“Fluffy…” She mutters in a pretense of offense as she clung onto the swing, feet shuffling clumsily into the sand as it breaches through the tiny holes of her sneakers while the pulley squealed and the rope creaked. Being called fluffy a million times, she’d accepted it by now, along with little pet names and all the endearing descriptive he often used on her. On top of that, he wasn’t the only one. It was something she dealt with on the daily. Besides, she didn’t mind it coming from him. With intentions pure — for most of the time — anything he would say felt lighthearted. But she was feeling playful at the moment. 

Perhaps it was the atmosphere; the night of giddily exuberant flurry. They were in a playground, after all, at nighttime. No kids frantic and bustling around, no hive of activities apart from the few and far between amount of people casually strolling by; just about no interruptions. She needed that every now and then to lay off the day to day blues. And it was working. It never fails to. So she sits there grateful of the simple, very mundane moment shared with probably the most significant person in her life. 

“Are you saying… I’m a mutt?” She squinted playfully and the scarce swaying of her compact seat stopped. Who was she kidding? She loved dogs. If anything, it was her insisting to get the certain mix of breeds he was talking about and it hasn’t been long since they last discussed. “I thought a banana was bad enough.” She sighed, though meant in jest, and it’s matched with a purse of her lips for extra dramatic effect. “Ah… there’s this feeling in my chest. Like… when sailors would tie a knot… and then throw it on the water to measure the ship’s speed.” Her eyes screwed up as her gaze shifted from him to the ground, followed by a long pause. “It’s tight…” Her voice fades. 

Soon enough she was laughing to herself like someone high off of some sort of narcotics. She would say something like ‘don’t do drugs’ in the midst of her uncontrollable laughing fit but a thought comes up just as they were on the topic of dogs. “Hey, when are we gonna get our baby? Her collar’s just laying around at home.”