Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
He was about to get jabbed in the side. “And? You’re amazing. You’re awesome.”
“You think I’m amazing?” this dummy asked.
I kept my face even; I wasn’t about to egg him on. “I know you are. You’re the one that seems to forget that.”
He watched me closely with those eyes. Just as he opened his mouth, someone to the side stumbled backward into me.
But just as I was shoved by the stranger’s weight, Zac’s hand struck out, pushing the person back to where they’d come from before he, or she, could fall on me. I looked up at him and didn’t miss the frown on Zac’s face as the man turned around to look at who’d pushed him.
From the face he made, he recognized him. “Sorry, sorry,” the guy apologized quickly.
Zac didn’t say a word as he grabbed onto my shoulders and moved me closer to the wall beside us, putting his body between me and the crowd.
“You okay?” he asked when the guy turned back around and moved away.
“Yeah, I’m all right. He just stomped on me a little.” I glanced up at him as I kneeled to rub the top of my foot. “Thank you for protecting me.”
One side of his mouth tilted up. “Peewee, I’d never let a thing happen to you.”
There went my heart again, and I tried to hide it with a grin. “Like you know I’d never let anything happen to you?”
He nodded once. “Just like that.”
He held out his hand and helped me to my feet.
And that was when I saw them.
I knew immediately who they were under their costumes of Morticia and Gomez Addams. The skintight, clinging black dress and black lipstick didn’t hide who she was. The black suit and what I knew was a fake black mustache didn’t hide his identity either.
I squeaked, and Zac gave me an interested look. “What is it?”
I grabbed his forearm. “Oh my God, Zac, that’s Jasmine and Ivan Lukov!” I whisper-hissed.
His head turned in the direction I was staring, and I wasn’t even sure he was looking at the same couple I was, because he asked, “Who?”
Who? Was he kidding me? “They only won a fucking gold medal! Oh my God, I’m going to faint. They’re only the greatest figure skating pair of all time!” I wasn’t kidding. I might faint. I had watched every single figure skating competition they were going to participate in, just to see them skate. I’d watched a WatchTube video of them once that happened to come up two years ago, and they had sucked me in completely since.
“How do you know that?” Zac asked, almost with a laugh, as his hand wrapped around my wrist.
I glanced up to meet his gaze and tugged on the forearm I was still holding. “How do you not know that? Introduce me! Please!”
He looked at me and shrugged, his fingers giving mine a gentle squeeze. “All right, all right. I don’t know ’em either, kiddo, but we can make somethin’ up. Come on.”
* * *
I had just come out of the bathroom stall following the longest pee of my life—after struggling for five solid minutes to take off the foam padding of the top half of my Buzz Lightyear costume and then peeling off the spandex suit until it was pooled at my knees—when I spotted the next person who had me stopping in place. I seriously had no idea why people wore rompers. I would die. Or pee all over myself. It had been enough of a close call.
I’d been holding it for at least an hour. An hour in which twenty minutes had been spent talking to the gold-medal-winning figure skating pair that I was even more in love with after meeting. They were self-deprecating and funny, and Jasmine had been even prettier in person than on TV. And I wanted to have a smug face as good as hers. Ivan Lukov was also just about the prettiest man I’d ever seen—his beauty was only surpassed by Zac’s, but in a different way. Zac had taken a picture of me with them, which made my year.
Another twenty minutes had been spent with us on the dance floor, and then the rest of the time with me standing at Zac’s side while he talked to a couple people he knew.
And when that hour of us being at the Halloween party had hit, his phone had started vibrating with an alarm I hadn’t even known he’d set, and I’d decided to make my way to the bathroom before we left.
And it was for that reason that I happened to be in there at that exact moment.
To find her at the sink, washing her hands, wearing a Little Red Riding Hood costume with a wolf mask sitting on the counter.
In the goddamn bathroom, of all places.