“Then we have to try it.”
“After we eat,” I said, spotting a food truck, selling classic fair food. I got a giant corn dog while Harper tried a taco in a bag. Since the food was designed to be eaten on the go, we walked along the boardwalk while we ate, checking out the souvenir gift shop and the carnival games. I paid for ten tickets and we tried our hand at throwing darts at balloons, which I was great at, since I played the real game in the bar all the time, and a ring toss game.
“You know, they rig those games,” Harper said, pouting because she wasn’t able to knock down a stack of milk bottles with a rubber ball. “They make it impossible to win.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I replied, holding onto the stuffed green alien wearing a purple jumpsuit that I’d won for popping so many balloons with my darts. The thing was ridiculous, but it proved my point.
“Cheater,” Harper grumbled.
“Sore loser.”
Harper had been upset about losing. I ended up giving the alien to a crying child who’d lost the same game. Otherwise, the thing would end up forgotten in the back of my closet until I stumbled across it again. I wasn’t exactly a stuffed animal kind of guy.
The little girl wiped her eyes and smiled as she thanked me.
“Do you have any kids?” Harper asked as we continued walking toward the Ferris wheel.
“Yeah.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket, unlocking it, and opening my photo gallery. I pulled up a picture of my son playing baseball. He’d been on the school team every year since he was eight-years-old. “This is my son, Ryan. He’s fifteen.”
“Wow, you must have been a kid yourself when he was born.”
I chuckled. “Pretty much. I was twenty.”
“And his mom? Is she still around?”
I tucked the phone back into my pocket. “Amy and I have been divorced for five years. Ryan lives with her.”
“That must be hard for you. My parents got divorced when I was so young that I don’t even remember them ever being together. I lived with my mom.”
“Did you have a good relationship with your dad?” I asked, curious about how her family handled the situation. When I split up with Amy it was one big fight and figuring out how to share custody had been rough. There was a period of three months when I didn’t see Ryan at all until we worked things out.
“I did,” she said, sadness in her voice. “He died when I was twelve.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching out to take hold of her hand.
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago. What really sucked was that I was stuck at my mom’s house full-time with her and my stepdad.”
“Not a big fan of the stepdad?”
I didn’t know how Ryan would feel if Amy remarried, but I didn’t like the idea of another man acting like a father to my kid.
“Not in the least.” She didn’t elaborate.
I didn’t want to pry, so I didn’t press.
We had gotten in line for the Ferris wheel and just reached the front. I let go of Harper’s hand as we got into the capsule. The sun had fully set now, and as we were raised into the air, the lights from the boardwalk reflected off the inky water. We could see all the way downtown at the highest point. When I glanced over at Harper, the bright moonlight overhead gave her skin an almost ethereal glow.
She turned to see me looking at her, and the moment became charged.
I wanted to kiss her again, but I needed to lay my cards on the table first. “Listen, Harper, I don’t know what you are looking for here, but I’m not interested in getting into anything serious.”
Her smile faltered and a neutral expression fell over her face. This might be the first time since I met her that she wasn’t easy to read by the look in her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You know how I mentioned my ex-wife? Well, that whole situation was a disaster. Things ended badly between us, and I’ve lost faith in the whole thing.”
“Marriage?”
“Love.”