Epilogue Two
As soon asthe metal ring leaves my hand, I know I’ve already missed. I groan as it clinks off the top of the glass bottle, bouncing onto the floor.
Stupid ring toss. That was my last throw.
“They rig these things so you can’t win,” I tell the carny, a kid no older than nineteen, who gives me a weary look and rolls his eyes. “It’s true.”
“You think so?” says a familiar voice from beside me. At once, my heart skips a beat, and my fingers clench into fists.
It’s Reed. He steps up beside me, his perfect hair tousled by the warm breeze, and gives a friendly nod to the bored teenager behind the counter.
“Are you gonna keep sneaking up on me?” I ask, turning to face Reed. “This is, like, the second time today.”
“Sorry,” Reed says, a lopsided smile on his face that makes me grit my teeth in frustration. Does he ever take himself seriously? “I didn’t think of it as sneaking up on you. Promise. I was just... approaching.”
“Well, approach from a different direction, then.” I sniff, turning back to the ring toss, and hand the carny another dollar bill. “Rack ’em, please.”
The carny clicks his tongue and grimaces, which doesn’t exactly boost my self-confidence, and hands me three more rings.
“Let me get in on this,” Reed says, digging in his pocket for some cash. He produces a handful of quarters, presenting them to the teenager with a flourish.
I do my best to ignore Reed as I size up the bottles for my first throw, but it’s difficult. He has a magnetic presence. His is one of those faces that seems designed to draw every eye, and my heart is beating faster than usual just from his proximity.
I still don’t know if he remembers who I am, and quite frankly, I hope he doesn’t.
“So,” Reed says, leaning against the booth’s counter beside me. The three rings hang from his index finger, and he swirls them around nonchalantly. “Happy day, huh?”
“Yep,” I reply, popping the “p” with my lips. I still don’t look at him.
“Our best friends are getting married,” Reed continues with a sigh. “True love, right?” There’s a note of irony in his voice that makes me want to fling one of my rings at him instead of the bottles.
“Yeah,” I say, “true love. For real.” I shoot him a glare out of the corner of my eye. “Personally, I’m happy for Riley. This is perfect for her.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Reed says quickly, noticing the edge to my voice. “I’m happy for Cole, too. Seriously. I never thought I’d see him smile like that.”
I throw my first ring, and it whizzes straight over all of the bottles, hitting the back of the tent with a dull thud. The carny, scrolling on his phone in the corner of the booth, snorts a laugh. I scowl at him.
I can feel Reed’s amusement, too, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of a sour look. He takes his first throw, and the ring clinks off of a bottle—a near miss.
“I just don’t believe in that ‘happily ever after,’ forever kind of love, you know?” Reed continues, apparently oblivious to the fact that I want him to get lost. “Like, sure, maybe in movies—”
“I do,” I interrupt. I throw the second ring at one of the corner bottles, a new strategy I’ve just cooked up. No dice. Reed throws right after me, and his ring lodges onto the bottle I was aiming for.
“Oh, right,” he comments with a chuckle. “You used to love those romcoms. You were constantly watching them.”
I’m so startled by this that I’m almost lightheaded for a moment. “Wait—what?”
He does remember me. He basically just confirmed it.
He cocks his head to one side, looking at me. “You don’t remember the romcoms? You’re kidding me. You used to have them on all the time. You went through at least a few every week.” Reed takes his last throw, and misses. He brushes his hands together and clicks his tongue in disappointment. “Unlucky.”
My mouth is open slightly in disbelief. I snap it shut, and say, “You remember me?”
He grins slyly. “Well, how could I forget?”
That takes me aback, not least because it doesn’t fit with the Reed I’ve built up in my head, the super-rich, silver-spoon Eastwood kid who didn’t even notice the help. It’s been years, and he still remembers me?
I hate to admit it, but I’m also flustered, and hoping desperately that he can’t see the flush in my cheeks.
I thought I was a complete stranger to him—at least, as far as he knew.
“Why didn’t you say anything before, when we saw each other at that art gala?” I demand.
“To be honest, it’s because you looked like you were about to bolt,” he says, a teasing note in his voice, “and I didn’t want to scare you away.”
Annoyed, I turn back to the ring toss game, rolling my eyes. I have one last ring in my hand, and I’m determined to get at least one.
I steady myself for the throw, then let my third ring fly. It bounces off the center bottle and clatters onto the floor.
“Shit!” I let out a sharp breath, folding my arms in annoyance. “They rig these things, I’m telling you. It’s literally impossible to win.”
“Is that so?”
I close my eyes. I don’t need to look at Reed to imagine his insufferable smirk. “Yes.”
“Then how did I get one?”
Over in the corner of the booth, I hear the carny snort a laugh. I glare at him.
“Who asked you?” I turn back to Reed. “You got one out of sheer luck, and nothing more. Don’t forget it.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” Reed says casually, “let’s play again. For glory, this time.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, let’s make it a contest.”
I size him up, raising an eyebrow. “Well... what do I get if I win?”
The carny sighs in the corner, interrupting our conversation. “You get a big stuffed giraffe,” he says, gesturing to the prize rack. Sure enough, there is a plush giraffe there that’s nearly as tall as I am. It looks ridiculous. “Whichever one of you wins gets a stuffed giraffe. You don’t even have to hit all three rings. You just have to promise to leave me alone.”
“That sounds like a pretty good deal to me,” Reed says, a winning smile spreading across his face. “What do you say?”
I inhale through my nose, then nod. “Okay. Deal.”
Reed pats his pockets, then glances over at me. “You got a dollar?”
“Are you kidding me? Reed Eastwood is asking me for a dollar? Why don’t you dip into your trust fund? Is your hotel chain really doing that bad?”
To my endless exasperation, not one of my barbed comments seems to make a dent in Reed’s confidence. He holds out an open hand, gesturing.
“Well, I’d mosey on down to the big, cartoon vault where we keep all of our dollar bills stacked,” he says, “but it’s a little bit of a haul, and it also doesn’t exist. So unless this ring toss booth takes credit—”
“We do not take credit,” the carny intones, sounding bored out of his mind.
“They don’t take credit,” Reed sighs, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “You wanna loan me a dollar, or are you too scared I’ll show you up at ring toss?”
My teeth are clenched together as I reach into my wallet and produce a wrinkled dollar bill. I hand it to Reed.
“Thank you,” he says. “I’ll pay you back, I swear.” He winks at me, then waves the dollar at the carny and says, “Let’s do this thing!”
The carny brings each of us three rings. Reed gathers his up with great ceremony, an expression of mock seriousness coming over his face. He takes a deep breath, like a runner at the starting line of an Olympic race.
He tosses the first one, and misses. Then he turns to me with an elaborate bow.
“Your throw.”
I huff, narrowing my eyes in concentration. If I can beat Reed, then maybe I can walk away with my pride intact. I throw my ring, and it skates over several bottles before hitting the floor.
Reed faces the counter again, holding his next ring between two hands as if he’s a pitcher on the mound. “Eastwood lines up for his second shot,” he says, adopting the effect of a sports announcer. “Can he do it? Here’s the throw—”
He lets the ring fly, and it bounces off the center bottle.
“Ah, that’s a shame,” I say with a smirk. “Let me show you how it’s done.”
I toss my second ring, and miss once more.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Reed says, his voice intense, “it all comes down to this.” He takes a theatrical breath, then winds up and tosses his final ring.
It whizzes straight over all of the bottles, and Reed steps back with a sheepish grin.
“You weren’t kidding,” he marvels. “They do rig these.”
“We’ll see about that,” I say, lifting my last ring.
Reed leans on the counter, staring with bated breath as I ready myself for the throw. I’ve been tossing the rings like frisbees, but that hasn’t gotten me anywhere. It might be time to try a new strategy.
This time, instead of throwing the ring horizontally, I toss it in a high arc, nearly straight up in the air. It flies into the center of the bottles and lands neatly on the center bottle, catching on the neck.
Reed lets out a whoop, his hands flying into the air in excitement. “Unbelievable, folks!” He turns to me with a sudden, exaggerated expression of solemn defeat. “I acknowledge your victory.”
“You were a worthy opponent,” I respond, lifting my chin.
He grins. “Glad to hear it.”
As the carny goes to get my massive stuffed giraffe, Reed says, “Hey, now that our friends are together, we’ll probably be seeing a lot more of each other, right?”
“Yeah,” I agree cautiously.
“I hope we can be friends again. It would be nice, since we’re probably going to end up in the same places together a lot.”
I’m about to respond, but I’m interrupted by the arrival of my ridiculously huge giraffe. The carny passes him over the counter, and I’m immediately overwhelmed as I try to figure out how to carry him.
“Oh, god,” I mutter, struggling to keep his tail off the ground. “He’s taller than I am.”
“Here, let me help,” Reed says. He steps closer to me and shifts the giraffe up, leaning its neck against my shoulder. His fingers brush my hair as he does so, and suddenly, my heart is racing again, just as it was when I first heard his voice beside me.
Reed pauses, meeting my gaze, and it takes all of my strength to make eye contact with him. Then he steps back with a nod.
“Good game,” he says.
“You, too,” I reply. Quickly, I turn and leave, making my way through the crowd with my giraffe. To my relief, he doesn’t try to follow me.
As I walk back toward the Ferris wheel, looking for Riley, I think about what Reed said. We’ll definitely see each other a lot more often now, that’s for sure. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
I’d never admit it out loud, especially not to him, but back in the days when my mother worked for the Eastwoods, I always used to have a crush on him. That old crush is still kicking around in my chest, giving me the unpleasant sensation of butterflies in my stomach whenever he’s around.
He got under my skin all the way back then, and, as much as I hate to acknowledge it, he gets under my skin now.
And that’s bound to end in trouble.
Especially since he’s a notorious player.
Olivia and Reed’s story, a fake relationship romance, is coming soon!