few seconds, one on either side of her, then brought them up to wrap around her waist.
Lucas willingly complied and hugged her close to his front. "Scared?" he murmured in her ear.
"Just nervous. I'll get over it once we get going," she assured him.
"Like you did last time?" he teased, calling to mind the way she'd clutched at him and had done her best to hide away against him when they'd ridden this earlier in the week.
"Stop it, I was fine," she protested, and he chuckled in response, giving her a squeeze with his arms.
Their train arrived, pulling to a stop at the edge of the platform, and Riley tried to calm her jitters as she climbed aboard. Lucas got in beside her, and after a few moments the safety bars came down over their shoulders.
Lucas laid his hand on the seat between them, palm upward. "Just hold my hand if you're scared," he offered bolsteringly.
Riley grabbed it immediately, and laced her fingers with his in a tight grip. "Don't let go," she said plaintively.
"Never," he promised, and she turned her head to exchange a warm smile with him.
Their train moved forward to the entrance and idled there just as the previous one had. A DJ's voice came from the vicinity of the dash area, making it sound like a car radio, and he talked about the jammed traffic conditions. Giving a radio call sign, he told them to stay tuned.
Riley's leg jiggled up and down as they were forced to wait another few nerve-wracking moments, and Lucas gave her hand a squeeze. His stomach was fluttering too, but his was more like coiled anticipation.
Finally, the slide of an electric guitar revved up in sound, just like before, and the countdown for their ride began.
Five...
Four...
Three...
Two...
One!
The car shot forward as if from a rocket launcher, and even though she'd known it was coming, it ripped a shriek from Riley's throat. She could hear Lucas laugh in the darkness, and she sheepishly joined him.
Aerosmith's song 'Nine Lives' blared all around them as they flew up an incline, down around a curve, and then back up to climb higher. As they crested the peak and sped down the other side, the momentum sent them up into the first inversion.
Riley screamed again, long and hard, and she held onto Lucas's hand for dear life as they were thrown into the high-speed flip. Reaching across her body, she held on with that hand too, blood rushing to her head to make her momentarily dizzy.
They swooped down and banked hard right, various road signs, palm trees, and green interstate signs whizzing past to represent the highway they were supposed to be taking to the concert. Down and up, down and up, they traversed over some smaller hills, then up they whooshed, up and into the second loop. It was impossible to hold in her scream and Riley let it loose. It rang out in chorus with Lucas's deeper-voiced "Whoooo! Hoo-hooo! Yeeeah!"
They flew downward out of the loop, into another sharp curve that left her unsure whether they were upright yet, and before she could quite figure it out they were climbing back up again. The track straightened out for a brief moment when they shot through the 'O' of the Hollywood sign, and on the other side they dipped down sharply, leaving her stomach behind, then sped into an upward curve that continued to climb.
The third inversion had Riley squeezing her eyes shut, her head turned aside, and her whole body was twisted as far towards Lucas's as the shoulder harness would allow. Her scream melded with that of the other passengers and Lucas continued to whoop his enjoyment.
They whipped around the loop and down they came, the track curving out and down some more. A green highway sign reading 'Civic Center' flitted past, the long blast of a car horn and other traffic noises blending with the hard-rocking sound of the music that was still surrounding them. There was a long curve that seemed to continue on for forever, around, around, around, then a quick swing up, and down, making Riley let out her own whoop of appreciation.
A sign saying 'V.I.P. Parking' sent them racing towards a tunnel and it was a straight stretch in from there. The cars slowed and finally stopped, the lyrics of Aerosmith's song bouncing off the concrete walls that looked like another parking garage.
As the car crept forward to the tunnel exit, Lucas reached over and gently pried Riley's fingers from his wrist, where they were threatening to cut off his circulation. Riley looked at him and they laughed.
"Sorry," she apologized breathlessly, her heart still pounding from the exhilaration of the ride.
"Hey, if I can't take a few dents from your fingernails then what use am I to you?" he joked.
Riley looked down at his wrist in concern. "Did I really gouge you with my nails?"
"It's okay. I'll live," he dismissed with a laugh.
Unwilling to let it go so easily, Riley brought their joined hands up and turned his wrist so she could inspect the damage. Placing her lips on the visible indentations her nails had made in his skin, she kissed each one softly.
"Better?"
As her soft doe eyes came up to his in question, Lucas swallowed hard and tried to even out the hitch in his breath. "Better," he agreed huskily.
The banked fire in his eyes made Riley's heart speed up to match the fluttering pulse she'd felt against her lips, and she got lost in their mossy green heat. He slowly leaned towards her, his intent obvious, and she reached to meet him half-way, then—
The safety bars curled around their shoulders pulled them up short.
Surprise and confusion registered on their faces for a brief instant and then they both laughed. Riley had almost forgotten where they even were, a feat that should've been impossible with the loud music still rocking all around them.
Lucas brought their joined hands up to his face and placed his kiss there instead, murmuring, "To be continued."
The raspy promise and the soft feel of his lips on the back of her hand made Riley's heart stutter again, and she could see now why her own kiss against his wrist had put the glowing heat in his eyes the way it had. She looked forward to the moment when they could continue it. Hopefully somewhere much more private.
When they exited the ride, they were directed to a short passageway. They knew from previous experience that it would take them to a room with a large screen where the promised Aerosmith concert would be playing on it.
Lucas chuckled when he saw her in the relative light of the hallway. "You're looking pretty wild, there, tiger," he teased, reaching up to smooth her hair down as they walked.
Riley's hands automatically went to her head, where they bumped against his as she tried to do the task herself. "Yeah, well, that tends to happen when you're flying around upside down at Mach 10," she said wryly.
Lucas laughed. "It was hardly Mach 10, Riles."
"Couldn't prove it by me," she returned, attempting to comb the tangles out of her hair with her fingers.
The passage wasn't long at all, and they reached the room at its end in only moments. They'd stayed to watch a little of the projected concert when they were there before, so they were going to pass it up this time.
As they moved on, another short passageway brought them out into the roller coaster gift shop, where rock and roll was the obvious theme. Guitars, drums, and amplifiers were artfully placed around the store as decor, contributing to its ambiance. In the way of merchandise, the shop offered t-shirts, caps, and other items with the Rock n' Roller Coaster logo on them, but there were also others that were emblazoned with Aerosmith's and other band's names.
"I wanted to look at these tops again real quick," Riley told Lucas, indicating a display of cute rocker-chick clothing.
"Okay. I'm gonna look around for something to get Zay," he replied.
They separated, and Riley maneuvered through the crowd to get to the wall where the tops she'd looked at the other day were hanging. Everything in that section reminded her of the style of clothing Maya used to wear back in middle school, and Riley thought it would be fun to get her best friend something that would remind her of that time.
As she was looking through the selection of fitted tops and t-shirts, she thought she heard her name.
"Hey, Riley," Lucas called from several feet away.
Turning to find him in the mass of people, she burst out laughing when she singled him out. He'd put on one of the oversized mad hatter-type top hats that were on sale in the shop, and it had a long mop of black synthetic hair, modeled after Aerosmith's lead singer, straggling out from underneath it. Immediately she reached into her pocket for her phone, still laughing.
She snapped his picture while he posed with both hands up next to his shoulders, the first two fingers on each hand forming a V, and his tongue hanging out of his open mouth. "That is so you," she told him.
"You think?" he grinned back. "So I should grow my hair out and dye it jet black?"
Riley pretended to consider. "Your mama would skin you alive," she teasingly concluded, the expression one she'd heard used by members of his family more than once.
"You're right," he agreed wryly. "No rock career for me then I guess."
She made a mock expression of sympathy. "You'll find another dream to pursue," she consoled him.
They shared a grin and Lucas moved back into the throng to continue looking.
Riley turned back to the clothing display and browsed through a selection of black and red tops sporting different band names. When she came across one with the extended tongue of the Rolling Stone emblem, she seized on it and looked for Maya's size. Pulling one out in a Small, she held it up to look at it.
A bittersweet smile curved her lips as her fingers brushed over the shiny red lips and protruding tongue, and the sudden burst of nostalgia brought tears to her eyes. Because it reminded her of how much time had gone by. And now they were nearly grown and would be heading to different colleges soon. Not for the first time, she wondered how she was going to embark on this new journey in her life without her Peaches at her side. She was happy Maya was pursuing her dream, and Lucas too. It was just going to be so hard—
"You look deep in thought. Did you find something?"
Lucas's question startled her from her melancholy musings, and she threw a brief self-conscious look in his direction before focusing her swimming gaze back on the top.
"Yeah." She cleared her throat to ease the thickness there. "I think I'll get this for Maya."
Lucas looked at it, noting its familiarity. "Didn't she used to have one like that?"
"Yeah, back in middle school. She gave it to Auggie when Shawn got her all those new clothes and she changed her style. I thought it would be a nice reminder."
Lucas nodded, but then recalled, "I thought you already got her something though. Yesterday at EPCOT, didn't you get her that Frozen figurine with the two sisters?"
"I did, but that's okay." What she didn't say was that she was sort of feeling the need to shower Maya with little reminders of her. If she was surrounded by things that reminded her of Riley when she was in her new dorm room, then maybe Maya wouldn't completely forget about her and move off in a direction that didn't include her.
She felt the need to do that with Lucas too. She was going to miss them both so much she wasn't sure how she was going to survive it. And she was afraid that the bonds between them would be stretched so thin by the distance and new lives they'd be making for themselves that they might eventually break. The thought of either of them drifting away from her was her greatest fear, and there would be so many new people entering their lives that she could easily imagine herself being forgotten and replaced.
Standing next to her, Lucas thought he saw moisture glimmering at the corner of her eye and frowned. Surging forward so he could see her face, he confirmed that her eyes were shining with tears.
"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked immediately, setting aside the t-shirt he was holding and turning her gently to face him.
No longer able to hide the wetness from him, Riley rolled her eyes at herself, shaking her head and giving a huff of laughter. "Nothing," she said dismissively, wiping the moisture from under one eye with the backs of her curled fingers.
"It can't be nothing if you're crying," Lucas said in concern. "What is it, baby?"
His hand came up to stroke her shoulder soothingly even though he looked confused about what was going on, and Riley felt like kicking herself for doing this in front of him. She'd been careful to do all her worrying about their future separation in private ever since Lucas had made his decision. She didn't want him to think she was anything less than 100% behind him in his plans to go to Texas A&M, because she wasn't. She was fully in favor of it. It was what was right for him. She just had moments when she started worrying about what all the time apart was going to do to them and their relationship. The unknown element about it all was just so scary.
"Riley?" Lucas prompted at her silence.
"It's not a big deal, Lucas, really. I was just- thinking about how much I'm gonna miss both of you," she finally admitted with a fleeting smile. Before the sympathetic expression of understanding and regret could fully form on his face, she quickly added, "But it's gonna be alright. We'll be fine. Maya will still be in the city, so we'll see each other all the time. And you and I are gonna call, and Skype, and text...we'll be checking in with each other every day. We won't let a single one go by without letting each other know what happened in our lives that day. Right?"
"Absolutely," he agreed firmly. He'd had his share of worried moments over what was ahead of them, but right now he could respond without doubt. And even though she was the one making assurances, it was obvious from her question that she needed reassurance herself. "We'll talk all the time, and we'll see each other on all our breaks... and the rest of the time you'll probably be so busy you won't even have time to miss me." Cupping her jaw, he brushed her cheek with his thumb and held her gaze earnestly. "If anyone can do the long distance thing and make it work, Riles, it's us. I believe in us," he said devoutly.
Riley nodded. "I believe in us too." It was given as a pledge, and she hoped the commitment and the conviction she spoke it with was enough to make up for the moment of doubt she'd let him see.
She went into his arms then and they hugged tightly. Burying her face in his neck, she breathed in his unique masculine scent and let it soothe her. It was an earthy combination of warm skin, woodsy aftershave, a faint hint of leather, and something indefinable that just smelled like home.
This. This was all she needed to quiet her fears when she got to worrying about their time apart; the soft band of his muscular arm wrapped solidly around her waist...his other hand cupping the back of her head protectively...his lips pressing a kiss into her hair...those things all combined to make her feel so secure and adored that it felt like it was possible to do anything. It was going to be so hard when she didn't have those things to shore her up when things got tough.
"When you don't have what things?" Lucas said quizzically.
Feeling sheepish when she realized she must've spoken that last thought aloud, Riley hid her face by burrowing more deeply into him and mumbled her answer into his chest. "Those hands, these arms. Those lips."
Lucas smiled against her hair, then loosened his arms a bit to lean back from the waist so he could see her face. "Then I guess these hands, arms, and lips will just have to make it up to you whenever we do see each other," he proposed with a roguish smile, his brow lifted suggestively.
Riley acknowledged the suggestiveness with a look, and her lips turned up coquettishly. "I think I like the sound of that, Cowboy. It's a plan," she flirted back.
Pulling her close again, Lucas sealed the deal with a kiss. But his lips had barely begun to move on hers when he suddenly stopped and pulled back.
'Uh, sorry," he said with chagrin. "But there's a little guy in Goofy ears looking right at us, and I'm suddenly reminded that there are lots of little eyes around."
Riley laughed and glanced over her shoulder to find the little guy in question. There, several feet away, a little blonde boy of four or five was leaning against his mother's legs while she shopped. He was wearing a Lightning McQueen t-shirt and a small baseball cap with Goofy ears dangling on either side, and he was looking at her and Lucas with keen interest as he stood there clutching his stuffed Baymax.
With another giggle, Riley dropped her head to the side to rest against Lucas's chest again. "I guess this will just have to be continued too."
"Definitely," Lucas agreed, his arms tightening around her briefly.
Before they pulled away from each other, he gave her a quick peck on the lips in lieu of the aborted kiss. But it was rated G in deference to their little audience of one, and they smiled at each other in awareness of that.
"Ready to go pay?" Lucas inquired, and Riley answered him with a nod.
After paying for their items and leaving the gift shop, they went in search of the nearest restrooms and stopped there briefly. Riley did the best she could at putting her hair back in order without a hairbrush. She'd been planning to put it up when the day got hotter anyway, so she'd come prepared with a ponytail elastic in her small crossbody bag. She felt much better when she got her hair up off her neck and splashed her face with water at the row of sinks in the lady's room, and she headed back out to join Lucas feeling more refreshed.
Lucas had gone to wait for Riley when he finished before she did. The restrooms were in a walled-in area around the corner of the building housing the roller coaster, and he'd gone to lean against one of the outer walls to get out of the main stream of traffic. Taking out his phone, he saw that he'd missed a text from Farkle, and he shot him back a quick reply while keeping an eye out for Riley.
She emerged from the women's room just as he was finishing. She paused outside the door, her eyes searching for him amongst the other people moving around in the small area, and he greeted her with a smile when she spotted him and started moving towards him.
She looked a lot cooler and more put-together now. He sort of missed the wild look she'd been sporting when she went in, but Riley looked good no matter what, and this was a good look too. She'd pulled her dark curls up into a high ponytail, and with her pink Mickey t-shirt and white shorts, she made him think of strawberry ice-cream. Which happened to be his favorite. He imagined that her pink glossy lips would taste like that too.
She looked so beautiful walking towards him in the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees, and he brought his phone up to snap a quick picture of her. Riley tilted her head and smiled when she saw what he was doing, but she didn't pause in her approach.
"Hi," she said sweetly when she reached him.
"Hey," he replied back with a smile. "You look beautiful," he told her, fingering a tendril of hair hanging loose at her temple.
"Thank you, Lucas," she dimpled prettily at the compliment and leaned up to give him a kiss.
Lucas's lips curved upwards when they merged with hers and he tasted strawberry ice-cream. In reality, it was strawberry lip gloss, but hey, they were at Disney World. Reality had no place there.
When they drew apart, she slipped her hand into his with a smile and they started walking back towards the open area in front of the ride. There were several vending carts set up there, some selling souvenirs and one with refreshments.
"I think I want some ice-cream," Riley decided. "You?"
"You must have read my mind." Lucas grinned. "Think they've got any strawberry?"