Page 25 of Bitten By Desire
“If it was easy there wouldn’t be so many stuffed animals still on display.”
“I mean easy for me. Let me go grab some tickets. I’ll be right back.”
I nodded and placed my now empty hand on my cup of apple cider to warm up. I watched as someone else threw a ring and it bounced right off the top of a bottle. I wondered what the trick was to getting it around the neck?
“How’s it going?” Zoey asked, appearing out of nowhere. “Scared him off already?”
“Ha. Ha. He’s just getting some tickets.”
“Good. I was worried you were droning on and on about Callum or something.”
“I haven’t mentioned him once. But you were right…this festival has exactly the same vibe as his house. It’s seriously spooky.”
“I know, right?”
I nodded. I really didn’t want to talk about Callum anymore. For the first time in years I wanted to concentrate on the guy right in front of me. And I knew Zoey wanted the same thing. Which was why she’d run off to speak to some random guy. “How was that guy?”
“Which guy?”
“The sick guy you needed to talk to?” I raised my eyebrows at her.
“Oh, him. Yeah, he was good.” She winked at me, even though I already knew she hadn’t been checking in on anyone.
“Liar.”
She laughed. “Fine, you caught me. I just wanted to give you two a moment. I was hiding behind that barrel over there.” She pointed to a barrel that wasn’t quite close enough to eavesdrop. “And when I saw him walk off, I was worried.”
“I swear I haven’t scared him off. Yet,” I added.
“That really makes it seem like you’re planning on scaring him off.”
I shook my head. Honestly, I wasn’t. A chill ran down my spine and I turned around. But again…there was no one there.
“You okay?” Zoey asked.
“Fine.” I tried to shake away the cold feeling in my veins, but it stuck. “I keep feeling like someone’s watching me.”
“I literally was just watching you. That was probably it.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Bennett at your 6 o’clock,” she said. “Back to my hiding spot.” She ran off before I could stop her. I saw her duck down behind a barrel right before Bennett rejoined me.
“Okay,” Bennett said. “Time to win you…” he stared at the options. “Are you more of a polar bear person or a tiger person?”
I didn’t want anything to do with a wildcat tonight. I just wanted that memory out of my head. “Definitely the polar bear,” I said.
“One polar bear coming right up.” He handed the man at the booth a few tickets.
I set down my apple cider and lifted my camera. I zoomed in on the rings to capture the perfect shot. I pressed the button just as the first ring hit the side of the bottle and fell to the table.
I looked up at Bennett.
“Just gotta get used to it,” he said and tossed another.
This shot hit the top of the bottle and bounced off. His next did almost the same thing.
I tried to hide my laughter behind my camera. I zoomed back out to capture him tossing the rings. He looked very confident doing it even though he was extraordinarily awful at this game.
