And when he did the other two too, I whistled, pinching off another piece of cotton candy and ate it.
The employee gave an even more bored face. “Which one do you want?” he asked with zero enthusiasm.
Alex pointed at a big Hello Kitty mounted in the corner. The guy pulled it down and handed it over, and Alex tucked it under his arm.
“Why did you pick that one?” I asked him, my mouth trembling at the memory of him in my T-shirt.
He smirked. “Why do you think?”
“It was the biggest shirt I had,” I explained, trying not to smile.
“Sure it was.” He lifted his chin toward the booth next to the one we were at. It had cups filled with water on a table. “Maybe you won’t suck at that one.”
Maybe I wasn’t the only one in a good mood, and that was fine by me. “I miss the days you didn’t talk to me,” I joked.
Alex huffed, and we walked over to it. Apparently, you were supposed to toss little balls into multicolored cups. If you got enough balls in, you won a prize. If you landed a ball in one of the red cups, you won something better. I took the ping-pong-like balls, and Alex took another bucket with them too, balancing it on the edge of the panel separating the players from the cups.
He still had his huge cat under one arm and had put the handle of the cotton candy in his free hand.
I pressed my lips together before whispering, “Where’s that big, bad telekinesis at now, huh?”
His eyebrows slowly rose. “You really think you’ve got a chance at beating me?”
No. “Absolutely.”
He scoffed and tossed his first ball, not even looking in the direction. The cup clinked.Really?
I lightly threw one and made it in. “You can let me win if you want, but if you don’t, I’ll beat you fair and square.”
Another ball went flying and plopped perfectly in a cup right in the middle of the group. “I’ll close my eyes, will that make you happy?”
“Don’t you have a photographic memory?” I laughed. Who the hell was this person playing around with me? Joking? He’d been in such a mood earlier while we’d been at that building, that I hadn’t been sure how fast he was going to shake it off.
“Don’t worry about it. Toss the balls,” he said in a tone that made me smile wide.
We tossed our balls, and he won. He tucked the small stuffed animal into his front pocket, looking way too proud of himself.
But it was pretty cute.
“What do you want to do now?” he asked.
“Nothing that takes any skill.” I gestured at the booth next to us, a game where you took a seat and had a water gun that you pointed at a target. “That one.”
The expression on his face saidreally?
“Well, we aren’t playing that strength game with the hammer, Hercules.”
His snicker made me smile again, but he handed over tickets, and we took a seat beside each other. His legs were so long, his knee and most of his thigh brushed mine.
“Whenever you’re ready,” the worker said, looking slightly less bored than the last one had.
I turned to Alex. “On the count of three, okay?”
He nodded. “1—”
I started shooting.
“You fucking cheater,” he hissed under his breath. But was that a laugh I heard?
