Page 57 of Glamour & Gumballs

Oops.

I scowled, and Ian flashed me an apologetic look. “It’s just the game,” he said. “It irks at a fae’s possessiveness to know someone was comfortable enough with you to kiss you like that, even though we know logically that you just liked him.”

He pulled the first item from his bag. It was a blanket.

His expression was sheepish. “Here’s a third blanket for you. Won’t do much good if it starts raining again, but still.”

“Thanks.”

The second two items were candy. Gummy candy, in sets that were the shape of burgers, hot dogs, pizza, and other snack foods.

“I wanted to bring the real thing, but this is as close as I could get,” he teased, handing me the treats.

The idea was silly, but clever. My smile in response was genuine. “Thank you.”

“Any time.” He winked. “Now, I’ve got an asset folder.” He waved a manilla folder before he opened it up. “Pictures of my house are on top. My family beneath. My job’s on the bottom.”

I took the thick cardstock pages of photos that he’d included. His house looked like a mansion in the forest—not exactly shabby.

His family consisted just of him and his parents, but they looked nice, and there was a picture of their house too. It was a few miles down the road from his, according to the page.

The photos of his job showed him in a science lab, shooting the camera a thumbs up as he made faces or grinned at different places in the room.

“You’re a scientist?” I asked, surprised.

“Yep. I’ve been working with a few other fae to try to figure out how to turn humans into compatible mates. We haven’t had any success yet,” he explained. “But we invented a few different medications for humans in the process.”

Hot damn, he was smart.

“So, if we mated…” I trailed off, wanting to hear his explanation.

“You could do whatever you want,” he said simply. “I spend a lot of time at the lab, so you’d be pretty much free to your own devices. Get a job, go to school, start making pottery. I don’t particularly care.”

Ah.

Well, that was better than I’d hoped before I ended up on the show. But I couldn’t say it was exactly what I wanted.

Not that I really knew what I wanted.

He told me a story about his lab, and I listened half-heartedly as my mind continued moving.

I had to figure out what I did want, so not wanting to live like he’d offered was a good place to start.

What didn’t I like about the offer?

It took me a few minutes to wrestle my feelings enough to figure it out.

Freedom would be nice, but when it came down to it, I didn’t only want to be free. Not if I was going to be mated. If I was tying my life to someone’s, I didn’t want to wonder where he was or what he was doing. I didn’t want to be at the bottom of his priority list. I wanted us to be a team, to do things together.

So, I didn’t want Ian because of the life he wanted to live.

That was a much fairer reason not to choose him than the way he’d shaken water all over me like a dog, too.

When Ian’s time was finally up, Kyle sat down with me and set his backpack on his lap. He handed me his folder, the sweatshirt and hat he’d packed for me, and the box of Twinkies.

We both ate one, neither of us bringing up our plan to get Rhett to the end as I flipped through his folder like I’d consider him.

We knew I wouldn’t, though.

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