Okay, so I was wrong. I admit it: I clearly underestimated Liam’s proficiency at air hockey. 

Immediately after the puck starts skating across the surface of the table, he hits it with a force that surprises me at first, but I get used to it quite quickly. 

He spares no mercy, just hits the puck with his paddle with a fury that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in him before. He beats me 14 - 0. 

“Okay, okay, you win,” I say, and put my hands above my head, shaking it and sighing. “But we are never doing this again.”

He just laughs, and leads me over to a claw machine, one of the ones with the cute stuffed animals. My eyes immediately lock on a blue whale shark, nestled above a pink penguin and a green octopus. And I think he notices, because the next thing he says is “If you want the whale, I’ll win you the whale.”

”It’s a whale shark,” I tell him, “which is not a whale, but a shark.”

He grins. “Okay, I’ll win you the shark then.”

I didn’t think anyone ever won anything from those machines, but fifteen minutes later, I’m walking out of the door next to Liam with a small stuffed whale shark in my arms.