Page 27 of The King of Halloween
Raj glanced over at him the same moment Adam did. For a beat, they just stared as if waiting for the other to blink. Heat dripped down Raj’s spine, his lips parting like he needed to pant. Adam licked the edge of his mouth and tapped his fingers on the table.
“Are we ready?” the mayor called out.
The spell snapped. Both men turned away, scowls rising.
Yes, they had so much in common, like trying to destroy each other.
“Let the caramel apple fight begin!”
?CHAPTER NINE
?
HE DID THAT on purpose. Rolled his sleeves so ivory cashmere kissed his elbows, forcing Adam to leer at those muscled, long forearms. The black hair looked as thick as a bear rug, causing his jaw to lock up. He didn’t mean to look the first time, and he sure as hell wasn’t watching as the man carefully slipped on latex gloves and stood before his pot.
“On your mark,” the mayor called out, stopwatch at the ready.
Adam squared up, hands prepared to reach for the first stick.
“Get set…”
His mom finished waving to her friends in the crowd.
“Wait. Where’s your partner?”
“Partner?” Raj squeaked out and turned to the empty spot beside him.
Adam missed it at first, but that was right, the blond himbo was nowhere to be found. “Trouble in paradise?” he asked more to himself, but Raj shot him a look telling him his arrow struck true. “We tag team. One person dips, the other decorates and seals it up. But if you want to try to do it all on your own…”
“Here, dearie.” The mayor’s wife, Marta, slid in beside him. “I’ll give you a helping hand.”
“Thank you,” he said with a nod.
So that’s how they’re going to play it.While the mayor could get him the movie night, or the best spot in the parade, even he couldn’t conjure up more apples than were on the table. No matter how much they helped their golden boy across the finishing line, they didn’t stand a chance against their true king.
“Okay, doing this again. On your mark, get set…apple!” the mayor shouted. He made a loud bang noise because using an actual starter pistol would be insane.
With the dexterity of Vlad himself, Adam twisted a stick off the table, impaled it into a juicy red apple, and dipped it all into the caramel. Using his patented two-shake method, he removed the excess then passed it on to his mother. She ladled a rainbow of sprinkles over the caramel with care before tying it up in cellophane.
He let himself get a good ten in, the pace steady and true, before glancing over at his competition. Seven finished apples sat on Raj’s table. “This is rather unfair,” Adam said aloud. He dipped two apples at once and passed both to his mother. She held them for a second in confusion.
When no one exclaimed, “What is?” he answered for them, “I’ve won the past three years.” In his element, Adam helped sprinkle up his next apple with his mother, then dropped it in the cellophane. Over the crinkle, he nearly missed Raj’s cutting comment.
“We’ll see.”
He wanted to laugh. The man was already three apples behind, and the gap was only growing. “Are you certain about that, Mr. Choudhary? Seems you’re having a sticky situation.”
“I am…” Caramel dripped off the apple and onto the hot plate. The sugar burst into a quick blue flame, causing the man to stagger back and fall another behind. “I’ve come back from worse,” he said and impaled two apples at once.
Adam matched him, working quicker than ever. “Are you trying to act all mysterious so I’ll be distracted by your sad backstory?”
“Nope. Are you trying to act all snobbish so I’ll lose my nerve?”
“It’s not an act!”
“Chrissy!” Adam chastised the woman in the crowd. “Who’s working the front counter?”
Her answer was to give him an exhausted flop of her arm and wander off. Though he noticed it was in the opposite direction from his store.Great.Well, in just another twenty minutes, and he could go back to selling dreams and nightmares to the people of Anoka.
