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After, with tickets bought, we headed inside and the best part—we were just five kids in the throng of people heading into the amusement park. It wasn’t super busy, but we didn’t know any of these people.
Frankie clasped my hand. She shared an ice cream cone with Jake. Archie kissed her when he got her up on one of the rides. I laughed my ass off when after she’d proved her mettle on the kiddy coasters, we went on the big one. She screamed through the whole thing.
Admittedly, I was a little deaf, but her eyes were sparkling, and we got off and got back in line and did it again. The thing about having her hair loose, after the rides and whipping upside down, it had gotten bouncier and curlier. She didn’t care, she was having fun.
We dropped too much money on competing to win her a toy. None of us would leave the shoot shack until we got something. Jake finally landed one, and then Archie did. Not enough points for what we wanted, so Bubba and I raced to get the last one, and we nailed it at the same time.
“The bear,” I said. Birthday boy privileges. It was a psychotic looking bear in psychedelic colors with eyes that looked a little helter skelter. Half the reason we even noticed the place was Frankie staring at it as we walked past. When I handed it to her, she grinned and gave me a kiss.
“Hey, it was a team effort here,” Archie protested, and she gave him a kiss. Then Jake, and she paused at Bubba. The tension suddenly ratcheted up, but she settled for pressing a quick kiss to his uninjured cheek.
“Thank you,” she said, withdrawing and hugging the bear. “Now I expect a present on everyone else’s birthdays, too.”
The comment amused, and I laughed along with everyone else, but damn, I felt for Bubba. She’d missed the way the hope flashed up in his eyes and then disintegrated when she retreated.
Thankfully, he kept it cool, and we hit a couple more rides before it was getting time to head back. We could have hung out the rest of the day and that would have been fun, too.
I’d had a blast. My best friends and our girl? Yeah. Great birthday.
Date with Frankie tonight? Without the fashion show and Cheryl?
Even better.
On the way back out to the SUV, I wrapped an arm around her, and she leaned into me.
I was never going to take this for granted. Not even a little.
I’d meant it when I said I wasn’t going to regret what I missed out on. We had way too much to enjoy.
“Good birthday?” she asked me as we lagged behind the others, and I grinned.
“Smile for me?” I asked. When she grinned, I winked. “See, there, it’s the best.”
Then she laughed, proving my point.
Chapter Sixteen
It’s His Birthday!
The day at the park had been alternately wonderful and heartbreaking. Anytime I caught myself stealing looks at Ian, he’d seemed miserable. What used to be as easy as breathing—talking—had become a nail-biting affair. I didn’t want to mislead him or make him feel self-conscious. At the same time, it was exhausting to straddle that line. Jake and Archie helped to keep it upbeat, and I focused on Coop.
The kitchen make-out following Coop’s one hell of a morning kiss and fingering me right into another orgasm that morning, and all of that on the heels of the night and morning with Archie had left me loose and lax. A state I could barely comprehend, considering my mother’s abandonment.
On the ride back, I settled my head against Coop’s shoulder while Archie played the fingers of my right hand. Once again, Ian had taken the shotgun position. No one said anything, he just headed there while Archie held the door open for me to climb in.
Awareness of being watched hit me, and I caught Jake’s gaze in the rearview mirror. I gave him a tired smile, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. Some of the worry faded, but it didn’t erase fully. A yawn stole over me, and I pressed my cheek into Coop’s shirt.
He smelled like sunshine and the sticky sweet snow cones we’d had after the wild ride on the roller coasters. They’d scared the crap out of me, but I’d had fun, too. Especially after his smile when I asked to go again. The guys weren’t really talking, and the music wasn’t too loud. Between that and the steady hum of the car, I dozed right off.
Coop nudged me awake when we were back in the lot of the apartments. Everyone slid out of the car, pee breaks were required after that drive. I led them all up to my place, even Ian.
Mine.
That nervous twitch in my gut redoubled as I considered the fact that Mom had moved out.
Was she still paying the rent? Or was that the plan? Wait until I was evicted and had nowhere else to go?
I’d sleep in my car first. But that wasn’t good for the cats. One thought crashed into another. The stress of worrying about Ian while trying to enjoy Coop’s day left me wrung out. The cats were very vocal once we were inside.
