“You can’t tell me no.” I scoffed. “I’m not a kid, and even if I were, you still couldn’t tell me no.”
He looked at me a moment, then pulled me to his side with one strong, heavy arm around my shoulders. It wasn’t an intimate gesture. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took a page out of Tiffany’s book and rumpled my hair. Still, I was pressed against him, surrounded in his soapy scent, his hip against my side, his enormous hand squeezing my shoulder.
“I’m going to win you a prize,” he said. “Anything you want. Pick it, and I’ll get it for you. No matter how big it is.”
He no longer sounded angry or jealous or even cautious, and that was a first. Was this how Tiffany always got what she wanted from men—by doing what they told her not to? “Really?” I asked.
“What’s your favorite animal? Frogs?”
I couldn’t help my laugh. As kids, my friends and I used to catch and release toads in the street. But I wasn’t a kid anymore. “Whose favorite animal is a frog? They’re slimy.”
He shrugged one shoulder and pulled me along with him toward a hit-the-target game. “So, nothing slimy then.”
Manning paid the carnie, received three baseballs and missed the target three times.
I smiled at his effort. Just that alone was worth being happy over. “It’s okay if—”
“No it’s not. I promised you.” Manning called the man over again. “Another round.”
I almost missed Tiffany’s glare, but when I caught it, I just about told her to take a hike. To go find Corbin Swenson, her number one admirer. Being the center of Manning’s attention was as heady as I thought it would be, and I didn’t want to share the spotlight.
Tiffany turned away on her own, though, leaving us to go talk to the man operating the booth.
Right as I turned back, Manning reared back and pitched the ball in a perfect line. It bounced off the cardboard around the target.
“These games are rigged,” he muttered.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
“I am worried,” he teased. At least, I thought he was kidding. He spoke lightly but also focused intensely on the target. Maybe something did have him worried.
Gearing up for his second throw, his t-shirt sleeve rode up his bicep. The skin there was whiter than the rest of his arm, smoother. His muscles strained the fabric.
Tiffany glanced over at us.
Manning missed. “God d—” His neck reddened and after a deep breath, he snatched the third baseball. He threw it so hard, everyone jumped when it smacked the target. Manning wiped his hairline with his sleeve and nodded. “There we go.”
The attendant barely looked away from Tiffany. “Pick any from this side,” he said, gesturing toward a wall with small stuffed animals and toys.
“What if I want a bigger one?” he asked.
“You have to hit the target twice.”
“I don’t want a bigger one,” I said immediately, taking a step closer to Manning. I looked up at him, proud. I’d never seen anyone hit the target directly, not even my dad, and he’d played this game before.
“You sure?” he asked. “Because I’ll—”
“I’m sure.” I pointed to the first thing I saw, a white-and-blue pelican. “That one.”
Manning leaned over the counter to wrestle the toy off the wall. “It needs a name,” he said.
My cheeks flushed. “I don’t name my stuffed animals.”
He passed it to me. “I think you should.”
I hugged it to my chest. Put on the spot, I couldn’t think of anything clever. “Well, it’s a bird, so . . . Birdy?”
“Birdy,” he repeated, looking me in the eyes. He ran a thumb over the head of the stuffed toy, his knuckles brushing the neckline of my shirt, the top curve of my breast. He didn’t seem to notice, but I shivered. “You cold, Birdy?”
It fit perfectly in my arms, the first thing a boy had ever given me—and not just a boy. Manning. “Birdy’s warm.” I nodded. “Birdy’s perfect. Thank you.”
“Welcome.”
“Look what I won.” Tiffany strutted over, her arms barely meeting around the middle of a giraffe as tall as her. She grinned. “And I didn’t even have to throw a single ball.”
“You going to carry that thing around the whole park?” Manning asked. “We’ll have to buy it its own ticket.”
She laughed. “Of course not. It’s as big as me. You are.” She shoved it at Manning, who tucked it under his arm, looking much less annoyed than I felt.
When I glanced over at the Ferris wheel, Manning noticed. “Still want me to take you?”
I curled my fingers into Birdy’s soft, velvety fur. I couldn’t have been happier. “No, it’s okay.”
Tiffany took Manning’s free arm and guided him away, leaving me to follow behind them. “Thank you for taking care of her,” she whispered loudly. “My dad will love you for it.”
“Dad?” I asked. “You’re going to introduce them?”
“No.” Tiffany looked back at me, and then up at Manning. “Well, maybe. Would you, Manning?”
“Would I what?”