by Amy Sparling
She swipes her card and plays it again. All you do is hit a button that drops a ball onto the spinning circle below. Whatever hole the ball goes into is worth a certain amount of points, and if you get the smallest hole, you win the jackpot. Her ball falls into the fifty points hole and I let out a low whistle.
“Damn. I’ve been playing basketball for ten points,” I say.
“Don’t work too hard at these games,” Keanna says mockingly. “I need your fingers rested up for my back rub later tonight.”
“Oh you are so freaking on,” I say, swiping my card on the ball drop machine. I press the button and my ball falls into the hole worth a measly five points. I curse and Keanna giggles.
“I love this vacation!” she says.
I grab her and tickle her sides until she squeals and begs me to let her go. I stop tickling her, but I hold her close and kiss her nose.
“I really thought I’d be better at these arcade games than I am,” I say.
She pokes me in the chest. “That’s what you get for being so cocky!”
I go in for another kiss, but then a kid runs by us, reminding me we’re in public. “I should probably give up now. I’m losing so badly.”
“No way, you still have a chance!” She glances toward the door of the arcade and then something weird flashes across her face. She smiles and puts her hands flat on my chest. “I’m going to run upstairs and change clothes,” she says. That’s a little weird on its own, but the way she says it all quickly is even weirder.
“What’s wrong with what you’re wearing now?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I’m cold. It won’t take long, I promise. You just stay here and try winning more points.”
If I didn’t know her as well as I know myself, I might just shrug and not think twice. But she’s being weird. I’m not sure why, or how I know, but it just feels weird. But I don’t want to argue about it on our vacation, so I just shrug. “Okay, see you in a minute.”
She kisses me quickly on the cheek and then runs out of the arcade, disappearing around the corner. I try to think of what she could possibly be up to, but maybe it’s some kind of girl issue or something and she’d just be embarrassed to tell me the truth.
I play the ball drop game a few more times but I never hit the jackpot or get anything higher than thirty points.
I move around the arcade, scrutinizing each game to see which one might get me the most points, but after a while I realize I don’t mind losing to my girlfriend. I’m happy to give her a back rub any day, plus it would make her happy to have bragging rights over beating me at the arcade. Especially since video games are more of my thing than hers.
I find a claw machine and use the rest of my card’s value to win her a stuffed unicorn, a stuffed pink heart, and a light up fidget spinner.
When Keanna returns, she’s wearing a pair of leggings from the gift shop and the same shirt she had on earlier, underneath my hoodie. She seems like she’s in a much better mood from the moment she walks into the arcade, and that lightens some of the anxiety in my chest. Maybe it was just a girl thing. Maybe she’s not upset about anything that pertains to me.
Keanna gushes over the silly prizes I won for her in the claw machine, and then we redeem our arcade points for as much candy as we can get. We take our haul back up to our hotel room, and Keanna spreads out the candy on the bed while I find a movie on television to watch.
“You’re in a much better mood,” I say as I crawl on the bed and lean over the candy pile to kiss her.
“I’ve been in a good mood all day,” she says as she peels off the wrapper of a package of Smarties.
I lift an eyebrow. “You were being weird earlier.”
She shakes her head. “No, I wasn’t. I’m perfectly happy.”
I want to argue that I know her well enough to know when something’s wrong, but I don’t want to push the issue. Maybe she’s still bummed about missing our families for the holiday. I decide to just let it go, and I reach for some sour patch kids.
Keanna grabs the box before I get it. “Not yet,” she says, narrowing her eyes at me mischievously. She sits up and moves in front of me on the bed. “Someone owes me a back rub.”
I chuckle and kiss her neck, sliding my hands down her back as I move closer to her on the bed. The movie on TV is starting, so I turn up the volume, then slide her shirt over her head, tossing it on the bed beside me.
I sit with my legs straddling hers, her back facing me while she watches the movie. I start out slow, sliding my hands down her back and up again, kissing her shoulder and her neck and then the top of her spine.
She may have won the bet for a back rub, but I’ve won the ultimate reward: spending the night with her in my arms.
Chapter 9
Keanna
You’d think after a day of swimming and walking all over the resort, Jett would be tired by midnight. I certainly am. I’m doing my best to stay awake though, because Jett has to fall asleep first in order for my plan to work out. We’ve watched two movies now, and we’re cuddled up on this hotel bed, which is so comfortable it’s just begging me to go to sleep. Why isn’t it making Jett go to sleep, dammit?
When the credits roll on our second movie, I glance over at him and he smiles at me. It’s the exact opposite of what I wanted to see. I don’t need his smile or his cute gaze. I want to see him passed out.
“I have to pee,” I say, crawling out of bed. I lean over and kiss him. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he says, which gives me hope that he might finally want to go to sleep, but then he reaches for the remote to select another movie to watch.
When I return, I lay a little farther away from him so that when he does fall asleep I can easily get up without waking him. My eyes keep drifting closed as sleep beckons to me, but I manage to stay awake by counting the stripes in the curtains on the wall.
Finally, when Jett’s breathing sounds like it’s slowed down and leveled out at a steady rhythm, I glance back and see if he’s asleep. He finally is.
I wait a few more minutes just to be safe, and then I crawl out of bed and tiptoe to the closet to get dressed. Then I open the hotel door as quietly as possible and slip outside.
I can’t find the kitchen on my own, so I go to the front desk where the woman gives me directions that lead me down the service hallway. The main hallways are cute and forest themed, with little fake animals against the walls, but these hallways are just bare and white. The employees don’t get the cute treatment, I guess.
I make my way down the long corridor until I reach the kitchens. I knock on the door and a guy who is about my age opens it.
“Um, can I help you?” he says, his eyes bloodshot.
“I’m Keanna,” I say. “Room service said you have a cake for me?”
He nods slowly. “Oh yeah. The cake chick. Come with me.”
He leads me into the massive hotel kitchen and to a walk in fridge. There’s a cake box on the shelf between the produce and milk cartons and he takes it down for me. It’s just a white sheet cake with pretty a pretty piped icing border. It’s perfect.
“Shandra said you’re going to decorate it yourself, right?” he guy asks. “Cause I’m just the night cook and I’m not a cake decorator. I would ruin it.”
I smile. “Not a problem. I’m happy to decorate it.”
He leads me to a long stainless steel table and shows me where the icing is kept. I get a tube of blue icing and get to work. I’m not the greatest at this, but I’m okay. I’ve piped icing on cupcakes and stuff back at home, and when it comes to a surprise birthday cake in the middle of the night, it’s the thought that counts, right?
The guy leans against the opposite table and watches me work. “So what’s this for?” he asks.
I explain about how we got stranded and it’s my boyfriend’s birthday tomorrow.
“A birthday on Christmas Eve? That fuckin’ blows.”
I nod as I lean over the cake, icing bag in my hand. “Yeah, it
does. So I want it to be special for him.”
The guy nods. “You’re a cool chick.”
I look up at him and grin. “Thanks.”
On the cake, I write Happy Birthday in the best lettering I can manage. It actually doesn’t look half bad.
Then I write a big number nineteen in the middle and put little stars of icing all around it. At the bottom, I write Jett’s name, then in the bottom right corner, as if I’m an artist and this is a painting, I make a little heart and sign my name.
Perfect.
With the cake in hand, I thank the teenage kitchen guy and head back. The gift shop is open twenty four hours a day, and I can’t help but stop inside even though I know their selection of items isn’t the greatest. I set my cake on the counter and then look around at everything it has to offer.
Lots of clothes, all with the Great Bear Lodge logo on them, or the state of Texas, or both. That’s a big no. Jett and I already bought some of these clothes to wear while we’re here so clothing isn’t a good birthday gift option. There’s trinkets like shot glasses and coffee cups, but those are stupid too. There’s a whole section of kid’s toys and I go through them, wondering if there’s something here that I could use to refer to an inside joke or something fun for Jett.
But they all suck.
Then there’s board games, which make a lame present. A small shelf of books, but all of them are boring. I make my way around the store three times, and nothing here would be a good gift for Jett. Even if it is just a fun silly thing to get us by until I can give him his real gift—there’s nothing good here.
The woman working the gift shop tonight is older, probably around sixty years old. She’s been doing a crossword puzzle in the newspaper since I got here, but now she puts the paper down and looks at me. “Can I help you with something, dear?”
I sigh. “I doubt it. My boyfriend’s birthday is tomorrow and the gift I got him is several states away. I was hoping I could find something here that would make a good gift.”
She nods slowly. “What’s his name?”
“Jett,” I say.
She frowns. “Well that’s no good. We don’t have any Jett items here.” She nods toward the racks of keychains and stickers that are personalized with common names. That’s a problem I know all too well, because there’s never a Keanna keychain at gift shops either.
“Well, what does he like?” she asks.
I laugh. “Nothing that has to do with little kid water park hotels.”
This makes her laugh too. “Well, you know the best gifts are gifts from the heart. Something sentimental.”
You can’t get something sentimental in a gift shop I want to say, but I also don’t want to be rude. It’s well past midnight and I’m exhausted and stressed, so I just smile.
I decide to take one more loop around the gift shop, trying to think of sentimental items as I gaze over the selection.
And then my eyes land on a small notebook. It’s brown with the Great Bear Lodge on it, and it has fifty sheets of paper. It comes with a little pen attached to the side, and the pen has a fuzzy bear head on top of it.
“I’ll take this,” I say, setting it on the counter next to my cake.
“Sentimental?” the woman asks.
I grin. “Not yet. But it will be.”
Chapter 10
Jett
I wake up to the delicious smell of breakfast. It takes me a few seconds to remember where I am, because the light filtering in through the windows is not at all how it looks in my own bedroom. Then I remember I’m at a hotel, with Keanna.
Also, it’s my birthday, not that I really care. I haven’t talked about it at all since our flight to Colorado got cancelled. It just doesn’t seem important to care about a birthday when everything else is going on.
I open my eyes and find the rest of the bed empty. I blink a few times and sit up, yawning.
“Good morning,” Keanna says from across the room. She wheels in a cart from room service. There are stainless steel domes on top of several plates that smell like it’s probably maple syrup and bacon. And coffee.
I breathe in the scent of coffee and my mouth waters.
I go to stand up but she holds out her hand. “Nope! Stay where you are!”
I sit back down. Keanna grins at me and pushes the cart of food up to the bed. “Breakfast in bed?” I say as she hands me a tray.
She nods. “For my birthday boy.”
I shouldn’t be surprised that she remembered, even though I didn’t want to make a big deal out of this day. I smile and lean my head up to kiss her. “Thank you, love.”
She pours us some coffee and then she takes her tray to her side of the bed. The breakfast is glorious—pancakes, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and sliced fruit on the side. There’s even a number nineteen piped on my stack of pancakes in whipped cream.
“You’re amazing,” I tell her as I dig into my food.
“Nah, I’m just appreciating what I’ve got.”
We eat breakfast in bed and watch some Netflix on the hotel’s TV. When I’m finished, Keanna refuses to let me pick up my own tray. She carries it all to the room service cart and then keeps the coffee pitcher while putting the rest of it outside our room.
We head to the balcony with fresh cups of coffee and enjoy the morning view of the town. It’s chilly here, around sixty degrees, but with a throw blanket and some coffee, it’s really nice out here.
“I like this part of Texas,” Keanna says, cupping her coffee mug close to her lips. “The land is hilly and greener. Not as many people, either.”
“Dallas is pretty cool,” I agree. “I like the landscape a lot. Down at home it’s just flat, hot, dry land everywhere.”
Keanna peers out at the distance. “If our flight hadn’t been cancelled, we’d be sipping coffee while looking at snow-capped mountains right now.”
I look over at her, my breath hitching at how beautiful she looks in the orange glow of the morning sun. “This is good too.”
She smiles and it melts me inside.
“We should do this again tomorrow,” I say. “I hate that your Christmas presents aren’t here, but breakfast on the balcony will be nice.”
“Imagine how I feel,” Keanna says, her lips forming a pout. “I have your birthday and Christmas presents and you can’t get them yet!”
“I don’t need any gifts, baby.” I lean over and kiss her lips, which are warm and taste like French vanilla coffee creamer. “I just need you.”
She rolls her eyes. “You say that every year but I still don’t care. I will always get you a gift because I’ll always want to.”
She chews on her bottom lip and then gives me a look that’s a little nervous. “Actually… I was going to wait until later to do this…”
“Do what?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.
She looks like she might change her mind at any time. I nudge her foot with mine. “Come on, tell me. I have to know now.”
She sighs, her cheeks turning a little pink. “I guess I’ll show you. Stay here.” She walks back into the hotel room and emerges a few seconds later with a little shopping bag from the gift shop. She holds it out to me.
“Since I don’t have your real present, I wanted to give you something. It’s kind of lame but…” She drops it into my hand. “I don’t know. Here.”
I take the bag, my heart filling with warmth at how cute she is when she’s nervous. She doesn’t need to be nervous though. I mean it when I say I don’t care for presents and I’m just happy with her. Anything she does get me, I love just because it came from her.
I reach into the bag and pull out a little notebook from the gift shop.
“The real gift is inside,” she explains.
I open the cover. The first page has been decorated with Keanna’s handwriting and little doodles. I read the words she’s written and my heart melts a little.
50 Things I Love About You
To: Jett
From:
Keanna
I look up and her and she gives me a bashful smile. “I know it’s lame,” she says quickly. “I just wanted to give you something on your birthday and the gift shop does not have very many options.”
“I love it,” I say. “I love it so much.”
I turn the page, then quickly flip through the entire thing. She’s filled every page with doodles and artwork in addition to words.
“This must have taken you forever,” I say, turning back to the first page.
Reason 1:
You saw past all my flaws on the first day we met.
“It took a while,” she says, yawning. “I had a lot of fun, though.”
I grin and my heart is beating so fast. All I want to do is read through all fifty reasons as fast as possible. But I also want to take my time, enjoying each one, and the memories they bring up. Like the first one, which takes me back to the day I met her.
She was beautiful and mysterious, and kind of a jerk to me. I smile inwardly. I loved her right from the start, even if I didn’t realize it yet.
“Thank you,” I say, pressing the little book to my chest. “I love this so much. I can’t wait to read them all.”
Her nervous smile fades away. “You really like it?”
“I love it. This is so much better than what I got you for Christmas.”
She sets her coffee cup on the balcony and then throws her arms around me. I pull her into my lap, holding tightly to her and my new notebook.
“You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” I whisper against her ear. She snuggles closer to me, her arms wrapped around my neck. In this moment, I feel not only one year older and one year happier. I feel complete.
And I know without a doubt that this birthday is the best one I’ll ever have.
***
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