"She cheated on me. He cheated on you. What do you say? Want to settle the score?"
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Kate Wilson, a hot-headed Dragon striker, and Rosie Connelly, an uncredited behind the scenes Sea Lion captain; witness Kate's...
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Rosie wasted no time leading us through the arcade toward the exit. A yellow claw machine caught her attention halfway out of the building, stopping her so abruptly that I smacked right into her back. Colorful unicorns sitting on the clouds attached to rainbows decorated the outside of the machine.
Cheap and matted stuffed animals squashed up against the glass, looking like they'd spent a day with sticky-fingered toddlers who screwed around with safety scissors. Nothing inside looked worth spending a single dollar on. Their unappealing appearances didn't stop her from pressing up against the glass. She took her time in examining the stuffed animals and pretended like she wasn't gunning for the giant unicorn flopped right in the middle inside the machine.
She turned to me after what felt like an eternity of her ignoring my exaggerated sighs.
"Give me a minute?" she asked, face shining.
"Whatever," I said, leaning my hip on the machine. Anything to buy time before we got back to my house was a good idea.
She bit her bottom lip, fiddling with the controller on the machine. "I'm not good at these games."
"It's not you. They're all rigged."
"I don't know. I don't have the best hand-eye coordination."
"Sucks for you?"
"Play for me? Please?" she asked with a full-blown earnest pout.
She held still, breath bottled in her chest. Her gaze darted to the unicorn and back to me, eyes growing rounder with each passing second. I didn't give her the reaction she wanted, so she clasped her hands in front of her stomach and willed her eyes into sparkling with unshed tears. She wasn't really crying, but her tears still tugged at something in my chest. Seriously? What was wrong with me?
It came down to a matter of what would be worse: listening to her complain about the unicorn that got away as she drove me home toward the cat that had also gotten away or winning the unicorn for her. Maybe she'd be so happy about the stuffed toy she wouldn't blow up over the fact that her cat was indeed not at my house?
A single tear drop hung for dear life on the edge of her eyelashes.
My heart clenched.
For fuck's sake.
I bumped her to the side and focused on the game.
"You're going all gung-ho for ugly pug, right?" I asked, feeding the machine a dollar. She clutched my wrist and made a panicked noise in the back of her throat. I nodded toward the middle of the machine. "Or do you want the toy that matches your underwear?"
"It doesn't match my . . . " She hesitated before whispering, "underwear."
"What was that? I couldn't hear you. It does match? Scandalous."
