Chapter Twenty-Eight

Gavin

I didn’t like this. Not one fucking bit. In fact, under normal circumstances, I might have stopped the car and demanded to get out.

But considering I had no idea where we were or where we were going, and Emma was looking at me so intently . . . her cheeks pink, her eyes glowing with excitement? Well, it seemed like a dick move to try to back out now. And besides, the more time I spent with her, the harder it was to say no. To all her little rules.

That fact alone should have made me bolt in the opposite direction, but for some reason, my ass was glued to the seat.

“Why won’t you tell me where we’re going?” I asked.

“Ben knows. Isn’t that enough?” she teased.

“No. Ben won’t tell me anything either.”

“That’s because Ben and I have an understanding.” She grinned. “Besides, since when were you the only one who got to plan special surprise dates? Can’t I do something nice for you in return?”

I considered that. It was a sensible question, but that didn’t make the answer easy to swallow. I wasn’t good at accepting gestures of affection. Never had been. So, while I understood on an intellectual level the need to do it, I felt twitchy about the whole thing in a way I couldn’t shake. Especially now. Especially with Emma. After our past few dates, each as sexy as hell but also intimate in ways I had been trying not to think about, I knew I was in too deep. But, damn if I could bring myself to pull away.

“Can’t you at least give me a clue?”

“I swear, you’re like a little kid. Just relax.” She chuckled. “You don’t have to shake the box to figure out what’s inside.”

“I know what’s inside.” I moved closer and ran my palm along her smooth, exposed inner thigh, but she slapped my hand away.

“It’s not that kind of surprise,” she said. I was slightly mollified that her voice was just a little breathless.

“And what if I want it to be? Do we have time?” I nipped her earlobe and she began to laugh, but just as she writhed under my touch, the car jolted to a halt.

“We’re here?” I asked, craning to see out the window, but Emma grabbed me by the lapel and forced me back.

“I get out first,” she said.

“You will not—”

“When I get out, you might get a peek up my dress,” she purred.

Beaten by that logic, I leaned back on the plush cushions and waited as she bent over me, flashing the frill of her lavender panties as she climbed from the car. Then, when the space was clear, I followed her into a parking lot that was filled with gravel rather than pavement.

The building in front of us was so big, it might have been a warehouse in another life. Huge, glowing letters read Family Fun Palace in colorful bright neon.

Son of a bitch. What had I gotten myself into?

“You brought me to . . . what? Babysit?”

“Nope.” Grinning, she shook her head. “This whole place is ours for the day.”

I frowned. “What?”

“You were being so thoughtful with your classic-movie night and your wine tasting, and I figured . . . well, this is probably something you never got the chance to do when you were little. When I was seven, I went to a place like this and broke my tooth riding bumper cars with my cousin Miranda. It’s an important experience in a kid’s life, this kind of stuff,” she said, her expression grave. “This is the type of place you make memories.”

I raised my eyebrows, trying not to grin at the thought of a young, freckle-nosed Emma with a chipped tooth, and failing. “Is that so?”

“It is. Dingy rides, squeaky bolts that may or may not have been checked this decade, one-eyed carnies leering at you. It’s a rite of passage. And today, at this arcade, you are going to have it,” she said, her eyes blazing with determination.

“I’m not going to ride bumper cars with a bunch of ten-year-olds and—”

“We won’t have to. This place is ours. Totally. I bought it out for the day. Bethany’s uncle owns it, and he gave me a good deal. So, come on. No more excuses. What are you waiting for?”

She held her hand out to me just as the gray sky above us started spitting rain, and I didn’t have time to think of a way out. I closed my hand over hers, and we rushed inside the huge metal doors as quickly as we could manage before the downpour began.

It was only once we were inside that I realized exactly how much work she must have put in. At every stall, men and women were waiting for us, smiling while we decided where to walk, and a massive speaker played old nineties hits, songs that I knew from my childhood.

Standing back, I shook my head. “This must have cost you a fortune.” As I automatically tallied up the cost of this many people’s time, it hit me that she’d probably dropped a whole night’s pay on this date. Money she could have used fixing up her beloved brownstone.

Instead, she’d spent it on me. The man who had everything, and nothing, all at the same time.

My throat tightened, and I cleared it with a grumble. “Look, Emma . . . you didn’t have to—”

“Nobody has to do anything. I did this because I wanted to.” She squeezed my hand. “Now, let’s talk tickets.”

Not bothering to look at me, she dragged me toward a little kiosk filled with rubber balls, plush bananas, fashion dolls, and water pistols. Each had a little tag in front of it with a price.

“We have to know what we’re aiming for. You can’t just go earning tickets willy-nilly.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, pick a prize so we can get our minds right and set our goal for the day,” she said. “When I was ten, my dad and I worked all day and night at a place like this to get me the knock-off Barbie doll.”

“Was she your favorite toy from there on out?” I asked, genuinely curious.

She shook her head and let out a snort. “Nope. It broke the next day. Her head came clean off . . . it was a grisly scene. But it was the experience that mattered.” She shrugged one slim shoulder. “Come on, pick a prize.”

I glanced around. There wasn’t much for adults, just a few T-shirts with things like I’m With Stupid written on them. Then my gaze fell on the one thing I’d always wanted as a kid.

“They have foam-pellet guns?” I nodded toward a rack of toys complete with plastic scopes, and Emma beamed.

“Looks like we’ve got a winner. All we need to get is, um, three thousand tickets. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

I raised my eyebrows. Sounded like a problem to me. They might as well have made it a million.

“It’s going to happen. All you have to do is believe and pick a game so we can get this going.”

For a while, we wandered around, looking at carts of food and side attractions before I found the pit of games. There was a huge wall of Connect Four and an animatronic dinosaur game, but my eye caught on a classic and I couldn’t resist.

“Skee-Ball,” I said, taking her hand as we stuffed tokens into the game and balls dropped into the slot.

To my surprise, Emma had a pretty good arm on her, and for a moment I stood back and watched as she sank one ball after another.

“Well, are you going to win those tickets or not?” she teased, shooting me a challenging glance.

“Not if you’re going to embarrass me with your skills. I can’t compete with that.”

“If you’re waiting to find something here you can beat me at, it’s going to be a very long day,” she said with a sassy wink. “I’m what you call an arcade master. A pinball wizard. A—”

“Dork,” I finished, and she stuck her tongue out at me. “Fine. I’ll give it a go.”

I threw my balls while I watched her from the corner of my eye, studying her form as she bent and released. Part of me was imagining what it might be like to lean over her and feel her body move with every throw, but the other part was studying her form so I could replicate it and get some fucking tickets.

I would deny it with my dying breath, but how badly I wanted that pellet gun? It was unconscionable.

Maybe because she was right. It was a symbol of everything this day was about. Never in my life had I gotten to have an afternoon like this, the chance to be a kid without worries or responsibilities. Except, of course, now it was better. Because if I’d gotten to do this all those years ago, Emma wouldn’t have been beside me right now.

I managed to get the hang of Skee-Ball. Once we were done, she held up a fistful of tickets that shot out of the slot.

“Awesome,” she said, eyeing the little red stubs with narrowed eyes. “That has to be at least fifty. We’re on our way.”

After Skee-Ball, we played a few rounds of Connect Four and a few more games that sucked away my tokens until I had to ask Emma for more with a laugh.

“How many tickets do we have now?” I asked.

She glanced in her bucket. “I’d say about five hundred.”

“And what would that get us?” I asked.

“A consolation prize,” she said with a decisive shake of her head. “We didn’t come for that. We came for victory.”

I grinned, rolling my eyes at her. “Fine, what do we do next?” I’d never been so fucking out of my element, and if Emma weren’t so damn cute, I’d have called this entire thing off.

“I say we take a break and get our strength up with some good old-fashioned bumper cars.” She nodded toward a little rink in the corner of the room next to a massive Ferris wheel whose lights had only just come on.

“I’m game,” I said.

“When was the last time you even drove?”

“My car or my helicopter?” I countered.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Touché.”

The ride operator let us into the rink, and together we picked out our cars. For me, I picked a bright white car that reminded me of the Speed Racer cartoons I’d loved growing up. For Emma, a glittery pink car that would be fit for a princess . . . or a knock-off Barbie doll.

The timer ticked down and then, with a blare of music overhead, we began to move. I careened toward her, sure I was about to cause a head-on collision, just as she turned and narrowly missed my attack. I spun my wheel, ready to regroup, but not fast enough. She was backing up into me, hitting me with all the force of her back bumper and grinning like a maniac.

“I’ll get you for that,” I yelled.

“I’d like to see you try!”

I steered toward her again, following her around the course until my heart dropped into my stomach and the music slowed. The ride was over.

I’d never felt so much adrenaline, so much fun in my life. I wanted to ask her to go again, to maybe go for best two out of three, but she was climbing from her car, fixing her mussed hair and laughing.

“Okay, now that you got your butt handed to you, you ready to get some more tickets? That gun’s not gonna win itself.”

“Yup. Let’s go.” I nodded, then followed her back into the arcade toward a game where I had to throw baseballs to knock down the most haunting clowns I’d ever seen.

I couldn’t say how many games we played or for how long we were there, running from one booth to the next like our asses were on fire. Every moment felt limitless, and as we raced to see who could get more layups or throw more basketballs, I again caught myself looking at her from the corner of my eye, wondering about the sort of person, the sort of woman, who would do this for another person.

Especially for a bastard like me.

“Are you hungry?” she asked when she caught me staring.

My stomach growled, though I hadn’t realized I was hungry until she’d mentioned it. “Yeah, sure, let’s grab something.”

“The pizza here is amazing, according to Bethany.”

“Pizza it is,” I agreed, and we each got a slice before making our way to the Ferris wheel.

“Think they’ll let us take it on?” she asked, nodding toward the ride operator.

“Only one way to find out.” I hopped the gate, walked up the stairs, and called for the man’s attention.

With bleary eyes, he gazed back at me. “What?”

“I was just wondering if we might be able to eat our pizza on the ride?”

He shrugged. “All the same to me. Come on up.”

The carriages rolled to a stop and I spied one, bright pink and sparkly. “This one.” I ushered her inside.

“Never thought you were much for pink.” She grinned, then took a bite of her pizza.

“I can’t believe you like olives,” I said, grimacing at her slice.

“I can’t believe your palate isn’t refined enough to appreciate them,” she shot back, grinning. “Pepperoni is so common.”

“Don’t knock my pepperoni.”

“Then don’t knock my olives.”

I smiled at her. “Fine. I’ll try it. Here.”

We swapped slices and, holding my breath, I took a bite. Salty, oily brine filled my mouth, and it was all I could do to swallow.

Choking, I said, “Take it back. Christ, that’s foul.”

“See? What did I say. No appreciation.” She laughed.

That was where she was dead wrong. I’d been gifted Cartier watches from girlfriends in the past. A motorcycle one Christmas from my brothers. I’d even gotten a trip to Belize from a grateful client who wound up marrying one of the escorts.

But this?

This was the best gift anyone had ever given me, hands down, and there was nothing I wanted more than to stay in this moment, on top of this Ferris wheel with Emma, overlooking the one and only day I’d ever gotten to be a kid.

My heart squeezed inside my chest. As much as I wanted to force the feelings away, I couldn’t do it. This moment . . . this woman?

It was everything.