We follow her lead to the elephant ear stand and get one to split among the three of us.
“Naomi, you have to get actual food,” Cooper grumbles.
“Corn dog!” she yells.
“That barely qualifies, but fine,” Cooper sighs and buys her one.
While she eats that, we get steak bites and mashed potatoes.
“Can I have ice cream?” Naomi asks.
“I’m absolutely going to regret this,” Cooper says to himself and takes her to the line to get a strawberry swirl cone.
I giggle. “I’m pretty sure you don’t know how to use the word no with her.”
He shrugs. “There’s a reason everyone calls her princess.”
Naomi works on her ice cream cone as Cooper and I share the steak bites. She happily licks at the cone, and my chest expands. I look at Cooper and he’s sticking his fork into another piece of meat.
My eyes burn and I itch my nose, trying to force the tears away.
Cooper grabs my hand, startling me, and presses his lips to my knuckles.
I glance at Naomi and she’s still working on her ice cream cone.
A vision of our future plays out before my eyes, and I’ve never wanted it more than with Cooper.
“Are you going to eat?” Cooper asks me.
“What? Oh, yeah,” I say and shove a couple bites into my mouth.
When we finish, Cooper gets us ice cream before making our way to all the games and rides.
“What do you want to do first?” Cooper asks Naomi.
“Ring toss! I saw a giant pink bear.”
“Naomi, that’s all the tickets you get, so if you spend them in one spot, then that’s it.”
She looks at the folded tickets in her hand and seems to be fine with that outcome. But I’m willing to bet she’ll be okay with that only if she get’s the pink bear.
Naomi turns on her heel and takes off for the ring toss. Cooper grabs my hand as we catch up to her. “Thank you for being here.”
“Why would I want to be anywhere else?” I ask him, taking another lick of my cone.
“I’m severely regretting buying you ice cream,” he mumbles under his breath while he watches me with heated eyes.
“You’re bad,” I whisper.
Cooper grins and tosses me a wink.
He shrugs. “I could be worse.”
I roll my eyes and dramatically drag my tongue over my cone, and Cooper’s pupils blow wide.
He leans into my ear. “Two can play that game, just wait till we get home,” he says lowly.
“Daddy!” Naomi yells.
