Okay, so that wasn't the story she'd heard. "You rejected her?"
"Three times in person, and then at least half a dozen more times via text. Not even sure how she got my phone number." Val sighed and shook his head. "Doesn't matter, really."
"Oh. Well, I'm sorry that happened," she replied, unsure how to respond any differently. She'd only met Tia a handful of times, and while she seemed nice enough, she probably didn't know enough about her to take her word as fact just because. "But that still doesn't answer the question…why are you single on Valentine's Day?"
"Hey, I have a few days left to turn that around," he joked. "But how about this? I'll tell you if you beat me at Space Invaders."
Amara was surprised he even knew the name of one of her most popular arcade games from the late 1970's. "You play Space Invaders?"
"I did as a kid. It's probably just like riding a bike. Unless you're worried the jewelry store owner might show you up in your own arcade?" He posed his last statement as a challenge, and Amara was never one to back down from those.
She put the inventory books away and locked the register. "Never going to happen, Valentino Rossi. But I'll take you up on your wager. Let's make things more interesting though."
"How's that?" he asked.
"If I win, you tell me the real story of what happened between you and the wife at Son of a Bun Bakery—plus, why you're still single. And if you win, I'll…" She paused as she tried to think of something equitable.
"You'll agree to go on a date this Valentine's Day," he finished for her.
Amara scoffed. "A date? With who? You?"
Val laughed and shook his head. "I didn't say that. Just a date. Pick anyone. Just promise to be open to celebrating the holiday of love."
She wanted to vomit at the very thought. "Gross. But fine. You're on. We should do a quick round of patrol before I beat you, though."
"Smart," he agreed. "Except you're not going to beat me."
Together they took a quick walk around both of their stores, the main mall hallway, the back rooms, and the back hallways before feeling comfortable with the fact that everything was securely locked, and no one was trying to break in. Twenty minutes after that and they were both neck-and-neck with their scores on neighboring Space Invaders machines.
"Okay, I'll admit," Amara looked over at him as they reached the next level, letting out a long breath. "You're better than I thought you'd be at this."
Val grinned. "See? Not just a…what did you call me? Yule Heights Casanova?"
"The jury is still out on that one," she teased. "Come on. Next round makes coffees."
Just as she turned back to the machine to begin the next level, a loud alarm sound made her jump.
"The alarm from my store is going off!" Val shouted over the piercing sound. "We need to go…now!"
"Uh…" Theoretically, she knew the answer to that was yes, but also that was the very last thing she wanted to do. She swallowed hard and tried to mask her nerves. "Okay. I'm right behind you."
Chapter Four
Valentino
"A raccoon? Really?" Val had both hands down by his side, a feeling of defeat sinking into his chest.
"Well, look at it this way," Amara replied, pushing the cardboard boxes that had fallen over in the back hallway of the mall and tripped the alarm out of the way with her foot. "It could have been a burglar. I think we got off lucky."
He couldn't argue with that, but that still left them with a potentially rabid raccoon that had somehow made its way inside despite heavy steel doors and multiple locks. Or maybe it had some sort of nest already inside? Did raccoons have nests? Val had no idea, and he certainly didn't want to find out. "We have to get it out of here. Hand me that broom."
She glanced to her left where a broom and dustpan were leaning against the concrete wall outside of the back door to his store. "Are you going to sweep it away? I'm not sure that's the best plan."
He took the broom from her as she handed it to him, a smile on her face as if she was enjoying every moment of his misery. "If you have a better idea, Mara, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise, grab that long-handled dustpan and let's try to herd it toward the exit door."
Surprisingly, she did as he asked and gripped the long handle of the dustpan tightly in her fists. "Okay, but what if it…what if it, like, comes at me?"
Val shrugged. "Hit it with the dustpan? I don't know. It can't do much. It's a raccoon."
"Raccoons have killed people before, thank you very much," she huffed in response.
"What? Since when?" He began shooing the animal away from the both of them with loud, sweeping motions of the broom. It didn't budge an inch. He moved again, coming from the right side this time. Still, the raccoon kept eating whatever was in its paws like it didn't give two shakes about their attempt to evict him from the back hallway.
"I don't know—rabies? Scratching people's eyes out, sepsis from a bite wound," Amara followed suit, doing the same with the dustpan in the opposite direction so as to push it toward the exit. The raccoon just continued to stare at them like it had no idea what they were trying to do. "They are scrappy!"
Val inched closer to the animal and pushed it lightly with the tip of the broom. It reared up on back legs and stared him dead in the eyes and…hissed? A loud snarling, hissing, screeching sound came from the animal as it lunged toward him. He jumped backward so fast that he didn't see Amara had been standing partially behind him and was now completely knocked off balance.
"Ah!" Amara shrieked as they both went down in a tangle of limbs and brooms and screaming raccoons. "It's touching me! It's on me! The raccoon is on me!"
"What?" Val batted at whatever was in front of his face, trying to course correct, but all that did was land him on his back on the concrete ground. He tried to scramble back up to his feet, but the raccoon leaped directly over Amara's legs and ran down the hallway screeching like a banshee. "Mara, the raccoon!"
"It's touching me!" Mara was still shrieking and swinging her arms wildly from where she was crouched on the ground—her eyes were tightly squeezed shut and she was slapping the end of the broom away from her—it's dirty, dusty bristles on her face as it was haphazardly propped up between her and a cardboard box against the wall. "It's attacking me!"
Val grabbed the broom handle and yanked it away from her. "Mara, that's the broom bristles that were touching you. Not the raccoon. It's long gone down the hall. We lost it."
She opened her eyes and sat up straight, blinking rapidly. "Oh. Well…it could have been the raccoon."
"Except it was a broom, but okay, Lara Croft." He tried not to laugh, but the smile was certainly evident on his face. He reached a hand down to help her stand up, and she took it somewhat reluctantly. As she pulled herself up, though, she lost her footing when her heel slid on a piece of trash and she squeezed his hand tighter, only to pull him down with her.