Letting out a deep breath, he turned his focus back to the photographer. “There’s no story, Marty.”
“It’s a sensitive subject, I can see that.” He made a whatcha-gonna-do face. “Still, it doesn’t do my bank account any good to walk away with nothing. How about, as a sign of friendship, you agree to an exclusive of you and Lady Luck kissing. Nothing more, just a sweet kiss for all the folks in Harbor City rooting for you two to be dating for real. And I will help shush the rumors I keep hearing about your parents. One friend helping out another.”
Zach’s blood pressure went from one to burn-the-world-down in half a second as he imagined using Fallon like that. And what are you doing now with the Lady Luck bullshit, Blackburn? Frustration, rage, and guilt slammed together inside of him, and he didn’t think. He just reacted, grabbing Marty by the shirt and shoving him up against the wall hard enough that the pictures hanging there shook.
He got right in the photographer’s face. “Are you trying to blackmail me?”
Beads of sweat popped out on the other man’s forehead, but his snarl stayed in place. “Just trying to earn a living.”
“Go earn it somewhere else.” He let go of Marty’s shirt and stepped back, his own rage making his breath hard.
A blast of cool air hit his overheated skin as the door to the outside opened and shut. Cameron stood just inside the door holding his daughter Bianca’s hand. Her big brown eyes were round as she regarded him with fear-tinged shock. It was completely different from the trusting admiration she’d shown when he’d rescued her from the lava floor earlier, and the difference made Zach wince.
“Everything okay?” Cameron asked, looking from him to Marty and back again.
“Just a little difference of opinion,” Zach said.
“Y
eah, my friend was here the whole time.” Marty glanced left to the other end of the hall, where a second photographer stood half-concealed in an exam room doorway. “It’s good to have friends, Blackburn. Too bad you don’t understand that.”
Zach stood there, his hands curled into fists, as Marty and the other photographer walked away. Cameron gave him a curious look but headed past him toward the waiting room where the clowns were set up. Bianca scooted past him, holding her daddy’s hand tight as if Zach wasn’t an ice knight but a lava monster instead.
The kid probably wasn’t wrong.
…
Fallon was not the first in line at the dunk tank. By the time she made it over there, after manning the free blood pressure screening booth for the past two hours, there was a line fifteen deep.
“Is everyone taking extra shots?” she asked the woman at the end of the line.
“Nah, Cole Phillips said he’d send autographed pucks to anyone who dunked Blackburn five times.”
Okay, that was pretty damn funny, especially considering the smack talk coming out of Zach’s mouth right now as a guy in a Cajun Rage T-shirt wound up and shot a zinger that still managed to miss the bullseye. That was pretty damn generous of Cole. All of the ticket money for the extra opportunities to dunk Zach would be going to the clinic’s food pantry fund, which, judging by the length of the line and how soaked Zach appeared, was going to be substantial.
“Looks like his plan is working,” Fallon said.
The woman brushed her dark hair back behind her ears and gave her a conspiratorial grin. “This is the shortest the line’s been in the past hour.”
Mr. Cajun Rage fired off another softball at the target right as Zach was badmouthing the Louisiana team’s defensive strategy (which he was totally on the money about) and connected. Zach went down with a huge splash that got some of the folks closest to the tank wet.
“So you look totally familiar.” The woman held out her hand. “I’m Marti. I’m Cole Phillips’s girlfriend.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, at least I am this week. We’ve had this whole on-and-off thing for a million years and—Oh my God!” Her green eyes went big and buggy. “I know where I know you from now. You’re Lady Luck.”
Busted.
She took the other woman’s hand. “Fallon Hartigan.”
“You have the most amazing skin,” she said, peering closer at Fallon. “If I had your skin, I wouldn’t put anything on it, either, besides moisturizer. You have got to tell me what you use.”
“Whatever is on sale at Target.” Which was about as specific as she could get beyond the white bottle with the green writing and an illustration of a butterfly on it.
“You’re killing me, Fallon.” Marti sighed dramatically and slapped her hand over her heart. “I am dying right here of jealousy. Are you really a nurse like they say, so you can keep me from keeling over?”
She didn’t mean to laugh, but it was hard not to. The woman was seriously over-the-top. Gina and the girls would adore her. “Yeah, I volunteer here, but I work at St. Vincent’s.”
“Go you,” Marti said as she fiddled with the strap of her crossbody bag decorated to look like a pair of owl eyes. “I am euphemistically between jobs at the moment, meaning my post-doctorate unpaid internship has not resulted in a job offer so I am living with my parents. Again. It’s awful. Nothing like moving back home when you’re twenty-seven.”
Considering that was Fallon’s personal nightmare and where she would have ended up had Frankie not moved in with Lucy, she could commiserate. “That sucks.”