Chapter 86

EMILIA

There’s probably something mildly concerning about how the second Liam and I start competing, I lose all sense of my surroundings.

I stop noticing the crowd pressing in around us, the blaring sounds from a dozen machines, the fact that the smell of popcorn wasn’t, in fact, just a delusion born from hunger and adrenaline. A group of kids huddle by the claw machine, yelling as a stuffed bear slips from the metal pincers, and I’m hit with this weird, almost bittersweet déjà vu.

“Have you ever noticed every place you take me is wildly fun?” I say, scanning the room with him in search of the air hockey table. Liam mumbles something about them having moved it since he was last here. “You’re either losing at arcade games, failing to win me stuffed animals, or crashing weddings. It’s all very moving. And, somehow, always deeply humiliating—for you.”

His brow twitches. For a brief second, I wonder if this is the one jab too many and his face is about to shatter