Page 80 of Double Puck

We move to the basketball hoops, where he destroys me so thoroughly that a small crowd forms, then to the balloon darts, where I discover I have a vicious streak I did not know existed. There's an air hockey table that nearly ends the entire evening, and at some point during a racing car game, he leans his whole body into every turn and I laugh so hard I drive us both off a cliff.

It's fun.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I stop noticing how wherever we move, his hand is on my back, guiding me through the crowds. I stop noticing that I've started grabbing his arm every time I laugh.

I've stopped noticing how easy Beck makes all of this.

At the ring toss, he elbows past a kid to grab the last set of rings, and fails so miserably even the attendant doesn't make eye contact with him.

"He cheated."

"Good. You elbowed a twelve-year-old out of the way to play that game. You deserve the loss."

"He entered a competitive environment unprepared." Beck hands the kid a twenty and signs his hat, which the kid seems to consider a fair trade. "See? Everybody wins."

Beck hooks two fingers through my belt loop and steers me away before the attendant can formally ban him from ring toss for life.

Somehow, we end up at another skee-ball game.

He feeds the machine more tokens, and hands me a ball. "So. Let's talk about you."

"Oh. I didn't agree to that. "

"Too late." He watches me line up my throw, standing close enough that I can smell his cologne. "For instance. The pool the other morning."

My ball bounces off the rim and rolls into the gutter. "What about it?"

"Darcy."

"What."

"When I had my hand on your neck—" His voice drops, just enough that the family at the next bank of machines over couldn't hear. "—you grabbed it. I felt you pull it tighter."

Heat floods my cheeks so fast I'm amazed the token booth kid doesn't call the fire department.

"And at your desk last week, when I told you to look at me." He rolls another ball. Another fifty. No wonder he game back to this game. "You didn't argue, didn't roll your eyes, just… did it." His gaze slides to mine. "So I'm curious. What does Darcy Madden like?"

The honest answer is...

I don't know.

I've had sex. Plenty of it. Polite, scheduled, performed-correctly sex with men who treated my body the way I treat everything—efficiently, accurately, and without much creativity.

But nobody has ever put their hand on my throat. Nobody has ever told me what to do in a voice that made me want to obey. Nobody ever stood in a closed café in a leather harness and looked at the woman he loved like she was the most interesting thing in the room, despite who was there to witness it.

I've never had that kind of passion.

I don't even know what I'd ask for if someone gave me the chance.

"I think," I say carefully, rolling my next ball—thirty points, respectable—"that I've spent a lot of time being good at things. And not a lot of time figuring out what I actually want."

Beck rolls the final ball between his palms, but instead of taking his shot, he looks at me.

"Fair enough." He bumps his shoulder against mine. "We'll figure it out."

We?

He abandons skee-ball and drifts farther down the pier. I follow like the good girl that I am.