“No.” He shakes his head and pushes off the door. “I just wanted to look at you.”
“That’s rule two. That’s giving me a compliment.”
“Nope. I'm just telling you what I'm doing. There are no rules about stating my actions out loud. Also, it’s worth stating— no, don’t look at me like that. It’s true and I’m serious, I may have ulterior motives, but you are hands down the most beautiful person I have ever seen. Statistically, logistically, I don’t know. I didn’t go to college, but I just need you to know that.”
“Thank you,” I swallow over the lump in my throat and blink away the burning of tears.
“Don’t thank me. It’s a categorical observation. It has nothing to do with my opinion. It’s a fact. However, this is an instance where my opinion happens to line up with the facts.”
He moves and opens my door, then hovers there.
“Text me when you make it home,” he says quietly. “I’ll callWinnie in the morning to tell her that her mom cheats at Uno. Also, a categorical fact.”
I shake my head and back away from the house, already missing what could have been before I even got it.
23
“You know. I think we should go to the fair.” Lauren perks up from my couch. It’s just her, Rhett, Tanner, me and Winnie. Mayben invited us all over earlier to tell us all she’s pregnant and instead of going home, the five of us ended up here. “It’s been open all week and I heard the food vendors are extra good this year.”
“Can I ride the Ferris Wheel?” Winnie asks, and with that, the decision is made.
We hardly make it three steps past the entrance gate before Winnie tries running off to the flashiest ride she can find. Tanner jogs up, scoops her up and in a single swooping motion, he has her on his shoulders. She giggles and clasps her hands on his forehead, knocking his hat clean off his head.
I pick it up and I put it on my head, lying to myself that it’s just what friends do. There’s no missing that catch of his eyes and turned corners of his mouth. Is he blushing? Or is it just the summer heat?
The entire rolling grass field back behind Morton it has been transformed with flashing lights and metal rides clanking around with screaming children. There are fried food vendors at everyturn, carnival workers yelling out passive aggressive compliments, and free-range preteens with acne, braces and too much Axe body spray. The entire town seems to be here, stepping over dying grass with corndogs and lemonade in hand.
“Step right up!” an older man in a yellow striped shirt shouts from a center booth. It’s the bottle ring toss. The prizes hanging overhead range from little stuffed animals, no greater than dollar-store quality, all the way up to a massive stuffed hippo.
“Alright.” Tanner nudges Rhett. “Let’s do this.”
“It’s a scam,” I try to tell them, but neither listen.
Still with Winnie on his shoulders, Tanner tosses a few rings and wins nothing. Rhett makes enough to win a glow bracelet, which he puts on Winnie's kicking foot as she laughs.
“Uncle Rhett!” she squeals.
“That was a lucky shot. I literally have a kid on my shoulders,” Tanner says. “Come on, let’s try that one.”
It’s the spraying water gun one, where you have to shoot your target right in the center and somehow, it’s supposed to make your horse run faster. This time, the man convinces us all to play. Winnie climbs down and into my lap.
“Winner gets this.” The man holds up a pair of fuzzy handcuffs.
“Oh my God.” I groan as Winnie yells that she’s going to win.
And she does. Easily. She grabs the handcuffs and skips off with them, putting me on an FBI watch list in the process, I’m sure.
“This is your fault,” I tell Tanner as he catches up.
“Myfault? How on earth is thatmyfault?”
“You didn’t win,” I say and motion to Winnie. “Now my kid owns fuzzy handcuffs, and I will be lucky to make it out of here without at least three reports to CPS.”
He shrugs. “I’ll trade her for something better later. Then those handcuffs are all mine.”
“You’re the worst.” I bump into him ignoring the flush of heat in my body.
“Oh, sorry. Those handcuffs are allours.” He gives a dramatic wink and this time I give him a stronger shove. I can’t think of any rules his words directly break, but the way they make my stomach flip, I know they somehow breaks all of them.
