Page 111 of The Great Dating Fake Off
Nora rises to her feet. “Sorry, I was trying not to lose.”
“Wait, don’t exit the game! I’m about to win,” Benji argues, dragging his finger along the phone screen. “Okay, there we go. Crushed your ass.”
Ignoring him, she pockets her phone and moves closer to me. For a second, I think she’ll hug me. My body tenses for it. Hungers for it. But she slides past and struts over to the computer to enter my and Enzo’s names. “Okay, we’re just waiting for Alessia and Eloise, right?”
“Just me,” Alessia says as she bounds into the area. “Eloise’s event is running late.”
Nora hefts a bowling ball. “Well then. Just the six of us! Who’s ready for a fun game?”
I meet her eye and she shrugs as if to say here goes nothing.
Given the way Enzo and Ro keep inching closer as if they can’t help themselves, I am cautiously optimistic that this wasn’t the worst idea.
…
Ro and Enzo have taken to circling each other between their turns, always pulling other people into their conversations so as not to talk about anything real.
Nora and I have been keeping things upbeat by telling stories about our lives. Mine are only 50 percent true at this point, just to keep everyone laughing, and I think one of hers is just the plot of a famous eighties movie, but no one calls her out on it.I resist the urge to haul her into my arms every time she giggles or her gaze catches mine.
She’s trying her best, chatting with Enzo and Ro, chatting with Alessia, harassing Benji, flitting around like a tense butterfly between her turns. If she ever hosted a house party, she’d go nuclear trying to make sure everyone had a good time.
She needs a break. Or maybe I want her to myself for a little bit. Regardless of the reason, I wait until the rest of them pause the game to order food and guide her out of the seating area. We climb the two stairs that bring us back onto the carpeted landing and move behind a bowling ball case as tall as my hip.
I squeeze her shoulder as the trilling sound of a video game floats out of the arcade beside us. “You’re tense, Nor. Relax. We can only lead the horses to water, but we can’t make them drink.”
“I just want them happy again.” She lets out a little groan, and her eyes briefly shut. “That feels good.”
I add a second hand, angling her totally toward me as I rub her neck. It’s impossible not to look at her face, even when her eyes are closed. Her lashes rest on her cheeks and she exhales softly. Fuck, I think she’s becoming my Kryptonite. I could watch her do nothing all day and be perfectly content.
Her forehead falls forward. My chest catches it and we stand together like it’s normal.It’s mostly dark up here, neither the light from the neon lanes nor the arcade reaching us in this in-between place.
Fitting. Whatever this is between us feels like some kind of in-between place.
My hands slide against her skin. While my blood is hot, my insides grow cold as a thought moves through me.
One day, another man is going to touch her here. Put his grubby fingerprints all over her. Give her what she’s begged me for. I’ll have no idea it’s happening because I’ll be long gone. Nebraska, or wherever the hell I’ll go after that. And maybe that’s good, because if I were around to see it, I wouldn’t be able to stand it.
I already can’t stand it.
I pull her against me. My chin rests on top of her head as her arms move around my waist. Her hair smells like that flower store, perfumed and sweet. She’s starting to feel like home base. The person I come back to in a crowded room. I have no idea what to do with that.
She tips her head. “Should we go back?”
And give up the first chance I’ve had to be alone with her, to touch her, in two weeks? Not a fucking chance.
“I say”—I walk us backward, still holding her against me—“we check out the claw machine in the arcade instead. I want to win you a stuffed bear.”
“A stuffed bear?”
“A stuffed anything, really.”
She bites her lip as she peers back toward the lanes. “Will they miss us?”
“It looks like Benji and Alessia have abandoned Enzo and Ro to go to the bar, probably to give them alone time to talk. I think we’re fine.” I nod toward the arcade. “C’mon. This won’t take long.”
Her lips curve up. “You’re very confident in your claw machine abilities.”
I tuck her hair behind her ear. “The Claw is my favorite sport.”
