the second. The air is so charged with anticipation, I feel the hair on my arms standing on end. She keeps sending me these looks and licking that full lower lip. By the time I’m done with the booth, her cheeks are pink, and the hair on my arms isn’t the only thing standing at attention.
“Can you help me with the rest?” she asks.
I nod. “I’m in no rush.”
She waves me toward a storage shed near the office. “The dart setup is over here.”
We step inside. She points toward the corner, to a roll of what looks like carpet covered in trash bags. I unearth it from the cobwebs and other things stacked around it as she grabs a plastic tub off the shelves on the back wall. We take everything to our booth. When she pulls the plastic off the roll, I see it’s cork-backed green felt. The C-clamps in the bag of bolts make sense now. We roll the felt out and clamp it to the top of the wall so that it covers the entire back of the booth.
“I need a table,” Adri says, pointing to a stack of folding tables on the grass near the parking lot.
I haul one over and she unfurls a red paper tablecloth onto it, then sets the plastic tub on top. Inside are three sets of darts, several packages of balloons, and a box of thumbtacks.
“So, we’re just supposed to tack balloons to the wall and if they pop one with a dart, they get a prize.”
I poke at the green felt. “Will the darts stick in this?”
She shrugs and pulls one out of the container. “Only one way to find out.” She gives it a toss. It hits the felt sideways and drops to the ground. “It must be dull,” she says, looking woefully at it in the grass.
“You throw like a girl,” I say with a shake of my head.
She gives me a pouty little smile. “I am a girl, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Hell yeah, I’ve noticed. “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you to throw a dart?”
“I didn’t know there was anything to learn. I thought you just threw them and they stuck.”
I come around to her side of the table and pick one up. They’re crappy toy darts, not the real thing, so the weight’s all wrong. I aim, shoot. It sticks into the middle of the back wall.
“Show-off,” she mutters. “Bet you can’t hit a balloon.”
I arch an eyebrow at her. “What are we wagering?”
She looks at me with wide eyes for several long heartbeats before saying, “Dinner. You hit the balloon, I pay.”
I shake my head. “I’m paying either way. Think of something better.”
That pink tongue slicks over her lower lip again. “You hit the balloon, I’ll let you drive me home.” The same embers of desire that exploded into an inferno that day on her desk ignite deep in her eyes as she says it.
Electricity sizzles over my skin, starting a slow burn inside me. I give her a nod, move to the outside of the table. “I can live with that.”
She snatches a red balloon out of the bin. I can’t take my eyes off her lips as she blows it up. She ties it and tacks it to the wall, then turns to me with a challenge in her eye.
“These darts suck,” I say, thumbing through them, looking for the best of the bad. “How many chances do the kids get?”
“Three for a dollar,” she says.
I reach in my pocket, peel a hundred off the roll, set it on the table, punch a dart through it to hold it there.
Her jaw falls fully open. “That’s a hun—”
Before she can finish, I send a dart flying without taking my eyes off her and smile when I hear the pop and solid thunk of the tip into the plywood.
“No way!” She looks at where the flat red balloon is pinned under my dart with disbelieving eyes. “You didn’t even aim!”
I shrug. “Just lucky.”
“How did you do that?” she asks, still incredulous.
I reach for her hand, pull her around to my side of the table. “Geometry.”
She doesn’t say anything for a second when I let her go. I’m not sure if it’s my answer or my touch that has her stunned silent.
She clears her throat and looks at me. “Explain.”
“The dart is going to move on a parabolic curve, just like anything you throw. It needs to leave your hand already traveling on that curve, so