Chapter 38: The Mystery Date

Chapter 38: Chapter 38: The Mystery Date

I got into the driver’s seat while Nicole settled into the passenger seat beside me. I started the engine, pulled out of the driveway, and began driving through the neighborhood.

"I believe now’s the time you tell me where we’re going."

Nicole smiled and turned toward me. "Promise you won’t laugh."

I made a face, keeping my eyes on the road. "I don’t see how that has anything to do with where we’re going."

"Just promise first."

I sighed. "Fine. I promise."

"That you won’t laugh."

"I promise I won’t laugh." I glanced at her briefly before looking back at the road. "Now, where are we going?"

She looked ahead for a moment, then back at me with a small, almost shy smile. "An amusement park."

I let out a short breath through my nose. "Very funny. Where are we really going?"

She didn’t answer.

I looked over at her again.

She was looking ahead, but the playful expression she had a moment ago was gone. She didn’t correct me or defend her choice. She simply went quiet.

"Wait. You’re serious."

She nodded.

I looked back at the road, trying not to laugh, but the expression on my face probably wasn’t helping. "An amusement park."

Nicole’s lips pushed into a pout. "You promised you wouldn’t laugh," she said, her voice carrying the slightest hint of a whine.

"I’m not laughing."

"You look like you want to."

I pressed my lips together, trying to keep my face straight.

That only made it worse. A small laugh slipped out before I could stop it.

Nicole’s pout deepened. "I hate you."

That made me laugh again.

I shook my head, still wearing the smile I was trying to get rid of. "You’re twenty-eight, Nicole."

She stared at me for a moment. "What does that have to do with anything?"

I figured I’d pushed it far enough, so I looked back at the road and tried to stop smiling before I made things worse.

Nicole stayed quiet for a few seconds. Then her voice softened. "I’ve only been there once before."

I glanced at her.

The way she said it made me realize there was more to that sentence than I’d expected.

"Only once?"

She nodded, looking out the window.

I thought about it for a moment before choosing my words carefully. "How? I mean, you obviously grew up..." I paused, trying to figure out how to say it without making it sound stupid. "You know."

Nicole looked at me. "Rich?"

I gave her a small nod. "Yeah. That."

She looked ahead again, a faint smile appearing on her face. "That’s exactly why." A pause. "I didn’t exactly have time for things like this growing up."

I looked at her for a moment. Suddenly, the amusement park didn’t seem funny anymore.

The smile faded from my face as I looked back at the road. "What did you have time for?"

"Hmm, studying," she said simply. "Academic competitions. Tutors. Extra classes. More studying. Homework. Piano lessons. Language lessons—"

"You play the piano?"

Nicole turned toward me with a cheeky little smile and gave me a tiny nod.

I paused for a moment, letting that sink in.

Tutors. Academic competitions. Extra classes. Languages. Piano lessons. More studying.

I’d always looked at Nicole and seen someone who had everything. Money, intelligence, opportunities, a life most people could only dream about. But somehow, she’d barely gotten the chance to even be a kid.

I glanced at her again before looking back at the road.

"Which amusement park?"

Her smile widened as she reached for her phone and typed the amusement park into the GPS. A moment later, the directions appeared on the screen, and I followed the route toward the park.

—

A few minutes later, the amusement park came into view. Nicole sat up a little straighter beside me, her eyes moving toward the entrance as she took in the rides, signs, and everything else coming into view.

"So this is it?" I asked.

She nodded, already smiling. "Yep."

I pulled into the parking lot and found a spot a short walk from the entrance. By the time I locked the car and turned around, Nicole was already standing beside me, looking far more excited than she’d let on during the drive.

Before I could say anything, she slipped her hand around my arm and pulled me toward the entrance.

"Come on."

I laughed as I let her drag me along. "You know we’re not going to miss it, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah."

She didn’t let go of my arm until we reached the admission booth.

"Two tickets, please," Nicole said. "And the unlimited ride pass for both of us."

I opened my mouth to say, ’I brought you out. I should be the one paying,’ but then she added the unlimited ride pass, and I suddenly didn’t feel like volunteering anymore.

Nicole apparently took my silence as an answer and opened her little white bag, pulling out the card she always used whenever she paid for something around me.

I watched her hand as she put the card on the counter. That’s when I noticed another one sitting underneath it.

Black.

I hadn’t seen that card before.

I looked at it for a moment, then back at Nicole.

She didn’t seem to notice that I’d seen it. She was too busy standing there, lightly bouncing on her toes while the guy behind the counter typed in the total.

I didn’t say anything. I already had a pretty good idea why she never used that one around me.

"That’ll be $468.54."

Nicole handed him her card without hesitation. He ran it through the machine, waited for the payment to go through, then handed it back to her.

She slipped the card into her bag, closed it, and immediately reached for my arm again.

"Let’s go," she said, already pulling me toward the entrance.

—

The first thing she dragged me toward was a roller coaster.

The ride itself was exactly what I expected. It was loud, fast, and spent a questionable amount of time making me wonder whether the engineers had ever considered simply letting gravity do its thing.

Nicole, on the other hand, looked like she was having the time of her life. She laughed through almost the entire ride, and by the time we got off, her hair was a complete mess.

She didn’t even care.

"Again," she said.

I looked at her. "We just got off."

"We paid for unlimited rides."

I stared at her. She stared back, her eyes bright with completely unguarded happiness.

I couldn’t help smiling. "Yep. Again."

She laughed, and we went again.

After that came one of the spinning rides that made me regret every decision I’d made since waking up. Nicole loved that one too, which I took personally.

Then we found a smaller ride that involved shooting targets while the whole thing moved around in circles.

"You’re taking this way too seriously," I said.

"I want the highest score."

"It’s a carnival game."

"That doesn’t make it less important."

She ended up beating my score by twelve points.

I didn’t hear the end of it for the next twenty minutes.

We stopped for drinks and something to eat after that, and Nicole spent the entire time pointing out rides she’d never tried before.

"This one."

"Nicole, we literally just ate."

"It doesn’t look intense."

"You said that about the spinning one."

"This one’s different."

"How?"

She looked at the ride, then back at me with a cheeky little smile. "I don’t know."

I laughed. "At least you’re honest."

She smiled and took another sip of her drink.

For the rest of the afternoon, I mostly followed her around. Sometimes she dragged me onto a ride before I even had time to object. Other times she would stop in front of something, look at it for a few seconds, and then turn toward me with that same excited expression.

And every time she did, I couldn’t help watching her; not the professor, or the woman who could walk into a room and make everyone straighten their backs. Not even the woman who could probably buy half the things we were looking at without checking the price.

Just Nicole.

She’d had tutors instead of afternoons at places like this. Academic competitions instead of stupid carnival games. Piano lessons instead of rides. Language lessons instead of spending an entire afternoon trying to win a stuffed bear she didn’t need. She did win one, though. A big white one.

I looked at the bear in her arms and wondered how many other ordinary things she’d never gotten the chance to do.

"You’re staring again."

I blinked and looked at her. "Huh?"

Her smile widened. "I know. I’m hot."

I laughed. "You’re impossible."

Before I could say anything else, she suddenly looked past me toward another ride. "Ooh. Let’s try that one."

I followed her gaze and immediately felt tired just looking at it. "Nicole. I’m exhausted."

She turned back to me with a pout, then gave me those puppy-dog eyes that she’d apparently decided were going to work on me.

It was as if being this excited had somehow made her even more annoying and adorably cute at the same time.

I groaned. "Fine. Last ride."

Her entire face lit up.

She grabbed my arm with her free hand, keeping the oversized teddy bear tucked against her with the other, and pulled me toward the ride before I could change my mind.