Chapter 23
Dash
“We don’t need to go to the carnival if you don’t want to,” Mallory says, handing me a piece of buttered toast. She invited me over for breakfast before our plans to hit up the annual carnival at the high school. It’s a local tradition.
I flip the toast upside down and take a bite, letting the buttery side melt on my tongue. If the toast is this delicious, I can’t wait to dig into whatever else she’s cooking.
“I want to go. With you.” I want to be sure she knows I’m not in it for the Whack-a-Mole game.
“Okay.” She casts me a sideways glance, maybe searching for meaning behind my emphatic reply. I reach for her chin and guide her face to meet mine so I can kiss her. It’s a better explanation than any words I have. When I pull away, her eyes have that dreamy, dazed look I love.
“Okay,” she concedes.
End of discussion.
When I arrived a half hour ago, the scent of melted butter hit my nose as soon as I opened the door to my truck. I practically sprinted to her front door, only to find it cracked open. I knocked even though the door seemed like an invitation to enter, but Mallory didn’t answer.
I walked through her front entryway to her kitchen and saw why. In a beam of sunlight that looked like a movie pro had choreographed it, Mallory swayed to a Taylor Swift ballad I recognized because it had been playing at the Dark Horse on the night Mallory and I revealed we’re “engaged.”
Holding the spatula up like a microphone, Mallory sang along to lyrics about a guy who sounded like a big mistake one summer. I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the same song is playing from that first night. Maybe it’s a personal favorite of hers.
She intermittently stirs a pan of eggs and stops to sing into the spatula, her back facing me. It’s fucking adorable, and I’m torn between letting her know I’m here and staring at her for as long as I can without her knowing.
From what she’s singing, she keeps returning to the guy even though she knows it’s a mistake all summer.
I wouldn’t be the first person in the world to do that. I’ve had my share of picking the wrong person.
Mallory bops along to the song and shakes her ass, which looks goddamn amazing in a pair of white denim cutoffs, and now I feel like a creeper staring at her without her realizing it.
“Hey.”
She doesn’t hear me. She’s singing too loudly, swiveling her hips and stirring the eggs. It doesn’t matter that her voice is a little off-key—I’m here for all of it. Between the smell of toast and buttery eggs and the sight of her dancing in front of me, it feels like Christmas morning, and I’m not sure which gift I want to open first.
I take a step closer and tap her on the shoulder. She practically jumps out of her skin, whirling around and holding up the spatula like a weapon. Her eyes shine bright in fierceness and a tiny bit of fear.
“Oh. It’s you.” She lowers the spatula.
“Who did you think it was?”
“I don’t know. It could be anyone. I left the door open.”
I can’t help but chuckle. “And you did that even though it would freak you out if a stranger showed up here?”
“Well, yeah. I didn’t want to miss your knock.”
Grinning, I point at her spatula. “Excellent choice of weapon, by the way. I’m glad you didn’t use it on me.”
I’m actually lying. Spatula play might be fun.
She turns back to the stove, stirs the eggs one more time, and turns off the heat. Continuing to bustle about, she opens the refrigerator and takes out two jars of jam, then grabs silverware from a drawer.
“You should get a peephole, by the way. Not smart to open your door if you don’t know who’s out there.”
“I hope you’re hungry. I made a lot of food.” Mallory gestures around the kitchen. If I hadn’t been staring at her dancing, I’d have noticed a bowl of berries, some kind of sliced berry loaf, a stack of toasted sourdough, and what looks like a green salad.
“Salad for breakfast?”
“I know it’s not for everyone, but I like a little greenery with all the butter and carbs.”
“Suits me. I’m grateful you invited me over.”
She stops moving and tips her head up to assess me, almost like she doesn’t believe I’m being genuine. “Grateful? Actually grateful?”
“Absolutely. Breakfast is my favorite meal, and I rarely eat it. I usually run late in the mornings because I stay up too late and have to grab coffee and a muffin on the go.”
She nods, seeming satisfied with my explanation. “Well, we have that in common.”
“You skip breakfast?”
“No!” Her eyes go wide as though the idea is blasphemy. “It’s my favorite meal. Why would I skip my favorite meal?”
It seems obvious, but… “For the reasons I just said. If you’re running late…”
“If I want to do something, I make sure there’s time to do it.”
Putting my hands up in surrender, I don’t plan to argue with her. Not when the food is hot, and my stomach is ready to digest itself. “Words to live by. I’ll try to do better.”
She stares at me. “Really?”
“Yes. Why would I say it if I didn’t mean it?”
“To placate me. And because you’re hungry.”
With the various smells assaulting my senses, it’s hard to take time out to keep talking, but this feels important. “Mallomar, I’m a guy. I’m pretty much always hungry, and I will always be grateful to you if you feel like cooking. But I will never lie to you in an attempt to placate you. Never. Got it?”
She doesn’t move for a second, and I worry that she doesn’t believe me. Then slowly, she starts to nod, and the tiniest smile creeps across her face. “Okay, no lying. Sometimes it takes me a while to let an idea sink in. But I like it.”
As much as I’m dying to understand why it’s a new concept, I’ve waited about as long as I’m capable of when the food looks and smells this good. Topic for another time.
Meanwhile, Mallory brings various plates of food to her kitchen table, which has two place settings complete with paisley cloth napkins. I grab the remaining bowls and plates and join her at the table.
Mallory pours us each a cup of coffee and I notice a creamer and sugar bowl in the middle of the table. I wonder if she eats like this every day.
When the first sip of coffee hits my tongue, I groan, all my tastebuds firing at once.
“Good, right?” Mallory says, sipping from her cup.
So good.
The carnival is a candy-colored assortment of rides moving in orbit like a Rube Goldberg experiment. Small yellow carts fly down the one long roller coaster rail that encircles the grassy space at Oak Tree Vineyards, which puts on the carnival every year.
Word has gotten out over time, and now the “small, local beanbag toss,” as Oak Tree still bills it, has nearly outgrown its space. They’ve added a Ferris wheel, a swinging pirate ship, bumper cars, and several spinning rides that Mallory rejects outright.
“Nope. No rides. Not looking to lose my breakfast and get dizzy, thank you very much,” she says, steering me away from a ride that has swings flying out like octopus arms as the middle of the ride spins at a healthy speed.
“Not even one?” I don’t intend to push her, but I do love anything that whirls me around at top speed.
She stops walking and faces me squarely. “Thank you, no. You’re welcome to go without me.”
“Offer rejected. I don’t want to go without you.” As the words come out, I’m aware of their potential double meaning. Mallory waits as though she expects me to explain that I’m only referring to the carnival ride, but I have no intention of modifying what I just said.
I watch her throat work as she swallows and blinks up at me. I stare her down, daring her to question my meaning.
“Let’s go this way,” she mutters, clearing her throat.
On a long exhale, she grabs my hand and starts walking me toward the game booths, as though that was our destination all along. Eyeing the roller coaster, I promise myself I won’t leave today without getting Mallory onto one of the rides, even if it’s just the merry-go-round.
I’m all for game booths, so she’ll get no complaints from me.
The first one that catches her interest is the basketball pop-a-shot game. From her little cross-body purse, she unfurls the long strip of tickets I bought when we walked in. We have enough to play this game for eight hours straight if she wants. I wasn’t about to put limits on our carnival fun by being stingy with the tickets.
“You a baller?” I ask, smirking because she most definitely is.
Mallory points at herself. “Tall. Made me a natural go-to for the coaches at my school. I wasn’t great, but I’d give it a try.”
“Care to make it interesting?” I pull out my own tickets, which I’ve neatly folded into groups of four.
“What do you have in mind?”
We get in line behind a dad and his son, who bounces on his toes with excitement, his blond hair practically white in the sun.
Eyeing the setup, which consists of a basketball hoop mounted over a vinyl slide to return the balls back after each shot, I have a feeling I can take her, even if she did play as a kid. I have two brothers so I have some game.
“Little bet? Loser has to wear one of those hats around for the rest of the day?” I point at a row of prizes, all ridiculous hats. There are foam top hats with spinning pinwheels sticking out, baseball hats with monster faces, felt fuzzy hats in crazy patterns and colors.
“Ha. Get ready to walk around in a purple furry cowboy hat, buddy.”
It’s the closest thing to an endearment she’s used for me, and it surprises me how much I like it, even if I know a buddy is only a friend.
“Confident. I like it.”
“You’ll like it less when you lose.”
“I changed my mind. Not confident. Cocky! Get ready to parade around the place in a baseball hat with a donkey face, Mellow.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “That may be the first and last time anyone’s ever called me that.”
When it’s our turn to take shots at the side-by-side hoops, I can see why. The buzzer sounds, and she approaches it like it’s her job.
A few seconds in, she’s already made two shots while I stand there gawking at her like a schoolboy who finds himself standing next to the prom queen. She ably shoots with both hands and then bends to scoop up the other ball and take the next shot. It’s poetry.
I’m already losing the bet, but I can’t take my eyes off her finesse.
Each shot banks neatly off the backboard and sinks through the hoop. No net.
One or two of them miss, but she leans forward and scoops them up, eyes on the net, ready to take the next shot. I’m willing to believe she hasn’t played basketball in years, but there’s no way she’s new at this game.
“You didn’t tell me you’re a ringer at pop-a-shot.”
“You didn’t ask. We used to visit a cousin in Sebastopol when I was a kid, and the only thing to do at the time was go to the arcade. This was my game.”
Talking doesn’t throw her off her game, but I realize ten seconds have elapsed on the timer, and I’m still standing motionless with the ball in my hands, taking in her grace and beauty next to me. Finally, she stops, ball in hand, and turns to me. “You trying to give me an advantage? I don’t want it. Take your shot.”
The words land on me with multiple levels of meaning. True, there’s no way I can beat her at this game unless she starts missing an awful lot of baskets, but I hear what she says, and it gives me a new mission.
I want to win this woman over. I’m taking my shot.
Palming the two basketballs because I have big hands, I toss one toward the hoop, and as soon as it swishes through the net, I launch the next one. By then, the first ball has rolled back to me, and I toss it up with one hand. Again and again.
Little bells sound each time a ball makes it through the hoop, and between the two of us, we’re conducting our own little bell orchestra. A group of spectators has gathered to watch our grudge match, a few rooting out loud, mostly for Mallory.
“You’ve got a fan club,” I observe.
I’m not trying to throw her off by making her skip a beat. Or maybe I am.
The timer keeps ticking. We’re forty seconds in, and Mallory is two points ahead of me. She looks at my score for the first time, and her brows crease. She hates to lose.
Well, too bad. I hate it more.
A couple of my shots miss, and my adrenaline shoots through the roof. Five more seconds on the clock, and we’re tied. She sees it too.
We both fire off shots like crazy, frantically frustrated as the balls take too long to roll down the plastic and make our way back for the next shot. The bells chime in quick succession, and I can’t keep track of who’s making which shot and who’s ahead.
I toss my ball up, and it sweeps through the net. Next one too. I glance at Mallory’s score. She’s one point behind me, and the timer is ticking down to the last two seconds. I put up one more shot, which misses. I’m distracted. But when I reach down to grab a ball, it’s not there.
Next to me, Mallory tosses up a final shot, a buzzer-beater that brings her score to one ahead of me, just as my other ball returns to my waiting hand and I toss it toward the hoop. It slides through easily, but the buzzer has already sounded, so I don’t get the point.
“Winner!” she yells, pumping her fist in the air.
“Cheater!” I point at where three balls now sit beneath her hoop. “You swiped my ball.”
“Is it cheating to see an opportunity and take it?”
“If it prevents me from scoring the winning basket, it does.”
Browsing the display of silly hats, Mallory shakes her head. “What makes you think you would have scored?”
I laugh. “Oh, I always score when I want to.”
She rolls her eyes, but she can’t stop her smile. “I know. I just really wanted to win, and I couldn’t get the balls in my hands fast enough.”
I can’t help smirking at that. “Good to know you like balls in your hands.”
She buries her face in her hands, and I pull her in, wrapping my arms around her like I’ve wanted to do since she sank the first shot. Peeling her hands from her face, I look down at her flushed cheeks and plush lips.
“Let’s get you a hat.” I boop her nose and get ready for her to yell at me for doing it, but she shakes her head and laughs.
“Fine. Do your damage. I can take it.”
“Oh, I plan on it.”
I rub my hands together as though I’m hatching an evil scheme, but really, there’s no bad choice in the hat department. They’re all crazy, and she’d look goddamn adorable in any of them. I make her try on a big red-and-white-striped hat made of foam, but it makes her taller than me. Then I point at a baseball hat with a dragon tail sticking out of the back and an open mouth in the front.
It’s nutty, but I decide I can do better with a bright blue beanie that looks like a foam airplane landed on top of it. When Mallory puts it on, the wings stick out on both sides, and the big grin on the face of the airplane makes me smile right back.
“This is it,” I say.
“You sure?” Mallory looks in the mirror, tilting her head from side to side. As she does it, tiny lights on the airplane light up. “Oh my god, there are motion-sensitive lights. I actually kind of love it!”
She grins beneath that ridiculous fucking hat, and it hits me that I could fall in love with this woman.
Yeah. Except…I already have.