“He’s not that hot! You’re hotter!” Ethan pauses. “How’d I do?”
“Very convincing.” I grip the steering wheel. “It’s not weird to feel weird about this, right? Like, Ben was weird about my boyfriend. I can be weird about his.”
“What’s weird is you using the word ‘weird’ four times just now.”
“Well, it’s a weird situation!”
Ethan laughs. “It’s really not! You’re just jealous that your ex has a new boyfriend. That’s the most normal thing in the world.”
My chest squeezes. “You think I’m jealous of Ben?”
“I mean—”
“Seussical!” Dylan’s face pops up next to the game screen, and I almost fall out of my seat.
“Gotta go, I’ll text you,” I say, jamming the end-call button so hard it almost bends my finger back. Already, Dylan’s squeezing into the driver’s seat beside me.
“Seussical, hear me out. I need you. I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with”—he yanks me out of the race car—“the tiger you’re about to win me in the claw machine.”
So now I’m walking dazedly behind him like he’s some sort of overly caffeinated Pied Piper. He weaves me past a bank of coin pushers, takes a sharp left next to Pac-Man, and there they are. Ben and Mario, side by side, but also sort of facing each other. Mario’s speaking, and Ben’s laughing, and there’s just something about the way they look against a backdrop of stacked stuffed-animal prizes. It’s like they’re posed for some kind of whimsically romantic photo shoot. It kind of knocks the air from my lungs.
They look really, really good together.
“Step aside, gentlemen! The king of Clawlandia has arrived,” Dylan says, bowing, and I legitimately can’t tell if he’s drunk or if he just has a drunk personality. “Look, Seussasaurus, I’m not saying you have to win this li’l guy to prove your love for me. But. I need you to win this, or I’m going to assume it’s all been a lie—”
“Remind me why you’re pinning this on Arthur and not Samantha?” interjects Mario.
“Because Samantha is garbage at claw machines, and we don’t need this to end in tears.”
“Her tears or yours?” Ben asks.
“Irrelevant.”
Ben smiles at me, and my brain’s too slow to keep from smiling back.
“Arthur! Eyes on the prize.” Dylan taps the claw-machine glass, pointing to what appears to be a ball of neon-orange synthetic fur with two snow-white penises sticking out of its face.
I lean in. “That’s supposed to be a tiger?”
“Seussical, come the fuck on. A tiger?” Dylan looks dumbstruck. “Wow, so what’s a T. rex? A lizard? I guess Mufasa’s just a lion to you?”
“Well.” I pause. “Mufasa is a lion—”
“He’s the goddamn king of the lions. And this motherfucker is a saber-tooth. Equally majestic. Equally legendary. I’m naming him Sabre with an ‘-re.’” Dylan kisses his fingertips. “For that extra touch of class. Say-bruh.”
I peer through the glass for a minute, then turn back to Dylan. “He’s kind of—”
“Delicate but fierce,” says Dylan, “with the face of an angel.”
“No, his face is the worst thing to happen to saber-toothed tigers as a species, including extinction. I was going to say he’s too jammed in there. He’s not winnable.”
“Oh, you. So modest.”
“No, I mean there’s literally no way that claw will pull that tiger up.”
“Thank you!” Mario looks triumphant. “That’s what I said! I’m telling you, they rig the machines. You can’t win.”
“Maybe you can’t win,” I shoot back, which sounded so cheeky and playful in my head. But out loud, it’s sharp and intense, practically a declaration of war. Ben’s eyes widen, just barely, and Dylan visibly chokes down a laugh.
Mario just smiles. “Cool. Prove me wrong.”
All three of them move in closer to watch, which makes my heart speed to double time. I’ve never been good at ignoring an audience.
“Fine.” I peer through the glass, considering my options. Then I glance back at Dylan. “I can get you that bear.”
Dylan looks like I just asked permission to punch him. “I ask for a saber-toothed tiger, an ancient beast with dignity and power, and you offer me a valentine bear?”