“Afraid to sit next to me?” King asked.
“No, but you’re huge and these stools are small. I don’t want to bump into your arm and lose just because you haven’t missed a workout in three years.” I closed one eye and readied my water gun.
King shook his head, “That mouth of yours,” he said. There are several ways I could have taken that statement, but I didn’t have time to think about it because I had a game to win.
“I’m warning you. I’m really good at this game,” King said to me.
Was he being playful?
“Competitive, are we?” I asked, keeping my focus straight ahead at the bulls-eye.
“Oh, pup. You have no idea.”
The bell rang, and the carnie shouted, “GO!”
I squeezed the trigger. Water sprayed out of my gun and directly onto the target. My little hippo shot up the ladder, and just as quickly as it had started, the game was over. I looked over to King who was sitting back smiling. What was he smiling over? I was the one who won.
“Winner! Winner!” the Carni shouted He unclipped a huge stuffed deer from the top of the tent and handed it to King, who received the prize and then started to walk away.
He’d won? How was that possible?
“Hey!” I shouted, chasing after him. “Why did you get the prize? I won. My hippo was so far ahead of yours that I didn’t even see yours move.” King stopped.
“Pup, you didn’t see my hippo move because I was done before you even began.” He was smiling. A genuine, real–life, swoon-worthy smile that reached his eyes. It was a good look on him.
No, it was a GREAT look on him.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I shouted.
“Competitive, are we?” King asked, mocking me. “I told you I was good at that game.”
King seemed like any other young man who was taking a girl out on a date. Well, any other six-foot-something tattooed wall of muscle who looked like he could be an underwear model.
I liked playful King.
I liked him a lot.
“You must have played that game before,” I pouted. “Unfair advantage.”
“Yeah, I’ll give you that. This carnival has come here every year since I was a kid. Preppy and I used to sneak in the back. Over there.” King pointed toward a gate in a chain-link fence with a huge padlock keeping it shut. “We’d steal corn dogs from the food stands, right out of the fryer. Although the padlock happened only after they found out how we were getting in.”
I knew Preppy and King were best friends, but this was the first time I’d ever heard any stories from their childhood together.
“I tell you what,” King started. “Since this is a date and all, and guys usually give their dates their prizes, I will let you have my deer.” He held out the stuffed animal.
I didn’t know if he was toying with me. If I didn’t know how to handle ornery King, I certainly didn’t know how to handle nice and playful King.
I snatched it out of his hands like he was going to reconsider his offer, and I tucked it tightly under my arm. King laughed.
“What’s so funny now?” I asked.
“Doe…holding a doe.” Okay, he’d got me on that one. I held my hand over my mouth to contain my laughter.
For the next few hours, we played every single game the place had to offer.
I won none of them.
King made a point of handing me each of his prizes. Soon, I ran out of arm space to carry them all.
“I don’t think we can play anymore,” I told him, gesturing to the huge stack of cheap toys up to my chin.
The bell sounded for one of the games, and I was just about to walk away when King stopped me. “No, wait a sec.”
We watched as a tiny boy tried three times to win a prize against two much older teenagers. After a minute the boy’s dad pulled him aside. “That’s enough, Sam. We can try again another time.”
“But I wanted the stuffed alligator,” the boy complained.
“You’ll get it. Maybe, next year when you’re a little bit bigger.” The dad smiled.
King plucked a stuffed penguin from my arms and approached the boy and his father who were walking away from the game, the boy’s bottom lip set in a pout. Tears welling up in his eyes.
“Excuse me,” King said, getting their attention. The father looked alarmed and pulled his son into his leg.
King ignored the dad’s reaction and bent down to the boy, holding out the penguin. “I know it’s not an alligator, but penguins are just as cool. As a matter of fact, they’re cooler. They live in the snow, and they’re the only bird that doesn’t fly. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t know that,” the boy said, with a thumb in his mouth.
“They also slide around on their bellies on the ice.”
“Cooool,” the boy said, staring at the penguin.
“Now, you take good care of him, okay?” The boy nodded and took the penguin.
“Thank you.” The boy’s dad mouthed to King.
He nodded, and they disappeared into the crowd.
King made his way back to me. “You’re up next,” he said as he approached.