Page 23 of Enemies to Lovers

“Three thousand twenty,” the guy behind the counter says to Val, and I blink, standing straight and getting some much-needed air between us.

“S-sorry, what?” Val says, her voice breathy and unhinged. It’s so unlike her; I stare much longer than I should.

“Your ticket count…” the guy repeats. “Three thousand and twenty.”

“Oh… Oh!” Sunshine Val returns, scrunching her nose playfully at me. “That’s pretty darn good. Scared?”

I nod to the girl helping me, only about halfway through sticking the tickets through the machine. “What am I up to?”

“One—”

“No, don’t say!” Val interrupts, making the poor girl jump out of her skin. “Ruins the tension.”

“Youliketension?” I ask, choking on the words.

A wide grin spreads on her faded pink lips, and I shake my head.

“Oh to live in that head of yours.”

She hipchecks me. “I’ve thought the same about you.”

“My head? It’s agony.”

I’m teasing, but she frowns, like she actually cares that I live in a never-ending anxious mess of a mind. She pushes from the case, turning so we’re no longer facing each other, but standing side by side. Her fingers slide against mine, her nails tickling my palm slightly. She interlocks them, and conflicting emotions slam each other in my chest.

It calms me. It rages a storm within me. I hate it. I like it. I hate that I like it.

“Two thousand, three hundred and ninety,” the girl helping me says, and the familiar rush of defeat washes over my shoulders.

“Damn it,” I hiss, and Val throws her free hand into the air.

“The strategy wins!” She does a victory jig next to me, her hand still locked in mine. My back teeth clench. Damn, this woman is just better at everything.

“Oh, don’t be sad,” she says, frowning at the expression I can never hide. She reaches up, squishing my cheeks until I let out a laugh. “What do I win again?”

“You get all the tickets,” I say, nodding to the employees. “Get something big.”

She picks out a fluffy squid andsays she’ll give it to Brewster to go with his lobster, and that does something to my insides I don’t want to admit.

“You want to play some more?” I ask. Fifteen minutes hardly qualifies for a date.

“For fun?”

“Maybe…” I scratch my beard. “I thought we could play games together this time around.”

Her teeth bite into her bottom lip, and it’s so damn beautiful it resets my heartbeat.

“You good at Street Fighter?” she asks.

I get another hundred tokens, and we play Street Fighter and Mario Kart and Plants vs Zombies… I try not to keep score, but I know both of us are doing it internally. She’s won everything so far, and my face shows it all, I know it.

We get to the last four tokens, and she pulls me toward the air hockey. The high ofcompeting with her is a little irritating at this point. Why can’t I win one damn game? Just one. I push the tokens in, and the puck pops out on her side. Of course.

She gives me her evilest smile, and it pulls at something inside me I don’t want to acknowledge. She’s so good at everything; she’s even winning me over right now, and she’s not even trying.

The clack of the paddle against the puck echoes through the air, putting my brain into focus. Air hockey is all angles, all math—a subject I love. She hit the puck straight toward me, not utilizing the sides in the least. I hit it back, smacking it to the center side so the spin it takes has the perfect angle for a point.

Laughter spills from her lips as she barely stops it from sinking in, smacking it back with no rhyme or reason. The corner of my mouth twitches, and I play another angle, the sweet sound of the puck clunking into her side past her paddle like music to my ears.

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