Page 11 of Deep Fried Devotion
Around four o'clock, during a rare lull, Soren surprised her again.
"Would you like to take a break?" he asked. "Walk around the fair a little?"
Birdie blinked at him. "You want to leave your truck?"
"For a few minutes. We could put up signs, shut everything down temporarily."
"You mean actually take a break? Like normal people do?"
"I thought you might like to see the fair from the other side. As a visitor instead of a vendor."
The thoughtfulness of it made Birdie's whole body felt tight with emotion. "I'd love that."
They moved quickly to secure their stations—Soren turning off his fryer and covering his prep areas while Birdie did the same. She grabbed a piece of cardboard and a marker, writing "BACK IN 30 MINUTES!" in cheerful letters and taping it to her service window. Soren produced a more professional-looking sign that simply read "Temporarily Closed" and posted it at his window.
"Ready?" he asked.
They walked through the fairgrounds hand in hand, though Birdie couldn't quite remember when they'd started holding hands. It felt natural, like they'd been doing it for years instead of minutes.
"Oh!" she said, stopping suddenly at a game booth. "I haven't played ring toss in forever."
"It's rigged," Soren said automatically. "The rings are slightly too small for the bottles, and the bottles are weighted to make them top-heavy."
"Of course you know the physics of carnival games."
"Basic probability and engineering."
"Well, Dr. Physics," Birdie said, pulling him toward the booth, "let's see if you can beat the system."
"I don't usually do carnival games."
"Come on. Live a little."
The teenage boy running the booth perked up as they approached. "Three rings for five dollars! Win your lady a prize!"
"She's not my—" Soren started, then caught the look on Birdie's face. "Five dollars, please."
Birdie watched, enchanted, as Soren studied the setup with the intensity of someone planning a military operation. He tested the weight of the rings, calculated angles, even checked for subtle tilts in the platform.
"You're overthinking it," she said.
"I don't overthink. I analyze."
"Same thing."
His first two throws missed entirely, rings bouncing off bottles in ways that defied his careful calculations. But the third ring, thrown with less precision and more intuition, settled around a bottle's neck.
"Winner!" the booth operator said.
"How did you do that?" Soren asked, staring at the ring like it had betrayed him.
"You stopped trying to control it," Birdie said softly. "Sometimes the best things happen when you just trust and let go."
She knew they weren't talking about ring toss anymore.
Soren chose a small stuffed elephant from the prize selection—gray and soft with friendly button eyes.
"For you," he said, holding it out to her. “An elephant never forgets.”
