"It says every child wins a prize."
"Yeah, well you're no kid."
"I want the ring. Give it to me or I'll tell every kid that comes over here how you rig your targets. Trust me, mate, you don't want that."
The old man got the ring and shoved it at Holden. "Take the crappy bit of junk then, no skin off my nose."
Holden grinned at him then got down on his knee. "Carlie, will you do me the pleasure of being my wife?"
I laughed, glancing around to see if anyone noticed.
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"Get up and stop clowning around. You'll get grass stains all over your knees."
He grabbed my hand. "I'm serious. I want you to marry me. I won this for you with my own efforts."
Hell, he really meant it. His eyes pleaded with me. I expected him to start laughing and tell me it was only a joke.
“Don’t be an idiot, Holden. Do you want your fans seeing this?” I made myself laugh.
He jumped up. “There are people watching? Seriously?”
He glanced around as though he’d only just remembered we were in public. I knew that would make him see sense.
“I’m going back on the roller coaster. You coming or are you going to be a big sissy?”
I ran off, leaving him behind, because that was the only way I could deal with this. I had to keep things light. We were just playing around. There was nothing beyond this day. No future, no tomorrow. Just this moment.
We’d have our fun then he’d disappear just like this carnival. All that’d be left behind would be an empty field with junk food wrappers blowing across it. And that talk of forever was as rigged as the shooting game. The targets looked easy but they were slightly off balance and always out of reach.
Chapter 23
“YOU DON’T REALLY WANT to go to the bar? We can go anywhere. Let’s go somewhere nice for dinner. Anywhere you want?”
“Ergh, no. I have a belly full of sugar and processed meat. If I go out to dinner, I’ll be queasier than you were on that spinny ride. I really thought you were going to hurl.”
He grinned. After his stupid efforts with the ring, he’d been fine for the rest of the day. Luckily, the train was pretty much empty on the way home. No one to bug us. We sat together, rattling back to reality.
“Just for one drink. I want to make sure the place is okay.”
“You have trust issues, Carlie.”
“Aint that the truth.”
I didn’t really want to open up that discussion though, so I slipped my hand into his and rested my head on his shoulder and pretended to nap until we got to our station. But the pretending became real and he shook me awake when we came to our stop.
The weather had cooled down when got off the train. He took off his leather jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. I wanted to stop him but it comforted me to wear it and it was damn cold in just that flimsy dress.
“Okay, we’ll go to the bar for one drink. Then we have to go back to my hotel room.”
“Sounds fair to me.”
I wanted to make sure things were okay with Drew. Even though I’d given him his job back, I didn’t want anything going wrong. And if people didn’t turn up for their shifts, I wasn’t sure that Sally would let me know. All number of things could go wrong at the bar without me there.
He put his arm around me as I walked but it seemed awkward, like we were a step out of time with each other. I didn’t want to pull away and make an issue of it.
I put my hands in the pockets of his jacket to keep them warm. Something touched my fingers in the right pocket. The stupid ring he’d won at the carnival. I slipped it on my finger, not even sure why.