way I look at it, I have time for at least one more game. I flip my blond hair over my shoulder and give a tempting grin that’s meant to rub it in that I not only won, but won three times in a row. “You know you guys want to play again.”
You know you hate being beaten by me.
From the expressions of the guys, I pegged them correctly. The girls...I could totally become best friends with because they knowingly laugh at their expense.
“I’ll play.” It’s a small voice belonging to a child, and my smile falls. Long unruly ringlets over a chubby preschool face. She stands on her tiptoes to hand money to the carnie, and he accepts it without giving her a second glance. “I’m going to win this time. I have to. Daddy says it’s my last game.”
The aforementioned daddy hands another five dollars to the carnie worker and picks up a mallet next to his daughter’s spot. Ugh. Knife straight to the heart as he throws me a pleading glance. He wants her to win. He needs her to win. He wants me to help her win.
I totally hate being conned, but if I’m going to lose, it will be to a five-year-old.
“Are you going to play?” the carnie asks me because it’s his job to make money. I want to answer no, but because I was once five and my father did the same thing for me, I fork over my five dollars, then tilt my head in a princess-worthy stare over at the boys.
It takes four to play, and I need one of them to lose so this kid can win. They glance at each other, waiting to see which one is going to man up.
“Your ego can handle being beaten by a five-year-old,” I say.
A guy in their group that had been hanging back strides up. “I’ll play.”
For a second, there’s a flutter in my chest, the lightest touch of butterfly wings. I secretly wish this guy would chance a look in my direction, but he doesn’t. Instead he hands the carnie five dollars and claims the spot next to me.
Wow. I’m definitely okay with this.
He’s taller than me and he’s in worn blue jeans. His white T-shirt stretches against his broad shoulders, and he’s gorgeous. Drop-dead gorgeous. The defined muscles in his arms flex as he switches the mallet from one hand to another, and I’ve stopped breathing. His blondish brown hair is shaved close on the sides, but the rest of his longer hair is in complete disarray. His freshly shaved face reminds me of a modern day version of James Dean, and everything about him works well. Very well.
I’m staring, I need to stop and he’s also aware that I’m staring and haven’t stopped. He turns his head, our eyes meet and those butterflies lift into the air. Warm brown eyes. That’s when I’m finally scared into having the courage to glance away. But I peek back and sort of smile to find he’s now looking at me like he can’t stop.
For the first time in my life, I like that someone is looking. Not someone—him. I like that he’s looking at me.
“We let her win,” I whisper.
He nods, and I lift my mallet. It’s tough to not get into position—to be poised and ready to strike. I love this game, I love winning, and losing to be nice is all fine and good, but I have to fight the instinct to go full throttle.
“You’re good at this,” he says.
“I play this game a lot. At every fair and festival I can. It’s my favorite. If there were an Olympic event for Whack-A-Mole, I would be a gold medalist several times over.”
If only that were enough to make my parents proud—or to make a living at when I graduate from college.
“Then I’m in the presence of Whack-A-Mole royalty?” The laughter in his eyes is genuine, and I watch him long enough to see if he knows who I am. Some people do. Some people don’t. I’ve learned to read the expression of recognition, and he has no clue who I am.
My body relaxes. “Totally.”
One corner of his mouth edges up, and I become tongue-tied. That is possibly the most endearing and gorgeous grin I’ve seen. He twirls the handle of the mallet around in his fingers, and I’m drawn by the way he makes the motion seem so seamless.
This incredible fantastic humming begins below my skin. To be brutally honest, I’m not sure what attraction is. My experience with boys has been limited, but whatever this is, I want to feel it again and on every level of my being.
The bell rings, my heart jumps and I inhale when the worn plastic moles pop up from the holes. The instinct is to knock the hell out of them, but the tinkling laughter of the little girl farther down causes me to pull back. I hit one. Then another. I have to score something. She needs to think we at least tried.
The guy next to me hits a few moles, but in a rhythm. A crazy one. A catchy one. One that my foot taps along with. The bell rings, the little girl squeals and my hopes of winning the large snake die.
A chirp of my cell, and I immediately text back my mother: Still at the midway. Heading back now.
Mom: Hurry. I think we should curl your hair for the event.
My hair, my outfit. That’s what’s important to her. I squish my lips to the side. It took her an hour this morning to decide she wanted me to wear it straight. Then it took her another hour to decide what I should wear on the midway, in case I should be recognized. Then there was the painstaking additional hour to decide what I should wear to the press conference.
When I look up, disappointment weighs down my stomach. The boy—he’s gone. Not really gone, but gone from beside me. He’s rejoined his group, standing with them and belonging. I will him to glance one more time my way, but he doesn’t.
That’s okay. I’m just a girl on a midway, he’s just a boy on a midway and not everything has to end like a daydream. Truth is, once he found out what my world is really like, he’d have taken off running.
But I have to admit, it would have been nice if he had at least asked for my name.
Holiday smacks my arm and wrath owns her eyes. “Why didn’t you talk to her?”
I glance around at my family—Axle, Holiday, my best friend, Dominic, and his younger sister, Kellen. I’m searching for at least one of them to have my back and tell her to step off, but instead they’re curious for the answer. Even Axle’s giving me a questioning gaze, and the last thing my womanizing brother deserves is an explanation from me in my decisions regarding women.
Last time I was home, his reputation was as bad as Dad’s, minus the progeny. There are three siblings in this family, and we have three different birth mothers. Dad not only didn’t know how to use a condom, but he didn’t know how to stay true to one woman.
“I talked to her.”
My younger sister throws her arms out and drops her voice to what I’m assuming is to mimic me, but I don’t sound like an idiot. “You’re good at this.” She resumes her normal tone which is entering high-pitched. “Seriously? That’s all you’ve got? Did you get some sort of amoeba that eats your brain while hanging out in juvie?”
I
