// C H A P T E R N I N E //

"They're never going to let us ride their elephant, this is such a stupid idea." Lacey muttered as Matty pulled her with him towards the circus' ticket booth.

Giving her a disapproving look, he simply continued on his way, determined to make this work, "How would you even know that it won't work? You haven't even tried yet."

"It's called common sense." She crossed her arms as they reached the end of the line of people waiting to purchase tickets for the afternoon show.

Visibly annoyed by her proper attitude, he rolled his eyes at her, "And where has that common sense gotten you this far?"

She was hurt by his words, but more than that she was mad at him for the way he always seemed to think his life was better than hers. Of course, he was more adventurous than her and yes, he definitely had a better outlook on life than she did, but still - that didn't give him the right to talk badly about her accomplishments in life. At least, she was getting education and not just putting her fate in the hands of a band that could very well be unheard of in a couple of years.

Seeing her hurt expression, Matty sighed and pulled her close to him, "I'm sorry," He mumbled while he softly kissed her head, "I didn't mean that."

Lacey shook her head, biting down on her lip to stop it from trembling. She hated that his opinion mattered so much to her. It shouldn't, but it did. She wanted so badly of him to approve of her, but she also hated it how he seemed to think that he had the right to approve of her and her previous actions.

Of course, the whole thing with Matty kind of based on her whole 'wanting to break old habits' - thing, but still - it would have been nice to have him say that he was happy she was getting an education, that he liked the way Lacey acted, not just his idea of Lace.

"Tell me what you're thinking about." He begged when she continued to stay silent.

"I'm fine." She sighed and stepped up as the line moved forward.

He grabbed her wrist lightly and made her look at him, "That's bullshit, Lace."

She sighed, "Really, Matthew - nothing's wrong."

"The fact that you just called me Matthew makes it pretty damn obvious that you're pissed off at me." He raised his eyebrows, "Tell me what's bothering you. Yell at me for fuck's sake, you can even hit me if you want - I don't give a fuck as long as you don't swallow up your feelings."

Snapping, Lacey wrung her hand back so that he wasn't touching her anymore, "You want me to tell you what my fucking problem is with you, Matty? Fine." She yelled, not caring that people were starting to look at them, "I hate how you seem to think that you have a right to judge me. Yes, I told you about some things I wasn't happy with in my life, things I wanted to change, but for you to act as if my whole life so far has been a total waste of time is just messed up."

"Excuse me, miss -" A mother hissed, but Matty quickly put his hand up and silenced her with a short "not now."

"Why do you believe that I think your life up til now was a waste?" He asked softly.

She felt tears welling up in her eyes, "Because you fucking act like it! 'Where has your common sense gotten you, Lace?' 'You can finish your paper tonight, Lace it's no big deal' - but it is a big deal for me. Up until now my education has been the only thing I could really be proud of and then you come and turn my whole world upside down and everything just turns fucking crazy."

Looking her straight in the eye, he asked her, "Are you scared?"

Throwing her hands up in frustration, she exclaimed, "What do you even mean by that?"

"Exactly what I said." He said calmly, then repeated his question, "Are you scared, Lace?"

Looking straight at Matty, she realized that there was no sense in hiding what she was feeling from him - he would figure it all out sometime anyway, "Of course, I'm scared." She sighed.

For a moment there seemed to be a flash of hurt in his eyes, but it quickly disappeared as he asked, "Of me?"

"No of course not!" Lacey shook her head and took his hand, "I'm scared of the way I feel around you, not of you."

He pulled her close and pressed his forehead against hers, "Don't be."

She tried to look up at him, "Aren't you scared?"

"No," He said firmly, "I embrace what we have, I don't think it's something I should be scared of. You should never be scared of what you feel."

"I know, but -" Lacey started, but didn't know how to continue her thought, so she simply sighed, "I'm sorry."

He pulled back from her in order to be able to fully look at her, "Don't ever apologize for saying what you want to say again, Lace." He said seriously.

She bit her lip and looked down, "Okay." She mumbled.

"Hey," He mumbled and put his finger under her chin to tilt her head towards his, "I like every bit about you, the old and the new - just so you know." He whispered before he leaned in to give her possibly the most passionate kiss she had ever received.

"Excuse me -" The woman behind them bellowed again, "There are kids around. I already don't appreciate your use of profanity in this environment, but engaging in sexual activities here is utterly inappropriate."

Matty burst out laughing, as he turned to face her, "Sexual activities?!" He pointed down at her two sons and raised his eyebrows, "Seeing how you have two children, shouldn't you be a bit better informed about what's sexual and what isn't?"

Shocked, the woman overdramatically put her hand on her chest, "Excuse me?!"

"Well you obviously have fucked before in your life, so you should know that kissing is hardly sexual." He smirked, then when he noticed it was their turn at the ticket stand, said, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some business to deal with." With that he turned around and roughly grabbed Lacey's butt, which earned him a shocked gasp from behind.

Lacey couldn't help but laugh at the whole situation, even though she did sort of understand where the woman was coming from. If she had been with any other guy she probably would have been completely embarrassed, stuttering out an apology, but the way Matty just handled it with total confidence didn't even give her the chance to feel uncomfortable. It made her regret her short outburst before, even though she knew he would hate her if he knew she was thinking it.

Grateful to be with him on that day, she laced her fingers with his, which earned her a surprised look from him before he leaned down towards the small opening in the ticket booth and said, "Hi there! We actually don't really want tickets, actually let me rephrase that - we do want tickets if we only get to ride your elephant if we do."

The guy in the booth looked at him with furrowed brows, "Excuse me?"

Leaning down on both of his arms, Matty smiled, "Well you see, my beautiful girlfriend here has this huge wish of riding an elephant and what better place to do that at than a circus right?"

The guy just shook his head, "I'm afraid we can't do that, sir. Riding an elephant can be dangerous, we can't take that risk, but you do get to see the elephant in the show if you want tickets?"

"What's your name?" Matty suddenly asked him.

Caught off guard, he replied, "U-uh Peter."

"Well Pete," Matty said, then looked at him with a serious face, "It's really, really important for me to fulfill my girlfriend's wish here. You see -" He started and leaned even closer, as if to tell him a secret, "I didn't want to tell you this, cause I didn't want you to feel bad for us, but my lady is pregnant with my baby, well I should rephrase that - she was pregnant with my baby." He looked down as if just saying it pained him immensely, "One thing she really wanted to do with our Babyboy was to ride an elephant - just like her dad did with her when she was a year old, but now she doesn't even get the chance to do so and I just really want to still somehow fulfill her wish - even if it'll only be with me."

The guy looked down at Lacey's stomach with a hurt expression, then looked all around him as if to check if someone was around to hear him before he leaned closer, "Okay, I'll help you guys out, but you've got to be really, really careful." He said seriously, then continued, "Just let me sell these last few tickets and then I'll meet you over there by the camper, does that sound good?"

Matty pushed himself up and smiled at him, "Sounds perfect. See you in a minute." With that he took Lacey's hand and pulled her towards their designated waiting spot, swinging their arms happily.

As soon as they were out of sight, she hissed at him, "What the fuck, Matty?! You can't just invent a baby and then let it die seconds after!"

He shrugged, "I know that wasn't ethically correct or whatever, but it worked didn't it?"

Even though she knew she should be mad at him for using such a horrible lie to get his way, Lacey couldn't hide her total excitement at the thought of both of them riding an elephant.

"We're going to ride an elephant." She grinned and wrapped her arms around him.

"That's more like it." He laughed lightly before he brushed his lips against hers.

"Hey you two." The guy from the ticket booth - Peter - said as he approached them.

"Oh hey, man. Thank you so much for doing this for us, we owe you one." Matty smiled at him.

Peter just shook his head, "It's fine. I just talked to Elena, who's our 'elephant lady', if that's what you want to call her." He chuckled at his own little joke, "Anyways," He continued when he realized the other two weren't laughing, "She was so touched by your story that she agreed, so if you're ready we'll just quickly go over there and give you two a ride before the show starts."

"Sounds incredible." Matty smiled and they followed Pete to which apparently was the elephant's stall.

"There you are!" A beautiful blonde lady in her late twenties exclaimed as she caught sight of them. Lacey couldn't help but look over at Matty to see what his reaction would be to her absolute beauty and sure enough, he was looking her up and down in her skimpy little show outfit.

Trying to get the attention back onto the elephant ride, Lacey coughed lightly, "Oh hi! I'm Lacey and this is my boyfriend Matty."She played along with Matty's story, being sure to emphasize that he belonged to her (even if it was only pretend) before she continued, "We're so glad that you're letting us do this, I know it must be a bit of a hassle for you."

Tearing her eyes from Matty shortly, the woman smiled at her, "Oh not at all, darling. I'm so sorry about what happened to you, but let me assure you - an elephant ride is just what you need." She winked slightly at Matty, "Now if you want to follow me."

They both did as they were told to and soon enough, Lacey was standing in front of the most beautiful creature she had ever seen in her life. She had always loved elephants, she didn't even know why - something about their enormous size but obvious gentleness spoke to her. It was as if they were the perfect example of not being supposed to judge a book by its cover, a saying Lacey liked to live by.

Smiling at her obvious excitement, Matty put his arm around her waist and whispered in her ear, "You look so fucking adorable right now."

Laughing happily, she turned to him and kissed him quickly before she turned to Elena, "Can we ride it now?"

"Of course, dear." She smiled and got the huge animal to sit down to make it easier to get up onto its back.

"What's her name?" Matty asked as they walked towards where Elena was standing.

"Ashanti." She replied, then pointed towards the elephant's head, "Get up right there. Try to sit as close to her ears as possible. That way, if you want her to stop you just have to squeeze your legs together a bit and she'll stop walking."

Excited to finally get on top of Ashanti, Lacey hurried over to the place Elena had spoken of. Looking over her shoulder to make sure Matty was still following her, she gently placed her hands on the elephant's skin and was surprised at the warmth that came off of her.

"Wait, I'll steady you." Matty said and placed his hands on her back as she made her way upward. As soon as she was seated, he followed and took a seat behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"Ready?" Elena shouted over at them and got a "yes" in return.

She did something with her stick and immediately Ashanti started rising, which caused Lacey to shriek in surprise.

"Oh my god." She breathed out as they raised higher and higher, "Look at how high we are! Can you imagine being this tall?!" She laughed happily.

Matty chuckled lightly, "I must say, this is pretty fucking amazing."

"I can't believe this." She smiled as she turned to look at Matty, "Thank you, Matty. Honestly, thank you."

He shook his head, smiling back at her, "Nothing to thank me for, love. This is all you." Then kissing her cheek, he mumbled, "Now enjoy it while it lasts."

She didn't need to be told that twice. Leaning back against Matty, she simply enjoyed the few moments they had on this precious animal and for once she did not think of her unfinished history paper or her unknown future. For once she simply lived in the now.

A/N: How on earth did this story get almost 400 reads? This is mental, thank you so much for reading. Also a huge thanks to every single one of you who voted for this story or left me a comment - you have no idea how much that means. I really hope you enjoy this chapter. I have no clue what happens when you ride an elephant or how you get on it, so if anyone actually does know and what I'm saying is completely wrong - please enlighten me on how it's actually done haha x Please vote if you enjoy reading this or leave me a quick comment, it would mean a ton. :) love, m