Page 36 of All Mine

“No. Team three?”

“It has to be Fenway, right?” the guy across from me whispered.

I nodded. “Fenway,” we both answered.

“Correct.”

I grinned at Lauren. She glowered at me.

“Last question. And I caution teams one and three to remain civil,” Adrian said. “Which nut is used to make dynamite?”

“Mine,” someone behind me yelled.

“Your nuts exploding doesn’t sound like a good thing,” a woman called out. A ripple of laughter cascaded through the crowd.

“The choices are,” Adrian said, returning to the question. “walnuts, almonds, peanuts, pine nuts.”

“Deez Nuts,” someone from the crowd yelled.

“Enough outta you.” Adrian pointed behind them into the bar.

My hand was up, playing by the rules, but Lauren remained still. Her team whispered amongst themselves, but no one moved.

“Team three,” Adrian called.

“Peanuts,” I said.

“We have a winner,” he said.

A few people behind us in the bar cheered. And my overly friendly teammate leaped into my lap, her hair covering my face, and engulfing me in cigarette aroma.

“Woo hoo, baby,” she called.

Fourteen

Lauren

To add insult to the injury of defeat, he had that old floozy in his lap. Four days ago, he’d left flour handprints on my ass for the world to see, and now here he was flirting with another woman in front of everyone. Sue had her hands all over Cam the entire game, not that I cared. I turned away from the table where team three smiled and laughed. Sloane, Eden, and Jonah stared at me.

The cracked ice in my gin and tonic glass suddenly became interesting.

“We did great,” Jonah said with fake cheeriness dotting his voice.

“Of course,” I said, stuffing my disappointment down. “It’s only for fun.” I hadn’t expected him to show up at trivia night. It’d thrown me. He and his stupid over competitiveness caused me to act like some lunatic.

“If it helps, it doesn’t look like he’s enjoying Sue in his lap,” Sloane said.

Eden nodded in agreement.

“I don’t care what he does,” I said, a bit too quickly. My friends had the grace not to pursue it.

“Where all have you looked?” Jonah asked Eden. Eden had mentioned she needed to get a job until deciding if she would stay in town and start her photography business.

“I interviewed for an assistant job with that one photography studio on the square, and as soon as they found out I was a new photographer in town, they said I wasn’t right for the job.”

“That doesn’t seem right. If you were potentially my competition, I’d want to keep an eye on you,” Jonah said.

“He may want to keep his business secrets to himself,” I chimed in, proving my thoughts were only on this conversation, and I didn’t have one eye on Camden.

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