Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
There were many games with stuffed animal prizes, but the booster club had taken it up another notch, it seemed, and because of it, the cost to play this game was a whopping six dollars for three rings. That was steep for a church festival game. The other games were five tries for three dollars. Their prizes were cheaper and bought in bulk.
This booth’s was not. The boosters had donated Jellycat stuffed animals for the top prizes and tiny Squishmallows for the lower-tier winners. Both very popular brands among the kids. There was a peach-and-purple dragon Jellycat sitting on a display above the workers’ heads, and on the right of it sat a sloth, which I wouldn’t mind having. I mean, it was cute and looked soft. Then, on the left of it was a green dinosaur. My kids in class talked about them often, and I knew that the dragons were a very sought-after theme as of late due to a book series.
I stood and watched Toby as he tossed the first ring. He’d have to get all three to win a Jellycat. When the first ring hit a bottle, swirled around the rim, then sank down, he clapped his hands once and gave me a big grin. I tried to show enthusiasm, but I was kind of done with the festival. As I stood there, my eyes drifted over the crowd—until they stopped, and all the oxygen around me seemed to be sucked from the vicinity when they landed on a face I hadn’t seen in eight weeks. At least not in real life. I’d had plenty alone time with it in my fantasies.
He was watching me as he tossed a piece of popcorn into his mouth. I blinked, thinking I had started hallucinating, but he was still there. A smirk appeared on his face. I realized my imagination hadn’t done him justice. I’d forgotten just how gorgeous the man was…and seductive.
I heard Toby’s cheer, but it sounded far away. The entire festival had managed to fade out, and there was a humming in my ears instead. Oz tossed another piece of popcorn into his mouth as we stared at each other. When a hand touched my arm, I jumped, startled, and ripped out of the strange haze I had been pulled into.
My gaze swung back to Toby, and he gave me a sheepish shrug.
“Missed that last one,” he said.
Then, his eyes did a quick check to see who or what I had been looking at. I didn’t follow his gaze, not wanting him to see me stare at Oz because if I turned my head, I would stare directly at him. He was impossible to overlook.
“But you get one of the smaller ones,” he said, his eye back on me, then nodded toward the display of Squishmallows.
I didn’t want to take one. The girls loved those things, and one of the boys could easily win those over the much more difficult items above. But Toby seemed so keen on me picking one out that I felt I had no choice. Forcing a smile, I pointed at the least-desirable-looking one they had. It was brown, and I thought perhaps it was a dog or maybe a bear. I couldn’t tell really.
When they handed it to me, Toby looked displeased with my choice, but said nothing. I thanked him, and he touched my elbow to lead me to the next game. I wasn’t a fan of this contact. My gaze went back in the direction of Oz of its own accord. I had no control over it. When I found him, I wished I hadn’t.
His eyes were no longer on me, but the stunning brunette beside him. He handed her the popcorn he was holding and took a black-and-white Jellycat stuffie from her. They were together. Oz was on a date at the church-hosted festival. This seemed rather relationship-like to me, and he’d said he didn’t have those. I seriously doubted he brought one-night stands to a festival and bought them popcorn and won them expensive stuffed animals.
Just then his eyes shifted back on me, as if he could tell I was watching him. The weird feeling in my chest was bothering me. There was no reason for it. I barely knew the man. The time we’d spent together felt much longer, but it had been brief, and the majority of it, I had been in a dark basement. Still watching the beauty beside him, I was—I didn’t know—unsettled maybe. This was the last place on earth I would have expected to see him. And it wasn’t as if I had been having a good time to begin with.
She placed a hand on his arm and leaned in to tell him something. He bent down so she could talk close to his ear, but his eyes didn’t look anywhere but at me. And I liked it. I needed to snap out of this. She turned her head then, and I could see her face completely. She was drop-dead gorgeous.