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Too sweet, syrupy, sticky. It melts on his tongue, makes every taste bud come alive, tingle, expand. His mouth grows wet and wanting, ready for more.
“It is disgusting,” is his verdict. “It tastes like nothing but sugar. Why do you eat this monstrosity?”
Jeremy and Cat smile, fond and amused. Laila hums.
“Well, cotton candy is less about the taste than the experience,” she says. “Like, I would get sick of it if I had it every day, but it's only for special occasions—fairs, amusement parks…”
“It’s pretty much synonymous with fun and decadence,” agrees Cat, sticking her index finger in her mouth to the hilt, sucking it clean with a pop. Jean looks away, only half-disgusted.
His eyes land on Jeremy, tanned and freckled, more legs than man in his ‘slutty little shorts’ (that is what Cat calls them. Jean calls them something else in his mind, not entirely different but more… appreciative). Jeremy, hair windswept from the salty breeze and smile so big it makes something warm and inconvenient roar to life in Jean’s chest. Jeremy, who turns that blinding smile on him.
“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to,” he assures him. “There is more than enough room in one Jeremy for two cotton candies.” He makes a sweeping gesture encompassing his person, forcing Jean to follow it with his gaze, from bare arms to bare toes.
It is too hot today, Jean can feel his cheeks flushing and his hands growing sweaty around the plastic stick of his cotton candy.
“No, it is fine,” he says quickly. The sight of Jeremy tearing off bite-sized pieces of the pink cloud and placing them almost delicately on his tongue with two fingers is torturous enough without extending it.
“You liked it, didn’t you?” Jeremy asks, eyes dancing, and for a second Jean panics. Were his feelings too obviously splashed across his features? Was he staring too much, making his secret desires known and Jeremy uncomfortable? But, noticing his panic, Jeremy hurries to add, “There is nothing wrong with enjoying a sweet treat once in a while, you know? You don’t have to be embarrassed or anything.”
Jean sighs. Foolish heart. Foolish, treacherous pale complexion. He takes another bite of the flimsy, gross stuff just to not have to look at Jeremy anymore.
The sensation is no less strange for being repeated: the sugar melting on his tongue, the exaggerated reaction of his taste buds, the strange euphoria.
Cat laughs, and Jean realizes he has closed his eyes. He opens them to see her handing him a napkin.
“You smeared it all over your face,” she says, the laugh still alive in her voice.
Jean chases the remnants on his lips with his tongue, then wipes the rest away with the napkin. He thinks he feels Jeremy looking at him, but when he looks, Jeremy is preoccupied with his own cotton candy.
It must really be getting hotter, because he, too, is flushed.