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Distracted by the image of what Nick must have looked like as a boy, I take a moment to respond. “Of course. Patented fun since… Well I’m assuming for at least a hundred years. Hope you like Skee-Ball.”
“Never played it,” Nick admits.
“Oh ho,” I say, dancing away from him and throwing a couple fake jabs. “Well don’t expect me to take it easy on you buddy. Because I’m the Skee-Ball queen.”
“Wouldn’t have expected mercy for a moment,” Nick replies. He takes a step back and with a cheesy flourish, allows me to lead the way. I happily do.
Now this place is much more my scene. The aisles are cramped and crowded with teenagers, college students, and more than a few dates. There are rows upon rows of pinball machines, a pool table near the door, and all manner of traditional arcade games centered around a prize counter with the usual stuffed and plastic fare.
“Oh shit,” I say, my eyes widening as I look up at the offerings. At the center of the mass of hanging stuffed animals is a massive stuffed octopus with rainbow-colored legs and giant dopey eyes. I hang off the counter like a child, looking up at it with wonder and not caring who sees. “I. Am. In. Love.”
When I glance at Nick, he’s staring at me with a funny expression in his eyes.
“Not a fan of calamari?” he teases.
“I can both love the natural grace of the octopus and its succulent flavors,” I say firmly. “And I’m gonna win that baby and his name shall be Cornelius.”
“You know I could just buy it for you, right?”
I put my hands on my hips. “No way. What’s the fun in that? We have to earn the right to take him home. Through — I don’t know — skill and… daring.”
Nick looks like he’s trying very hard not to laugh. “I’ll do whatever I can to aid in that effort with all the skill and daring I possess,” he swears solemnly.
We leave the counter for now and find a coin machine. He brushes away my attempt to put money into it.
“It was my idea,” I remind him.
“I’m a billionaire,” he says back. It’s not a boast, more a stated fact.
“I thought you valued your money,” I remind him.
His deep brown eyes pierce mine. “I can’t think of a single better use for it,” he says.
The conviction in his voice makes my heart beat wildly. He’s such a confusing man. Hot and cold. One minute ready to jump my bones, the next coolly uninterested. Rude and blunt and closed-off, then caring and considerate and holding my hand. What had made him this way? I badly want to ask, but instinctively know that Nick isn’t the kind of man who can be prompted to pour his heart out. He’ll decide if he wants me to know and pressing will only push him away.
Though shouldn’t I be trying to push him away?
All of this zips through my mind in the time it takes Nick to feed a twenty into the coin machine, and by the time he turns back to me, I’ve made my decision: tonight is a freebie. I could spend it overanalyzing everything or I could just stop thinking about tomorrow and have some damn fun.
Whatever this means, whatever happens, it can all stay wrapped up neatly in this one night. At work tomorrow, we can go back to normal and it’ll be like none of this ever happened. Do I really believe it? Not really, but I deserve to take a break from overanalyzing everything. Future Evie can handle that.
And I’m not the only one who deserves a break. I can’t even guess the last time Nick took an evening off.
Predictably, his Skee-Ball is laughably bad. We start our machines at the same time, and while I’m sinking hundreds and fifties, he can’t even get the ball into one of the easier point rings; his first four go straight into the gutter.
“Goddammit,” Nick curses as another one lands with no points. He pauses and watches me shoot one straight into the tiny hole on the upper right corner. “Okay, did I just get hustled?” he asks.
“Is it a hustle if I warned you?” I ask. I put a hand over my eyes and send another one flying. I open them just in time to see it hit the center hole.
“Okay now you’re just showing off,” Nick says. “How many hours have you put into this thing?”
“Too many to count,” I say. “There was one at the bowling alley in my old neighborhood. And let’s just say there wasn’t a lot to do where I grew up.”
“And where was that?”
“A Boston suburb you’ve never heard of,” I say. “One of the more boring ones about an hour outside of the city. On weekends, if the football team wasn’t playing that meant we were at the bowling alley.”
“Sounds very quaint,” he says.
