“Not even your brothers?” he asks before tossing a ball and scoring 1,000 points off the bat.
I laugh. “Especially not my brothers. I love them both dearly, but we’d never beat the clock.PJ would waste all our time talking about the problem and thinking about how to fix it. Luke would probably set off some booby trap. And I’d be the one figuring out all the clues and getting our asses out of there, if they didn’t sabotage me first.”
“You like being in charge, don’t you?” he asks. It’s not pointed or accusatory, just an observation.
Still, I can’t help the blush that stains my cheeks. Stupid Irish ancestors. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” I will myself not to think about the bedroom, a place I most definitely prefer to be in charge. “I’m not bossy,” I protest, tossing a ball up the ramp. “I’m the boss.”
He barks out a laugh. “I can see that. Me? I’m a worker bee. I don’t want to be in charge, don’t want to make the tough calls. I just want to do my job and do it well.”
“Even on the ice?” I question.
“That’s different,” he assures me. “Because yeah, I’m the alt-captain, but we’re still a team, you know? We still have to play as a unit. Friedline’s wearing the C, but he’s not the boss, exactly. More like the leader, if that makes sense?”
“It does,” I tell him, throwing my last ball and reaching the high score. A little light flashes, and a siren goes off as tickets stream out of the machine.
“I can’t believe you smoked me. Seriously. I used to be the champ at Skee-Ball. Go again?”
I shake my cup of tokens and smile mischievously. “Zabek, I can go all night.”
* * *
Booker
“Holy crap, turn, turn!” I urge Ian as he sits behind the wheel of a racing game. At the very last second, he turns just enough to avoid a collision and to win the race. Once again, he wins about a million tickets.
I can’t complain, though. I’ve got a few thousand of my own. But even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t care. I’m having more fun tonight than I have had in…a really long time. That disaster of a dinner at my parents’ feels like it was years ago, not mere hours ago. I feel lighter, calmer. I’m not stressed about the team or even about psych. For once, I’m just a college student, hanging out with his friend, playing stupid arcade games and eating junk food.
Ian might be lean, but the guy’s a bottomless pit. Half an hour ago, he decided we needed a large basket of fries, and I must admit, they were pretty freaking good. No nutritional value whatsoever, and I’ll probably be sluggish tomorrow with all that starch weighing me down, but it’ll be worth it.
Ian stands up and stretches, tries to stifle a yawn, but fails.
“I was gonna ask if you wanted to kick my butt at Skee-Ball again, but maybe we should call it a night.”
“Maybe,” he admits. “Between Hannah’s classes, my own coursework, and the coffee shop, I’m beat.”
“I’m ready when you are,” I tell him, though part of me is sad to see tonight end. I felt like a kid again for a couple hours. Man, I needed that more than I realized.
“I’m good,” he says. “But what should we do with these tickets? Want to go see what we can cash them in for?”
“I have a better idea unless you’re dying to get your hands on the inflatable basketball hoop.”
“Hard pass.”
“Here,” I reach out and take the tickets he's neatly stacked into our cups. I head in the direction of the ball drop game, where a little girl is playing as her mom stands next to her, scrolling through her phone. The girl’s maybe five? She’s got a tutu on, and she’s wearing a giant unicorn horn on her head. Yep, I’ve made a solid choice.
“Hey,” I interrupt, making eye contact with the mom, so she doesn’t think I’m a creeper. “My friend and I won a bunch of tickets, but we’re not going to use them, so you’re welcome to them.” I place the cups on the machine and take a step back.
The little girl squeals and her mom prompts her to say thank you. I wave and turn back to Ian.
“Ready when you are.”
“Booker Zabek, you just made that little girl’s whole week.”
I shrug. “It’s not hard to be nice,” I say. “People think it is. That it’s complicated, or something. But it’s really not. We had more than we needed, so we gave it to a girl who didn’t have enough. It’s not rocket science. And it’s not psych. Both of those are way outside the realm of my understanding. But nice? I’m an expert at nice.”
“I think you’re better at most things than you realize. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you—the way others see you.”
I give myself a mental shake. I’m reading way too much into his words. I have to be. But for a moment, I wonder what would happen if I took half a step forward. Would he meet me halfway? Would his gaze hold mine?
