Page 31 of Redline Baby

"I thought you'd like it." Soren says it simply, hands in his jacket pockets, watching my face instead of the fairground. "You've got a lot of restless energy most of the time. Figured a place built entirely around noise and lights and moving parts might actually be able to keep up with you for once."

"That's either the nicest or the most accurate thing anyone's ever said about me."

"Can't it be both?"

I don't have an answer for that, so I just grab his sleeve and pull him toward the ticket booth instead, and he lets himself be pulled, easy and unbothered, the way he's easy and unbothered about almost everything.

He's looking very good tonight.

He's wearing a new brown leather jacket, his nicest pair of boots, dark jeans, and a dark button-up. I'm in my Redline jacket, which isn't nearly as nice as his, a white T-shirt, ripped jeans with tears across the thighs, and Adidas sneakers.

We stop for milkshakes almost immediately because I see the stand and refuse to continue until I've had one.

Soren buys mine.

I inform him this counts as excellent date planning.

He informs me he wasn't aware there was a grading system.

There is now.

Then we hit the games.

I lose spectacularly at the ring toss, three dollars gone in about as many seconds, and I'm ready to walk away in defeat when Soren steps up to the same booth, studies the bottles for a second like he's reading a diagnostic panel, and lands three rings clean in a row.

"Okay, that's unfair," I say. "You've done this before."

"Physics is physics. Doesn't matter if it's a corner or a ring toss."

He collects his prize from the guy running the booth—a slightly lopsided stuffed fox, orange and white, one ear a little crooked—and holds it out to me without ceremony.

"For you."

"You already won me a milkshake."

"I didn't win you a milkshake, I bought you one." He nudges the fox at me until I take it. "This one I actually earned. Consider it superior."

I take the fox, and something in my chest just—lets go. All at once. No warning, no bracing for it first. I hug him against my chest with both arms, burying my nose briefly into his slightly lumpy head, and when I look back up at Soren, I know exactly what my face is doing.

The weirdest part is that I don't care.

I don't try to stop it.

"He's so soft," I say, and my voice comes out smaller than usual. "Look at his little face. He's got a crooked ear."

"He does."

"I love him."

I hold him up so Soren can see, turning him this way and that like he needs to properly appreciate the crooked ear from every angle.

"What's his name?" I ask.

"Whatever you want it to be. He's yours."

I consider the fox seriously, turning him over in my hands, and land on something without any real deliberation.

"Milkshake," I decide. "Since you didn't win me an actual one, he can be the milkshake. That way you still win, technically."