Page 62 of Love You Truly

When the first sip of coffee hits my tongue, I groan, all my tastebuds firing at once.

“Good, right?” Mallory says, sipping from her cup.

So good.

The carnival is a candy-colored assortment of rides moving in orbit like a Rube Goldberg experiment. Small yellow carts fly down the one long roller coaster rail that encircles the grassy space at Oak Tree Vineyards, which puts on the carnival every year.

Word has gotten out over time, and now the “small, local beanbag toss,” as Oak Tree still bills it, has nearly outgrown its space. They’ve added a Ferris wheel, a swinging pirate ship, bumper cars, and several spinning rides that Mallory rejects outright.

“Nope. No rides. Not looking to lose my breakfast and get dizzy, thank you very much,” she says, steering me away from a ride that has swings flying out like octopus arms as the middle of the ride spins at a healthy speed.

“Not even one?” I don’t intend to push her, but I do love anything that whirls me around at top speed.

She stops walking and faces me squarely. “Thank you, no. You’re welcome to go without me.”

“Offer rejected. I don’t want to go without you.” As the words come out, I’m aware of their potential double meaning. Mallory waits as though she expects me to explain that I’m only referring to the carnival ride, but I have no intention of modifying what I just said.

I watch her throat work as she swallows and blinks up at me. I stare her down, daring her to question my meaning.

“Let’s go this way,” she mutters, clearing her throat.

On a long exhale, she grabs my hand and starts walking me toward the game booths, as though that was our destination all along. Eyeing the roller coaster, I promise myself I won’t leave today without getting Mallory onto one of the rides, even if it’s just the merry-go-round.

I’m all for game booths, so she’ll get no complaints from me.

The first one that catches her interest is the basketball pop-a-shot game. From her little cross-body purse, she unfurls the long strip of tickets I bought when we walked in. We have enough to play this game for eight hours straight if she wants. I wasn’t about to put limits on our carnival fun by being stingy with the tickets.

“You a baller?” I ask, smirking because she most definitely is.

Mallory points at herself. “Tall. Made me a natural go-to for the coaches at my school. I wasn’t great, but I’d give it a try.”

“Care to make it interesting?” I pull out my own tickets, which I’ve neatly folded into groups of four.

“What do you have in mind?”

We get in line behind a dad and his son, who bounces on his toes with excitement, his blond hair practically white in the sun.

Eyeing the setup, which consists of a basketball hoop mounted over a vinyl slide to return the balls back after each shot, I have a feeling I can take her, even if she did play as a kid. I have two brothers so I have some game.

“Little bet? Loser has to wear one of those hats around for the rest of the day?” I point at a row of prizes, all ridiculous hats. There are foam top hats with spinning pinwheels sticking out, baseball hats with monster faces, felt fuzzy hats in crazy patterns and colors.

“Ha. Get ready to walk around in a purple furry cowboy hat, buddy.”

It’s the closest thing to an endearment she’s used for me, and it surprises me how much I like it, even if I know a buddy is only a friend.

“Confident. I like it.”

“You’ll like it less when you lose.”

“I changed my mind. Not confident. Cocky! Get ready to parade around the place in a baseball hat with a donkey face, Mellow.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “That may be the first and last time anyone’s ever called me that.”

When it’s our turn to take shots at the side-by-side hoops, I can see why. The buzzer sounds, and she approaches it like it’s her job.

A few seconds in, she’s already made two shots while I stand there gawking at her like a schoolboy who finds himself standing next to the prom queen. She ably shoots with both hands and then bends to scoop up the other ball and take the next shot. It’s poetry.

I’m already losing the bet, but I can’t take my eyes off her finesse.

---