Page 51
“First try,” Aaron says, scooping up the first dart, closing one eye to aim, then letting loose.
It hits the cork between four balloons, missing all of them.
I clap politely.
“Hang me,” Aaron says.
“Just win a little prize,” I encourage, so entertained that my willpower isn’t enough to keep a smile from cracking my face. “I like pandas.”
“You want the duck, so you’re getting that bitch-ass duck,” he says bitingly, slapping more money onto the table. He ignores his remaining two darts in favor of starting fresh with the next three. His tongue juts from his mouth as he hurls the first forward.
It hits the wall beside the corkboard and clatters to the ground.
I burst into laughter, staggering back and hugging my abdomen, made worse when Aaron purposefully bends over to slam his head against the edge of the counter. Even the game operator is shielding her mouth, like she’s trying to keep from joining me.
“It’s rigged,” Aaron says.
“Y-you didn’t even…hit the board…”
“Rigged!” He whirls to scold me, but his annoyance dissolves. There are tears in my eyes, and I’m giggling so hard that my stomach aches.
“Sorry,” I wheeze out. “I’m not trying to be mean.”
Aaron blinks a few times like his brain is lagging. The tension between his shoulders melts apart, and I’m not sure why until he says, “I haven’t seen you laugh since the accident.”
My body tightens with shock. He’s looking at me with such abrupt earnestness that my ears itch with heat. “Well,” I say unsteadily, “just be bad at things more often, I guess.”
He smiles at me, so soft and genuinely sweet that I have to break my gaze away. He returns his attention to the counter, and says, “I’m not giving up.”
He smacks more money down, then hits the corkboard three times in row.
“Just take the duck,” the operator says, unhooking it from the ceiling and thrusting it over the counter. “You’ve basically paid for it in full.”
“Finally, a win for gay people,” Aaron says, snatching it. He hugs it in his broad wingspan, documenting her pity as a victory. “For you, my beloved.”
He shoves it into my arms, and I nearly collapse under its weight. “Can we come back for it later?” I ask the operator.
“Sure,” she says. “Please leave.”
So I prop it on the counter and take Aaron’s hand, drawing him away before he can have any second thoughts about whether or not he’s earned it.
“Later?” Aaron squirms his palm so he can knot our fingers. “So you want to stay longer?”
“I promised you an hour,” I say simply.
“Well…yes.” He glances around the carnival—the congested pathways and endless tents and whirring rides and agitated lines—clearly knowing what I do.
“I left my phone in the car, so I can’t check,” I say, steering my eyes to the asphalt baking under our feet. “I think we probably have…what, like a half hour left? That should be enough time for us to spend our tickets on rides.”
Aaron is silent for an arduously long moment. Then he’s pulling me out of the throng of moving bodies and steering me around the back of a game station, so we’re hidden between the tent and a looming wire fence that peeks into the parking lot.
“What’s your problem?” I snip.
“I’m not kissing you,” he says, sliding my floppy sun hat back. “Mind if I fix it?”
My heart smashes so violently against my rib cage that it’s about to burst through the bones. How can he be so smooth so effortlessly? And why is he constantly so pretty? His hair is always lightly tousled and shiny, his eyes are always glittering like silver coins in marble fountains, and his dimple is always annoyingly pokable.
I shouldn’t, but he got me out of my house and bought us tickets for carnival rides and has a bag filled with items he noticed I liked and spent way too much time, effort, and money on a massive stuffed duck because it’s my favorite animal.
