“Oh, holy shit—” I towed Charlie inside the arcade, letting my id run wild for the second time today as I sought the machine out to give it an affectionate pat. “I was practically raised on one of these. I used to have to spend Saturdays at the laundromat with my mom, and when we had extra quarters between loads she’d let me play so I’d leave her to whatever trashy drugstore novel she’d picked up that week. I haven’t seen one in ages.”
“So what I’m hearing is, you want to play?”
“Think Jesse can wait for us? Five minutes tops.”
“Yeah, he can wait babygirl,” Charlie said, placing a kiss against my temple. “Let me go get you some tokens.”
“A pile,” I said sternly. “You need to catch up, right?”
“I think twelve thousand dollars of tokens for a pinball machine is a bit of overkill, they’d probably let me buy the damn thing for that much.”
I pulled a face. “No, thanks. I want everyone to be able to enjoy the machine. Not just me. It would be sad to make it leave somewhere where she probably gets played all the time.”
Charlie looked at me for a long moment, gaze affectionate. “I’ll be right back, mistress.”
“Don’t leave me waiting unless you want to be punished, puppy.”
I inserteda few bills into the coin machine, watching as the large gold tokens clinked to the bottom. Picking up one of the little white plastic buckets to the side, I drained the machine of my haul and brought it over to where Tara was looking into the glass of the pinball machine.
The neon lights of the arcade glowed against her skin, so similar to the first time I’d seen her at that barcade that it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Every time I looked at her I found something new to make my favorite thing about her. Something to pay attention to—to latch onto. And right now it was that vibrant glow, as if the neon wasn’t behind her, but illuminating from underneath her skin. It was beautiful, a subtle incandescence that felt almost internal.
“Got the tokens,” I said, holding them up and giving the bucket a little rattle.
Her eyes brightened as she turned to look at me, life sparkling in their dark depths. Tara had a bit of a case of restingbitch face, her expression coming off annoyed or bored. It made seeing her perk up at my presence absolutely electrifying.
It was strange, I spent so much time working on a software to match omegas to their perfect alpha, but I just ran into mine by chance… twice. I wasn’t the type to bet on fate usually, but it seemed like something was at work here.
She clapped a bit in excitement and reached for the bucket, taking one of the coins and slotting it into the machine. The sound got louder as the lights started flickering. A loud, mechanical snap came as the ball hit the bottom of the spring.
Her eyes lit up in almost the same way they did when she saw me, and I couldn’t decide if I should be offended or not.
“Wanna start it?” She asked, gesturing to the small black spring.
“I always want to start it,” I said with a smirk.
Her cheek heated a bit but her head whipped back to the game, wanting to be focused. I pulled back the small plunger all the way and released, the smack of the plastic against the metal shooting the ball forward, and began it plinking around.
Her hands found the buttons on the sides easily and started playing. I’d always thought this was more of a game of chance, but she seemed to have real skill. She knew the best angles to get the ball up and to the back, making it bounce more for a higher score. My eyes followed the ball—followed her movements. She had laser focus on it. Each press of the button calculated like I was watching her do the physics in the moment.
It was incredible.
She reached 100,000 before the first ball fell.
“Wow, youaregood,” I said, pressing probably a bit too close to her.
“I know,” she said with a grin. “Here.” she stepped aside. “Your turn.”
“Oh I’m not really good at pinball,” I said. There was no reason to make a fool of myself doing this right now.
“There was no chance of you being as good as me anyway,” she said confidently with a wink.
I laughed. “Okay, fine.”
I stood in front of the worn blue buttons and let her pull the plunger this time, tracking the ball with my eyes.
I got a few good shots in, but none of them made it up and around the back. It didn’t take long for it to bounce too high against the flippers. I tried to let the ball travel down them a bit, but it was no use. When I tried to pass it back up to the top, I hit the button too late and it rolled around the edge, falling into the trough, only 50,000 points in.
“You did pretty well,” Tara said, though the teasing quality to her voice made me think she didn’t actually think so.
