by Ellie Wade
“Oh! It gave me more points! Yay! What do I do with the points? Shit!” She sighs as she dies in the game. “Stupid ghosts.”
“Maybe we should Google the rules to the games before playing?” I suggest.
“No way. That’s cheating. We need to find out just like we would’ve had we played these games in the ’80s.”
“We weren’t alive in the ’80s,” I remind her.
“That’s true, but I’m sure there were still arcades around in the ’90s, too. Weren’t there?”
“I could Google it.” I arch an eyebrow.
“We’re so lame.” She giggles. “All right, your turn.”
We make our way through the arcade, playing any of the games that look fun. We make up rules that probably have nothing to do with how the game is actually played.
“Look, there’s a princess and a giant monkey. I think you need to rescue her,” Georgia tells me as my little man climbs a ladder. “Watch out for the suitcases he’s throwing at you. I’m pretty sure those will kill you.”
“Why would he throw suitcases at me? I think they’re oxygen tanks. They look like the ones you use scuba diving.”
“Why would he throw oxygen tanks at you?” she asks.
“Maybe they blow up?”
“They’re barrels,” a guy next to us says dryly.
Georgia and I both look toward him, but he doesn’t take his eyes off of the screen of the game he’s playing.
I shrug and turn back to the game. “What do you think those things are in between the ladders? A fire extinguisher?”
“Or a light switch that he needs to turn on? I bet the monkey hates light,” Georgia suggests. “Oh, or a bomb. Maybe you should avoid those, too, to be safe.”
“It’s a hammer, and you want it,” the dude next to us mumbles, causing us both to laugh.
We’re clearly not Donkey Kong experts. Heck, there’s not a game in here that Georgia and I know how to play. Yet, oddly enough, I’m having fun. I find myself laughing more than I ever remember doing.
I don’t know when exactly I turned into such a moody asshole. I don’t recall always being this way. I was different when I was younger, when hope still existed in my heart. But somewhere along the line, I changed. Perhaps it was gradual, or maybe it wasn’t. All I know is that I don’t have any memories of feeling this light, this happy. Being with Georgia stirs up all of these emotions that I thought I was incapable of experiencing.
Life has a way of jading a person. Then, a door is opened, and a breath of fresh air enters, filling my lungs for the first time.
When she walked into my office for the first time a couple of months ago, I thought I would choke on the stubborn resentment that I held toward her. I was beside myself with rage, wondering why this girl who had caused me so much grief was coming back into my life.
She was even more attractive than she had been in high school—the quintessential girl next door with her rocking body, long and wavy blonde hair, and doe blue eyes that are a mix between ocean and sky blue. She was too gorgeous for her own good. I hated her for being beautiful. I hated her for hurting me. I hated her for coming back.
It’s pretty pathetic that my own obstinate rage blinded me to what was standing right in front of me the entire time. She’s always been kind. Georgia’s always been exactly what I needed her to be, but I couldn’t see her because I was blinded by self-loathing and sadness.
I realize now that Georgia’s my air. She gives me oxygen, allowing me to breathe in deep for the first time. I didn’t even know I was suffocating in the first place, but I was.
This relationship thing between us is new and unfamiliar, so I force myself to play it cool. But, deep down, she’s always been the girl who held my heart whether my pride allowed me to admit it or not.
And now, she’s here. I’ve held her and touched her. I’ve been inside her. I’ve cherished every part of her body, and she’s mine. It’s surreal really, so very mind-blowing, but that’s life.
“Grab the light switch.” I shoot a look to the guy beside us and correct myself before he can. “I mean, the hammer,” I say to Georgia right as a barrel falls on the little dude’s head on the screen, and she dies.
“Stupid monkey. He’s an ass, isn’t he?” She turns and wraps her arms around my neck.
“Definitely,” I agree.
I softly kiss her, pulling her bottom lip out as I lean away from her.
“I saw some type of bowling game over there that looked fun,” she tells me.
“Lead the way.”
We grab our small buckets of quarters and close in on the “bowling” game, which is actually called Skee-Ball.
This place is fun, but it makes me realize how different both of our childhoods were from others. I was working side jobs in an attempt to make money to feed myself and take care of my drug-addicted mother while other kids were playing video games and going to birthday parties. Georgia was sipping lattes in Rome or getting manicures at a spa instead of going to bowling alleys or bouncy houses with friends. Our histories were vastly different though unusually sad at the same time.
Georgia jumps up and down with excitement when her ball lands in the small hole at the end of the aisle labeled one hundred. “I got it in the hundred.” She claps with excitement as a string of tickets shoot out of the machine. “I got tickets!” She snatches them up. “What do you think you do with these?”
“I saw a counter with prizes and stuff. I think you cash them in for something.”
“Oh my gosh. This is amazing. We need to get more tickets!”
My lips turn up in a grin, and I shake my head as I watch her bite her lip in concentration, trying to get the ball in the big-numbered holes. Every time one of her balls lands in anything, she cheers. I insert quarters into the Skee-Ball machine beside her and work on earning some more tickets for her. The two of us spend the rest of our change playing this game.
With empty quarter buckets and a handful of tickets, we head over to the prize counter and are instructed to insert our tickets into the ticket counter.
“A ticket counter. That’s fun,” Georgia says, wide-eyed.
She then excitedly places the tickets into the counting machine. When all of our tickets are entered, the machine prints out a receipt that says, 237 tickets.
“Two hundred thirty-seven. That’s a lot. Let’s go see what we can get!”
She pulls me over to the prize counter, and the arcade employee shows us our options.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Georgia says with huff. “We put at least thirty dollars of quarters into that game, and all we won are two small packages of fruit snacks?” She holds the small square packages in front of me, her lips turned down.
I can’t help but laugh. It turns out that two hundred thirty-seven tickets is in fact a very low number here at Pinball Pete’s. Our options were fruit snacks or a pencil.
“We could’ve bought thirty twelve-count boxes of fruit snacks for thirty bucks. Seriously, what a rip-off. If we wanted a tiny bag of chewy sugar, we could’ve had…let’s see. Thirty times twelve is…” She works the math out loud, her eyes looking up to the ceiling. “Well, thirty times ten is three hundred, and then thirty times two is, what, sixty? So three hundred plus sixty is three hundred and sixty.” She takes a breath. “We could’ve taken our money and purchased three hundred and sixty packages of fruit snacks!”
She holds the two small packages in front of my face, emphasizing our lack of prizes.
I snatch one from her. “Eat your fruit snacks. You worked hard for them.” I chuckle, tossing a red gummy candy into my mouth.
We walk out of the arcade and cross the street.
“So, what’s next?” I ask her, actually excited to see what else she has planned.
She was adamant about planning a fun date for me. I was resistant at first because it knocked my man pride down a few notches, but an arcade was something I never would’ve planned, and it was a blast.
“
There’s this place that everyone around here raves about. It’s called Bubble Tea. Have you ever been?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Well, you pick out the flavor of tea you want, and I think there are juices you can choose, too. Then, you pick out what gummy you want. It’s right here.” Georgia leads us into the building.
Her description is pretty accurate. We pick out flavors of both the liquid that go in our cups and the gummies, which are in the shape of round little balls or stars. The concoction is mixed together and put into a cup with a wide straw, the circumference broad enough to suck up the gummies at the bottom of the cup.
“Another first?” she asks me with a giggle as we hold our bubble tea in hand.
“Yep. You?”
She nods and places her lips around the straw. I do the same, and we both taste our tea. It’s weird because the sweet liquid hits my tongue first, and then the lumpy gummies enter my mouth. I slide the gummies to my cheek, so I can swallow the tea, and then I chew them up. It’s super sweet and sugary. The different flavors of the juice and candies conflict with one other.
I finish my first gulp and wait for Georgia to finish hers. She’s sliding her tongue around her teeth, evidently trying to remove the gooey gummies that have gotten stuck there.
I press my lips together in a line, trying not to laugh as she struggles to rid her mouth of remnants of the gummy candies. “So, what do you think?”
She tilts her head in thought. “Um, it’s interesting. What do you think?”
“Honestly?”
She nods.
“It’s vile.”
“Oh my God, right?” The volume of her voice rises, and it’s almost shrill. “It’s so bad. I’m feeling nauseous.”
“It’s way too sweet and weird,” I admit.
“What’s the big deal with these globs of gummy crap in the bottom? Honestly, it’s like sucking up boogers. It literally makes me want to vomit.”
I laugh so hard that my side hurts. Georgia wipes the tears of laughter from her eyes and scrunches up her face as she throws her bubble tea into the trash. My cup of crap follows. We look to the long line of customers waiting for their bubble teas and shake our heads.
“I don’t get it,” I say, grabbing Georgia’s hand as we walk out.
“I don’t get it either, and all they serve is that tea. Look at that line. I read that this place was popular, but I truly don’t understand why. Who could drink that?”
“I have no idea.” I grin. “Not us, apparently.”
“I’m so sorry,” Georgia says, her voice low.
“For what?” I ask as we walk hand in hand down the busy Ann Arbor sidewalk.
Georgia stops walking and turns to me. “I guess I suck at planning dates. I wanted to do something super fun that you’d love. I took you to an arcade when you’d never played arcade games, and then I tried to kill you with that cup of sugary mucus.”
“Are you kidding? I can’t remember the last time I’ve had so much fun. I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in my life, Peaches. In fact, I feel like a bit of a fraud because the fun we’ve had today isn’t me. You’re going to start liking this version of me and be sorely disappointed tomorrow when I’m a grumpy ass again.”
Her lips tilt up, and her blues shine with joy. She shakes her head. “I adore all of the versions of you. Even when you’re grumpy. I actually find your serious side kind of sexy.” She bites her lip, and her gaze drops to my mouth before returning back to my eyes.
“Oh, yeah?”
She tilts her head down in a nod.
Raising my arms, I hold on to either side of her face and kiss her hard because I can’t kiss her any other way in this moment. I’m so crazy for this girl; it’s insane. She’s kind, beautiful, fun, and sweet, and holy shit, do I want her—all of her.
Loads of people pass us as we stand, kissing in the center of the sidewalk, yet I don’t even notice them. I only see her, my Georgia.
Is she mine? I’m terrified to ask.
If God wants to make up for all the shit I’ve been forced to live through, Georgia would be a fucking amazing apology.
When I pull my lips away from hers, she keeps her eyes closed for a fraction of a second longer and simply smiles. She looks tipsy when her eyes find mine. I know how she feels. I find her intoxicating as well.
“I planned dinner, too,” she says with a dreamy sigh.
“Do tell.”
“Well, everyone seems to rave about this local pizza place called the Pizza House. But I don’t know if I trust the locals’ opinions anymore after the drink of death.”
I run my thumb over her cheek before dropping my hands from her face. “I’ve actually been to the Pizza House, and the hype is legit. It’s good.”
“Finally.” She sounds relieved.
We walk to dinner, and I try to play it cool. Yet the reality is that I can’t believe this day with this girl is happening. It’s been wonderful, and perfection isn’t part of my reality. I simply need to calm that inner voice that’s saying it won’t last. Everyone’s bound to find the good, even in me. Shit knows, I’ve had enough of the bad to last a lifetime.
17
“I see Wyatt—the beautiful and the broken—and I love all of him.”—Georgia Wright
I’m not sure when the smell of bleach, wet dog fur, and the faint aroma of urine started to feel like home, but somehow, it now does. Over my travels, I’ve lived and worked among all sorts of smells, some worse than others. Some scents carry such vivid and scary memories with them that when I catch a whiff of anything similar, it takes me back to the time and place where the memories originated. I can close my eyes and imagine being there.
No matter where life takes me, bleach, wet fur, and dog urine will always bring me back here, and I hope when I think about Cooper’s Place, I’ll smile. Goodness knows, the grin I’m wearing now is evidence of the pure happiness I’m feeling here.
“I want to go alone,” I repeat.
Wyatt looks to me, uncertain. “Are you sure?” He cocks an eyebrow. Sitting across from me, he holds five playing cards in his hands.
“Yes, I can do it.” I nod, not completely confident in my new Euchre skills but kind of sure. Maybe.
“She said she wants to go alone. Put down your cards, boss man,” Xavier tells Wyatt.
Oh no.
Wyatt puts his hand of cards facedown on the table. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Peaches.” He shoots me a wink, causing my cheeks to flush.
Wyatt and I are teammates against Xavier and his girlfriend, Luciana. The workday is over, and the rest of the employees have gone home. Luciana brought tacos from her parents’ restaurant, and the three of them are trying to teach me how to play Euchre as we sit around a card table in Wyatt’s office.
When I told them that I’d never heard of Euchre, they insisted on teaching me, claiming it’s the best card game there is. Apparently, it’s really popular in some of the Midwestern states, especially in Michigan. Xavier seriously gasped when I told him that I’d never heard of it.
“What’s it going to be?” Xavier asks.
“Hearts,” I tell him.
He chuckles and looks to Luciana. “Hearts it is.”
“Hey, no table talk.” Wyatt narrows his eyes toward our opponents.
Xavier raises a hand in surrender. “Dude, I didn’t say a thing,” he replies, his lips turning up in a smile.
Wyatt purses his lips together and keeps his eyes narrowed on Xavier, causing Luciana to giggle.
“Okay, babe. Your turn,” Wyatt tells me.
I pull an ace of spades from my hand and lay it down on the table.
Xavier is next and sets down a ten of hearts, taking my ace. “Oops, sorry,” he says sarcastically and takes the cards. He then lays down the jack of hearts, which forces me to lay one of the two hearts I have.
Another three cards are laid on the table, and Xavier and Luciana take them all. Since I called the hearts and didn’t
win, they get extra points.
Wyatt throws his head back, and the most beautiful laugh comes from his lips. He’s laughing more than I’ve ever heard him before. It makes me so happy.
“Peaches, why on earth did you go alone and call hearts when you only had two crappy ones?” he questions.
I bite my lip. “Well, I had a couple of aces in other suits, so I thought I was good.”
“You had a shitty hand,” he tells me. “An ace won’t do you a bit of good if douche bag over here”—his thumb cocks toward Xavier—“has a hand of trump cards, which you named hearts even though you didn’t have either of the jacks. Remember the jack of hearts and diamonds are crucial to have if going alone.”
He smiles warmly at me, and I know he’s just trying to get me to understand this game, which I find very confusing.
“Yep, horrible hand,” Xavier says.
Luciana nods in agreement, though she’s too sweet to say it out loud.
“I suck,” I admit with a sigh.
“You’ll get it.” Wyatt rubs my thigh. “Just don’t go alone for the time being.” He winks.
“Deal,” I agree.
Luciana shuffles the deck, and I pick up one of the puppies sleeping in my lap and kiss him. He yawns and breathes his puppy breath onto my face. Puppy breath…another scent that will always connect me to Michigan.
The sting of my epic suckage at all things Euchre is softened by the fact that I get to snuggle with sleeping puppies while playing. Dating a guy who owns a shelter has it perks.
We play for a couple more hours, and because of me, Wyatt and I lose every time. It doesn’t seem to bother him that I’m not picking it up easily. In fact, he’s smiled more than his normal grumpy self. I love when he smiles. He’s incredibly handsome always, but that smile of his gets me every time. Xavier and Luciana say their good-byes and head home for the night.
I put the puppies back with their mother and plop down on the office couch, lying across it. Cooper licks my hands as they dangle off the edge. Wyatt sits down at the end of the sofa and places my feet in his lap. He removes my tennis shoes and rubs my feet over my socks. I groan in pleasure.