Or a wolf, to be exact, the sound sent shivers down my back

“Okay, I’ll admit it- playing with LEGOs was a lot of fun,” Gina conceded as they stepped out of the room. They still didn’t know WHY the hotel had a room that was filled with LEGOs, but Nick wanted to believe it was some **** cry for help on Dakota’s part, his old friend clinging onto a precious memory of her childhood.

He wanted that to be the case so badly. But he couldn’t dwell on it right now.

Because there was someone else here who needed him to rekindle those precious feelings of childhood, and she was standing right in front of him.

“So what else do you have planned, Date Master?” She jabbed at him.

“I’ve got a few ideas in mind,” Nick said, checking the time. They still had a couple of hours left on their date, enough to fit in some fun plans. “You’re gonna keep an open mind, right?”

Gina cracked a smile. It wasn’t one of her snarky, jaded smiles, either, it was the smile of a woman who was sincerely enjoying herself.

It reminded him of when they were kids. How rare was it, that she showed such softness beneath the hard edges of her personality?

“I’m coming around on it,” she admitted with a nod. “Depends what you’re thinking, though. The way things are going? Not sure… oh, hold on- next we’re going to eat some cereal, right? As a snack before lunch? Or maybe, oh, I know! Play pretend in a treehouse, right?”

She playfully poked him in the side, her black nails jabbing right in the ticklish spots between his ribs. Nick recoiled slightly and squirmed, shooting her a look. But he couldn’t stay upset with her, not even with all her jostling.

“Haha, I get it, I see what you’re doing,” he said sarcastically, while not hiding how much he was enjoying this at all.

Gina crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall. She wore a wry smile on her lips. “I could say the same thing right back, you know,” she tossed out, earning her a look of muted surprise from Nick.

“Oh?” He raised his eyebrow.

The punk girl nodded. “Let’s check the facts,” she said, holding up her fingers. “Fact 1- you wanted me to wear a cute little pink dress, like when we were kids.”

“Actually, you made that call,” Nick interjected, shaking his head. “I would have been perfectly fine with you wearing whatever you wanted.”

Gina blinked. Then she held up another finger, not letting him distract her. “…Fact 2- you took me to karaoke to sing children’s songs,” she pointed out next. “Then, Fact 3- you brought me to what was essentially mini-LEGO Land so we could build stuff out of LEGOs.”

“All of these things are true,” Nick said, nodding. “Although it was Dakota who picked out the songs for karaoke-”

“Not my point!” Gina interrupted. She shook her head and cracked another smile. “Nick, I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to take the two of us back in time. By pretending like there’s still a chance for us… to live the life we could have led, back then. By focusing on when we were kids, you’re trying to, what, help me reclaim my lost youth or something?”

Nick’s mouth dropped open. “Wow, Gina… that… that’s really insightful!” He pressed his palm against her forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”

She rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation. “Very funny,” she said sarcastically, pulling away from him. “Come on, Nick, is that it? Is that what you’re trying to do? …Because it’s not going to work, I’ll tell you that right now.”

Nick blinked and looked at her, surprised. “What do you mean?” He asked sincerely.

Gina bit her lip. “I’m not going to forget about what happened with Dakota. I’m not going to just move past it because you planned out some nostalgia trip for our date. If that’s what this is all about, then let’s just call it here and now- okay?”

Nick could see the concern burning on her face. He needed to address this properly it seemed. He shook his head. “Gina, that’s not what this is about,” he assured her. “Not at all.”

She frowned. “It’s not?”

“No,” he swore. “Yes- I wanted to do stuff that you may not have gotten the chance to do when you were a kid, but it has nothing to do with Dakota, or… what happened.”

Gina relaxed her shoulders slightly but she still looked doubtfully at him. “Then… why?” She asked hesitantly. “Why go to all this trouble then?”

Nick looked her in the eyes. “Because I care about you,” he said sincerely. “And I want you to enjoy our date together. If I made things too romantic, you might get uncomfortable and think I was pushing things too fast. So I wanted to pick activities that we would enjoy together without putting too much pressure on you. Okay? That’s what I think a date between the two of us should be. Now, yes, it is aiming at things I think you missed out on in your childhood, or that I think you may need to give a second chance- because, frankly, I think we could both use a do-over in that regard. But I’m not trying to erase what happened, Gina.”

He shook his head. “You know me better than that.”

Gina bit her lip. Nick was right- she did know him better than that. She should have figured that there was more to this whole date thing than just the two of them having a good time together. But she’d gotten so worried by what the things he had planned could mean, that she didn’t stop to consider that maybe he really did just want her to enjoy herself.

“I guess… I thought too much about it, then, didn’t I?” She admitted. Then she cracked a wry smile. “First time I’ve ever been guilty of that!” She joked.

Nick grinned right back at her. “I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re pretty clever, Gina. I thought you wouldn’t figure it out until the next part of the date at least!” He teased.

Gina raised her eyebrows in alarm. She was hesitant to think about what he might have planned, and she looked suspiciously at him. “Oh, really…” she murmured, crinkling her eyebrows. “And what have you got in mind? A little trip to summer camp, maybe?”

Nick’s eyes widened and flicked to the side for a moment. “Err… no, of course not,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “Why- why would you even think that? No.”

Gina raised her eyebrows, stunned. “…Nick-! That… dude, no, that’s going way too far,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but something like that- …Oh, wait, you’re messing with me again, aren’t you?” She realized.

Then she punched him in the arm. “Dude, not funny.”

“Hey, sorry, I couldn’t help it,” Nick said, covering his smirking face. “You’re always messing with me, don’t I have the right to mess with you?”

“No, you don’t,” Gina said with a playful petulance in her voice. “That’s not how our relationship works! I mess with you, and you take it on the chin! Division of labor and all that shit!”

Now they were both smiling. Neither was at all bothered by what the other way saying- the perfect atmosphere to continue their date on.

“…So for real, what do you have in mind next?” Gina asked. She was willing to indulge whatever childish fantasy he had next, even now that she knew what “game” he was playing. After all- it was the least she could do given how much effort he’d clearly put into this whole thing.

“Okay- I take it back,” Gina said, shaking her head. “This is a really fucking cool idea, Nick. Really fucking cool. A go-kart track in the basement!? I didn’t even know we had this shit!”

The only feature Gina knew about in the hotel was the lounge bar. But having a full go-kart track in the basement, that was pretty fucking badass.

“I know, Dani showed this to me,” Nick said, looking out at the winding road. Dakota had gone the extra mile putting this in; the walls were designed to look like an open sky to give the illusion that they were outdoors, and that meant more than just a coat of paint. She’d put some real elbow grease (and magic) into the design.

The clouds looked like they were actually moving across the walls.

“You sure I can do this in a dress, though?” Gina looked down at the long skirt of her pink dress, worried about it getting caught in the go-karts. “This thing cost a lot of money you know, I don’t want to get it dirty.”

Nick waited a moment for the other shoe to drop, expecting her to follow up with a statement like “So maybe I should just take it off, then?”

But no, she wasn’t playing around or being flirty, her concerns seemed sincere. Which helped him feel a little bit better.

“Don’t worry, Gina, it’ll be fine,” he said. “They have racing outfits you can borrow if you’re concerned about your clothes getting messy.”

Gina let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, good.” He led her over to the counter so they could sign up for a few runs on the track and rent clothes.

“Which do you want? Peach or Daisy?” Nick asked with an amused smirk.

Gina’s expression was far less amused “Very funny.”

“They also have Rosalina.”

She just kept staring at him. It was obvious that he was making a joke at her expense, but she had no idea who Rosalina even was.

“What, you never played Mario Galaxy?” Nick looked genuinely shocked. “…Wait, when did that game come out again? …Oh. 2007. So that was…”

“My mom wasn’t big on the whole ‘video game’ thing,” Gina said, crossing her arms over her chest. “The only reason she let me own a GameBoy was because I bought it with my allowance, and she wanted to teach me how to be responsible and do my chores.”

The tone of her voice carried an echo of bitter regret that made Nick wince. He could see the frustration and agitation in her expression, and it made his heart ache.

“Responsibility” was a complicated topic for Gina. Especially taking into account her relationship with her mother. Nick really should have known better, but how could he have expected something as simple as go-karts to have triggered her?

“…You could also wear Luigi,” he said as a compromise.

That bought the smile back to her lips. It came with a flick to the forehead from her finger, but hey- the smile was what really mattered.

“You’re such a dumbass,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Wooooooohooooo!” Gina’s voice carried over the whir of the go-kart engine, an exceptional display of her vocal projection. She also handled the kart with surprising deftness, which caught Nick off-guard. He didn’t think she even had a driver’s license.

She handily sailed across the finish line, having won her third race in a row.

Nick hadn’t won ANY yet.

“Wow, Gina, you’re really good at this,” he said, cutting the engine and getting out of his go-kart, removing his helmet to go check in with her. “You sure you’ve never gone go-karting before?”

“Nah, not my scene,” Gina said, shaking her head. “I’m more the kind of girl who would hang out at illegal street races and fool around with tattooed crooks in the backseat of stolen cars.”

Nick stared at her, his mouth hanging open.

Her serious expression lasted another two seconds before her grin returned. “Kidding,” she said, elbowing him playfully. “I’m kidding, Nick. Come on, I did some shady stuff, but I wasn’t, like, a criminal or anything.”

She paused. “…Okay, well, some of the **** I used weren’t exactly ‘street legal’ but-”

“It’s okay, I don’t need to know,” Nick cut her off, holding up his hands. As sexy as the image of Gina dressed as a skimpy race queen might have been, it also brought some complicated thoughts to mind for him.

Gina bit her lip and gave him an anxious look. “…You know I had a past, Nick.” The playfulness was gone from her voice now. “We can play around and do fun stuff together under the guise of ‘regaining our childhood’ but… I lived a life after we went our separate ways, and you know that.”

Nick nodded. He did know that, he really did. And he wasn’t trying to minimize what she’d experienced, of course he wasn’t.

But…

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable,” he sincerely apologized to her. “I know you had a history, Gina. A past. And I’m not bothered by that, really, I’m not.”

Gina shifted from one foot to the other and crossed her arms over her chest. The fidgeting of her body language signaled to Nick that she was about two seconds away from turning and running off.

“Then… why does it feel like you don’t want to talk about that stuff with me?” She asked anxiously. It was taking everything she had to look him in the eye right now. “Nick, I’m not some innocent girl like Mary, or even that mess Holly you’ve got in a cage up in your room, hot of an idea as that is.”

“I know you’re not,” Nick said sincerely. “And I don’t think any less of you for the life you led after we stopped hanging out together, Gina. Really, I don’t.”

“Really?” Gina asked him doubtfully. “Because it doesn’t feel that way.”

If he didn’t think any less of her, then why did it seem like he was so focused on trying to pretend like none of that mattered?

Gina knew better than anyone- you couldn’t turn back the clock. You couldn’t make those things that happened in the past not happen. Even if Dakota had been brought back to life, that didn’t change the reality of her ****. And Nick knew that. He had to know that.

So why was he still looking at her that way?

“Gina… the reason why I wasn’t talking about that stuff was for your sake,” Nick said honestly.

She blinked, taken aback.

“For… for my sake?” She questioned, shaking her head slowly. “How does THAT work?”

It made next to no sense.

“You tried to bury all that pain with booze and ****, and dangerous activities,” Nick said, trying to be as delicate as possible. “I mean, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the kind of life you led…”

“No, you don’t,” Gina replied, shaking her head sharply. “It was MY life, Nick. I don’t need you to tell me how MY life went.”

The venom in her voice stung to hear. But he pushed past it. Because this wasn’t about him trying to explain to Gina all the crappy things that had happened to her.

He was just trying to show her how much he cared about her.

“I know that was a difficult time in your life,” he said sincerely, reaching out to take her hand. But she pulled away from him.

Not good. She was retreating back into her shell. He had to think- and fast.

“I think that the bad girl side of you is really cute!” He blurted out, catching her by surprise. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open in shock.

“H-huh!?” She stammered in disbelief. “Dude, are you mental or something!?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m not. I’m serious. The punk accessories, the leather, the tight jeans, the tattoos, it all works for you, Gina, really, it does.”

“I’m completely lost,” Gina said, shaking her head. She had no idea what he was doing now.

“Yeah, and I’m trying to be honest,” Nick said sincerely. “I think it’s hot, Gina. But I also know that it’s a part of your past that you aren’t the most comfortable with. That stuff that happened to you… the things that led you to this style… it’s not light or casual at all. This is stuff that really stings for you, doesn’t it? Painful memories that… you’d rather forget.”

An uncomfortable feeling churned in Gina’s stomach. Nick wasn’t wrong.

“…So that’s why, sometimes I don’t know how to address it,” Nick explained as sincerely as he could. “I like the look- but I’m also wary about what the look represents for you. Because it’s a part of your painful past.”

She nodded, biting her lip. “Yeah, I… I know,” she murmured, her eyes trailing down.

“So… I didn’t want to focus on that stuff. I wanted to give you the chance to just let off some steam, to have fun, to… to relax. Is that so wrong?” He asked.

Gina shook her head. “No, I… I guess it isn’t,” she conceded. It was the most she could do right now- her emotions were way too complicated.

What was she supposed to say here? Nick was looking out for her, trying to be considerate of her feelings, and she wasn’t sure what the right move was.

Should she thank him?

Should she apologize for jumping to conclusions?

Or was saying nothing what he needed from her?

“…I’m not good with dates,” she said bluntly. “You’re right, Nick, I bury my sincere feelings way deep down, because… because I’m scared of them.”

It hurt her to admit that. But it was the truth.

Gina looked up at Nick, feeling the tears welling up in her eyes. “Knowing that there are things I want to do with you… things I’d like to share… and not knowing whether I should share them or not, because I don’t know how you’d respond… it’s scary, Nick! Don’t you get it?”

“Yeah,” Nick said, nodding. “Because I’ve been there myself.”

He could see it in Gina’s eyes. The fear. The doubt. The uncertainty.

There were things in her past that she wasn’t sure she could reveal, because she didn’t know how he’d react. She didn’t want to be rejected by him. So she kept those dark secrets locked up tight in her heart, refusing to let them out.

Nick understood that feeling, because he had been down that road himself.

“…I never told anyone about what happened with Dakota,” he said. “Not to Dawn, or Dani, or Carly, not even to Mary or Holly. I couldn’t face what happened, and because of that, I couldn’t be open with the women I fell for. And that guilt, it was always weighing in the back of my mind, Gina, always pressuring me. Reminding me that as happy as I was with them, that all that happiness… it was built on a lie. And if they could see the real me… well, they wouldn’t want anything to do with me anymore. I was terrified of that.”

That had just been one of countless reasons none of his relationships had worked out. But it was the reason he knew would resonate with Gina the most.

She nodded her head in agreement, tears welling up in her eyes. “It’s a painful feeling, isn’t it?” She murmured.

He couldn’t argue. He just took her hands.

“Whatever you feel like sharing with me, I’ll accept it,” he said honestly, looking into her eyes. “There’s nothing you have to tell me that will make me uncomfortable or make me stop caring about you, Gina, if that’s what you’re afraid of. …Well, I mean, maybe if you told me you were actually a serial killer or something, but besides that…”

Gina winced. “Ooh… so that’s a dealbreaker, huh?” She sucked in air through her teeth. “…Okay, so, the thing is, it was just one time…”

The two of them immediately burst out laughing at the absurdity of the comment, tears rolling down their cheeks as they relaxed into the date for good.