Ava hums beside me, clinging tighter to my hand as she inhales. “Yummy. Their pizza always smells so yummy, Daddy.”
“It really does,” I agree.
“I think I’m hungry for real food, too,” she adds. “I think I need pizza dinner before cotton candy.”
“Me, too,” Bella chirps from my other side.
“Me, three,” I say, making them grin. “How about I order us an extra cheesy pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms while you two play on the playground until it’s ready?”
They cheer the brilliance of this idea before racing off to join the other kids already swarming the climbing structure and slides in the widest portion of the main floor.
Even the playground is an elevated experience here, a sprawling warren of interconnected tunnels and nets that looks more like a modern art installation than a playground. It anchors the first-floor kiddie zone, surrounded by Packy audio-animatronics that dispense “elephant wisdom” for a quarter, a carousel, and typical carnival-type games.
Above, the mezzanine bar is perfectly positioned to give parents a clear view of their kids, while providing a buffer from the chaos. The final, upper floor houses the stage, dance floor, and vintage pinball machines, as well as the “fast track” elevator down to the bowling alley and adult video games in the basement.
The designer arranged to keep all the loud, blaring shit contained in the soundproof basement so you can actually hear the music, and I couldn’t be happier. It sounds like it’s an ‘80s night tonight, practically guaranteeing good vibes.
It’s impossible to be sad while listening to ‘80s music. I love the ‘90s grunge of my childhood, but when the world’s getting me down, I go straight to my ‘80s playlist.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Boston, Wham!, and Cyndi Lauper lately, but I’m okay with it. We do what we have to do to get by, and it could be worse. I could blast Rage Against the Machine when I’m in the dumps like my mother.
For someone raised in the seventies, the woman has an unexpectedly hardcore taste in music…
“Dean! Up here!” Parker calls from the mezzanine. “We’ve got a pitcher, but we’re waiting to pour until we can toast you, old man.”
“So, hurry up before the beer gets hot,” Nix adds.
I join them, placing an order for a large pizza, garlic bread, and a carrot slaw salad in a nod to good nutrition, before lifting my glass.
“To eleven hundred more,” Nix says, making us all laugh.
“Hell no.” I grin as I clink my glass against my teammates’. “But I’ll take another hundred or so. I’ve still got some fight left in me.”
“Fuck yeah, you do,” Parker agrees, taking a hearty gulp and swallowing before he adds, “You give me hope, dude. You really do. If you can make it to thirty-seven or thirty-eight, why can’t I?”
“Because your knee is wrecked?” his fiancée Makena reminds him before poking his slightly rounder-than-usual gut. “And because you’re getting a dad bod and can’t stop talking about how much you want to stop being a professional athlete and take over the bakery side of my business?” She rolls her eyes affectionately. “Because you could run it ‘so much better’ and with more fiber?”
Parker wraps an arm around her waist, flashing a shameless grin as he cuddles her close. “I mean, Idohave a gift for addingfiber without losing deliciousness. And you love my dad bod. You have to. It’s your fault I have one. You gave it to me with all your good cookin’.”
Makena laughs as she wraps her arms around his neck. “Idolove it.” She kisses his cheek, clearly as smitten with him—and his dad bod—as she’s ever been. “But I worry about your knee. Two more years, maybe three, and then you retire and help me finish becoming the female Gordon Ramsey, okay?”
He nods, looking pleased with this idea. “Totally. Except we’ll have pet raccoons instead of all those kids. I’m already working on an enclosure for them in the backyard by the garden.”
“Pet raccoons areillegalin Louisiana,” Grammercy pipes up as some of the younger players wander off to find more exciting entertainment now that the toasting is over. “I’ve told you a hundred times. You can’t have raccoons as pets here, brother.”
Parker scowls at him over the top of his beer. “And I keep tellingyouthat I’m lobbying to have that law changed. I have a contact in the state legislature, dude, and we aretight. Mark my words, by the time I retire, raccoons will be legal pets in Louisiana, and I will be well on my way to being declared a state treasure.”
“Maybe even a national treasure,” Makena agrees. “I say we take this all the way to the Supreme Court. Raccoonswantto be our friends. Ourbestfriends. They’re way smarter, cuter and cleaner than dogs, and the legal barriers to our inter-species love must be abolished at once!”
Elly laughs. “You didn’t use to think so. Remember when that raccoon broke into your food truck and had babies on your prep table? You were so mad.”
“I was uneducated. And grossed out by childbirth,” Makena says, lifting her nose in the air. “There’s a difference.”
The mention of childbirth reminds me…
I stand, moving closer to the railing to check on the girls, who are happily playing with Mimi and two other kids I don’t recognize. They all seem to be having a good time, however. Which is good, considering the waiter said it would be at least a half hour wait for the pizza.
As Elly and the others continue their debate on the future of domesticated raccoons in Louisiana, Nix joins me at the railing. “So, speaking of the future, have you thought about…getting back out there at all?”
