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“I can just feel how happy you are to be here with me.”
“Shh!” She did the run up again and bowled.
This time, the ball stayed in the lane and didn’t veer off into the gutters, and she got a bloody strike.
“Ah-ha!” She threw both fists in the air. “There we go! I had the wrong ball. Now you’re going down!”
“All right, I was going to play nice because you were so excited to be here, but that’s it. The gloves are off.” I rolled my sleeves up to my elbows and went to get my ball. “It is on.”
“Bring it, sucker!”
***
We played two games, both of us winning one apiece. When we finished the second, I went to get another game but there was a prebooked party waiting for our lane, so we handed our shoes back and headed for the arcade instead.
“I nearly had the first game. That’s so annoying. I want a tie-break.”
“We can come back. We’ll put a tally on the fridge.” I slung my arm over her shoulders as we walked into the arcade. “What do you want to play?”
There was everything from air hockey to pinball and other games I wasn’t entirely familiar with. A foosball table was being commandeered by two teen boys, and a family with two young kids were working a grabber machine for a stuffed toy.
“I never really did a lot of the games as a kid,” Saylor said. “I was more of a toy grabber girl. Drove my parents nuts because I’d spend all my allowance on them until I finally realized they were rigged.”
“Your parents don’t live here, right?”
She shook her head. “They separated. My dad lives in Wyoming with his girlfriend, and my mom moved back to Billings not long before you moved to town.”
“So it’s just you looking after your grandma.”
“Pretty much. I joke about her a lot, but I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
“Not have as many nightmares about seniors in Lycra, I’d guess.”
“No. You’re the one responsible for that. None of them wore Lycra until you started those classes.”
I chuckled. “They’re fun. It gets them moving. Even Seb’s grandpa joins in now. And since the new guy moved in all the women are really giving it some welly.”
“Giving it some welly? What is that?”
“Effort. Giving it some effort.”
“Oh. I like that.” She laughed quietly. “Yeah, they all seem quite taken with Leonard. I think he’s nice.”
I side-eyed her. “I think he’s too nice.”
“Maybe he’s just trying to make a good impression. Don’t be so cynical.”
“Did you, Saylor Green, just tell me not to be so cynical?” I raised an eyebrow. “What is going on?”
“Oh, be quiet. Do you want a game of air hockey?” She stopped at a vacant table. “I was never very good at this.”
I frowned. “Then why play it?”
She shrugged. “The foosball table is taken.”
“All right.” I bent down and put a coin in the table, and the screens lit up with a little song that made Saylor jolt in surprise. “Which side is yours?”
“Does it matter?”
“No, I was being polite.”
“Oh.” She looked left to right. “This one.” She took the one on my right, and I went to the other. The puck was in my end, so I reached over and put it in front of me. “Ready?”
“No.”
“Tough.” I knocked the puck in her direction. She squealed at the speed of it and swept her striker out with no direction, missing the puck as it slid into her goal. “Shit. That was fast. Can you slow down?”
“Or you could speed up,” I retorted.
She narrowed her eyes as she bent down and collected the puck, set it on the table, and hit it as hard as she could. If she’d sent it straight at me, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get it, but it bounced off the side of the table, slowing it considerably. I tossed it back to her, expecting her to miss.
She didn’t.
She hit it with such vigor that it again bounced off the side of the table, but instead of sliding back onto the deck, it smacked into my cheek.
Fucking ouch.
My cheek was on fire, and I blinked rapidly to get through the hot burst of pain. Shit the bed, that fucking hurt.
“Oh, my God!” Saylor dropped her striker and rushed over to me. “I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Let me see!” She tugged my hand away and reached up on her tiptoes. Her eyes widened. “I’m so sorry!”
“It’s fine.” I winced when she gently touched her fingers to my cheek. “I’m fine. Really, it’s okay.”
“This is why I don’t do sports,” she groaned, brushing her thumb over my cheek. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, it feels better already,” I lied, meeting her eyes. “One of those that looks worse than it is.”
She held my gaze for a moment. “You’re lying to me, aren’t you?”
