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)
My eyes shifted over to the mystery Squishmallow Toby had won for me. I’d left it with my bag of things for school. It was going to be a reward for the spelling bee winner in my class next week. Maybe give them some incentive since none of them seemed very excited about it.
Oz hadn’t won his date a Squishmallow. No, he’d gotten a soft, fluffy Jellycat puppy. Because the realm from whence he had come didn’t do second place.
I rolled my eyes and picked up my glass of wine. I did not want to care. Why would I care if he had been there with his own harem?! I didn’t like him. I didn’t trust him. He had been cruel to me.
Except when he hadn’t been. When he supplied me with clean clothing, made me dinner, gave me chocolate cake. Seemed more interested in me than telling me every moment of his life. I sulked, sinking back into the sofa. He’d made me sandwiches and packed me food and water for the drive back.
Then left me here and—poof—gone. A figment of my sexual imagination—until today.
Now, he was back in my head clearly again. That smirk, the way he wore a pair of jeans. I groaned; I was so messed up in the head. I was lusting over a man who was bad, bad, bad. If slapping myself would help, I would do it.
My eyes dropped to my phone on the table beside the unlit candle. I thought for a moment. I could look him up online and see if that woman was someone he was seeing seriously. Torture myself some more because that seemed healthy. No, wait, I didn’t even know his last name.
His first name wasn’t common though, and Madison wasn’t that big. I sat up straight and kept looking at my phone while debating this idea.
I mean, what could it hurt just to see if I can find out his last name? That’s not stalkerish. Is it? He knows mine, so why can’t I know his?
Standing up, I walked to the kitchen and opened the freezer to get out my chocolate ice cream pint and a spoon, then snatched the lighter from the junk drawer before going to sit back down. I placed my new snack on the coffee table, lit the candle in hopes that the smell would relax me like it was supposed to do, then picked up my phone, pint, and spoon. Pulling my legs up onto the sofa, I crossed them and took a blanket to place over my lap so as not to freeze my skin from the ice cream I wanted to put there.
Once I was settled in and comfy, I scooped a spoonful of the creamy goodness and slid it into my mouth while unlocking my phone and going to my Instagram app first. Oz didn’t look like someone with an Insta, but what did I really know about him? He’d shown up at a church festival today with a date. Not something I’d thought he’d do.
There were a lot more Ozes than I’d expected on Insta, but none of them was the one I was looking for. Scowling, I went to the web browser and searched his first name and Madison, Mississippi. I got some information on a live showing of The Wizard of Oz and many different items that came in ounces, but no people. Shoveling more ice cream into my mouth, I sat there and tried to think of another way to search it. I doubted Southern Mafia was going to lead me to anything.
The first T-shirt he had left for me to wear was in the bathroom. It had said something on the back.
Bootleg…wait…bootleg and whiskey and Madison, Mississippi.
Was that some company he knew? There was another word in the title. The first word. I could not remember what it had been. I’d read it, then put it on.
I typed in bootleg whiskey, Madison, Mississippi. The very first hit was Carver’s Bootleg Whiskey. That was it!
Grinning at my little bit of progress, although this could lead to absolutely nothing, I went to the website. It was impressive. Must be a big company, and the odds of it being connected to him began to dwindle. I looked over it and found the owners, who were rather attractive. Even the father. A dad and his two sons owned it and ran it in Madison. The father’s father, Robert Carver, had used his father’s bootleg whiskey recipe and perfected it, then opened his own distillery in 1974. As interesting as this all was and as appealing as the three men were, I wasn’t trying to cyberstalk them.
I scanned the site and found social media links. They had an Insta. Let’s give that a go. I clicked it and leaned forward to put the pint on my coffee table, then pick up my glass of wine before settling back to scan nosily through their posts.