Jett
While it didn’t seem like many people were staying in this hotel, the on-site restaurant is packed. I’m guessing everyone who is here came out for food but not for the water park. Of the two forest themed restaurants, Keanna and I chose the one set in the rainforest for tonight. The other one is themed after a mountainous forest while this one is tropical and filled with colorful fake animals everywhere.
We’re seated at a table under a fake tree, where a fake parrot hangs out on a branch nearby, occasionally squawking a recorded message. There’s a family of fake elephants to the left, and their ears move every few seconds. It’s all pretty cool and would be amazing to see if you were a little kid and still believed in magical things like this.
Keanna studies the menu with one hand tangled in her hair.
“You okay?” I ask. I know she was checking out the menu from the hotel room so I don’t know why she looks so lost right now. It must be something else.
She doesn’t seem to hear me. “Babe?”
She looks up and gives me a smile. I can’t tell if it’s a genuine or fake one. “What’s up?” she asks.
“You seem weird. Are you feeling okay?”
Her smile widens. “Of course! Just trying to decide between a burger or a club sandwich.”
“We’ll be here a few days, so you could try out both,” I say with a laugh. “I wonder how many days of water park fun we can have before it gets boring.”
“Probably as many days of snow skiing you can have before that gets boring,” she says.
“Touché.”
When our waiter comes by, we order our food and then talk about how cool the restaurant is with all of its decorations. Maybe it’s my imagination, but something feels a little off with Keanna. But I can’t put my finger on it, so I try to let it go.
Together, we watch the people eating in the restaurant around us, and it seems like maybe half of them are here because they wanted to spend Christmas vacation here with their kids. The other half all look like displaced tourists like we are, staying here because their flight out got cancelled.
After dinner, we head downstairs to the main floor. There’s an arcade that looks small from the door, but once you get inside, it’s freaking huge. There are at least thirty rows of arcade games, seven pool tables and five air hockey tables, and a billion games that spit out tickets you can redeem for prizes.
I get Keanna and me each a game card with a hundred dollars loaded on it. She gives me a look when I hand her the card.
“We could have just share the same card, you dork.”
I shake my head. “Let’s make it interesting. Whoever’s card has the most points at the end of the night wins.”
Her eyes narrow mischievously. “What does the winner get?”
I consider it for a moment. “A backrub,” I say, wiggling my eyebrows.
She brightens. “You’re on.”
We hit up the Skee-ball games first, playing side by side for a few games. She’s much better than I am at it, so I set off in search of something that delivers more points. I’m pretty good at the basketball throwing game, so I stay there for a while shooting baskets for points. But then Keanna whoops and throws her fist in the air and I miss a basket as I look over at her.
She’s standing in front of a tall colorful game. She sticks her tongue out at me. “Five hundred and twelve points,” she says. “So suck it!”
“How’d you get that many points?” I ask, going over to her.
She points to the neon sign in the middle of the game that says jackpot. “This is my all-time favorite game. It requires no skill at all.”
She swipes her card and plays it again. All you do is hit a button that drops a ball onto the spinning circle below. Whatever hole the ball goes into is worth a certain amount of points, and if you get the smallest hole, you win the jackpot. Her ball falls into the fifty points hole and I let out a low whistle.
“Damn. I’ve been playing basketball for ten points,” I say.
“Don’t work too hard at these games,” Keanna says mockingly. “I need your fingers rested up for my back rub later tonight.”
“Oh you are so freaking on,” I say, swiping my card on the ball drop machine. I press the button and my ball falls into the hole worth a measly five points. I curse and Keanna giggles.
“I love this vacation!” she says.
I grab her and tickle her sides until she squeals and begs me to let her go. I stop tickling her, but I hold her close and kiss her nose.
“I really thought I’d be better at these arcade games than I am,” I say.
She pokes me in the chest. “That’s what you get for being so cocky!”
I go in for another kiss, but then a kid runs by us, reminding me we’re in public. “I should probably give up now. I’m losing so badly.”
“No way, you still have a chance!” She glances toward the door of the arcade and then something weird flashes across her face. She smiles and puts her hands flat on my chest. “I’m going to run upstairs and change clothes,” she says. That’s a little weird on its own, but the way she says it all quickly is even weirder.
“What’s wrong with what you’re wearing now?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I’m cold. It won’t take long, I promise. You just stay here and try winning more points.”
If I didn’t know her as well as I know myself, I might just shrug and not think twice. But she’s being weird. I’m not sure why, or how I know, but it just feels weird. But I don’t want to argue about it on our vacation, so I just shrug. “Okay, see you in a minute.”
She kisses me quickly on the cheek and then runs out of the arcade, disappearing around the corner. I try to think of what she could possibly be up to, but maybe it’s some kind of girl issue or something and she’d just be embarrassed to tell me the truth.
I play the ball drop game a few more times but I never hit the jackpot or get anything higher than thirty points.
I move around the arcade, scrutinizing each game to see which one might get me the most points, but after a while I realize I don’t mind losing to my girlfriend. I’m happy to give her a back rub any day, plus it would make her happy to have bragging rights over beating me at the arcade. Especially since video games are more of my thing than hers.
I find a claw machine and use the rest of my card’s value to win her a stuffed unicorn, a stuffed pink heart, and a light up fidget spinner.
When Keanna returns, she’s wearing a pair of leggings from the gift shop and the same shirt she had on earlier, underneath my hoodie. She seems like she’s in a much better mood from the moment she walks into the arcade, and that lightens some of the anxiety in my chest. Maybe it was just a girl thing. Maybe she’s not upset about anything that pertains to me.
Keanna gushes over the silly prizes I won for her in the claw machine, and then we redeem our arcade points for as much candy as we can get. We take our haul back up to our hotel room, and Keanna spreads out the candy on the bed while I find a movie on television to watch.
“You’re in a much better mood,” I say as I crawl on the bed and lean over the candy pile to kiss her.
“I’ve been in a good mood all day,” she says as she peels off the wrapper of a package of Smarties.
I lift an eyebrow. “You were being weird earlier.”
She shakes her head. “No, I wasn’t. I’m perfectly happy.”
I want to argue that I know her well enough to know when something’s wrong, but I don’t want to push the issue. Maybe she’s still bummed about missing our families for the holiday. I decide to just let it go, and I reach for some sour patch kids.
Keanna grabs the box before I get it. “Not yet,” she says, narrowing her eyes at me mischievously. She sits up and moves in front of me on the bed. “Someone owes me a back rub.”
I chuckle and kiss her neck, sliding my hands down her back as I move closer to her on the bed. The movie on TV is starting, so I turn up the volume, then slide her shirt over her head, tossing it on the bed beside me.
I sit with my legs straddling hers, her back facing me while she watches the movie. I start out slow, sliding my hands down her back and up again, kissing her shoulder and her neck and then the top of her spine.
She may have won the bet for a back rub, but I’ve won the ultimate reward: spending the night with her in my arms.